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Prophylactic treatment for mites?

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tabelmabel

tabelmabel

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Hiya - having dealt with a major outbreak of cat fleas in our house earlier this year (months ago before we had any piggies) I know how important it is to keep treating cats for fleas every single month to keep them (and the house!) totally flea free.

With guinea pigs - I am assuming if they get a parasite it stays mainly on the pig and doesn't spread all round the house like a cat flea?

Is is better to wait until the piggy has an identified parasitic infection and then treat - or should it be done every month prophylactically whether parasites are seen or not?


That is question one!


I have another question though, relating to my own piggies - we have had them coming up for a month and that makes them almost 12 weeks of age.

When we got them, we noticed they both had a small bald area behind each ear.

Because they both had them and both ears were the same on both pigs, we took this to be normal.

However, over the past few days I have noticed one of the bald areas on Stanley looks to be getting a bit bigger (**** the size of a 5p coin is bald now)

I can't see any mites in his fur but he is a grey rex so it would be hard to see anything in there I think.


Do most piggies have a little bald spot behind each ear of could this be a sign of an infestation?

Also - if I treated it and it turned out that neither pig had anything the matter, would it harm them or should I treat as a precaution anyway?


Many thanks
 
With the patches behind their ears that is perfectly normal. I don't know about it spreading though and with the first question I've never had any trouble like that.

If they do get parasites I just get some spot-on from my local vets and it clears up straight away!
 
The bald spot is normal, when piggies are babies it is sometimes barely noticeable, then as they get older the bald bit seems larger, or rather has less hair. I have 2 rex piggies ones has a bit more hair than the other behind their ears, the Aby piggy I have has an even less hairy bit than the fluffy pair. HTH :)
 
on advice from someone who eventually turned out not to know a whole lot about guineas, i used to do one dose of ivermectin monthly as a prophylactic treatment, but eventually stopped this
and haven't had any parasites since, so personally i don't believe it's necessary to do so.

just a note as well that when mites are the case, you won't actually see them in the fur as they are very much tiny.
lice you will see as they're much larger

apparently mites are always present on piggies, but they only become a problem when their numbers increase, usually during periods of stress or upset for the piggie affected when their immune systems aren't quite so strong.
i've not really read up on mites for a few years now as i've not had any trouble with them, so this could well have been refuted by now so if it's not longer believed to be the case, please disregard this paragraph :)
 
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