• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Ringworm help - 9 week old and 18 month old pigs- I’ve read the long post on here, wanting some more direct advice.

Purpleamy

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Dec 14, 2025
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
40
Location
UK
Hello,
I’ve read so many posts on here and the super post about ringworm but I’ve gotten myself in a bit of stress about it all.

Stanley - 9 weeks old- rescued from a reputable rescue whom we have used before - he brought ringworm into our home. We didn’t quarantine him but he was quarantined when he went to the rescue. It is what it is. We learnt our lesson here. He was with us a week ish before we spotted it. He is the culprit. We took to vet the next day, bathed him in Malabeze and used cream on his face/nose as he is so little and not used to being handled using soap is unsafe for his eyes.
Cage has been F10ed within an inch of its life, fleeces are washed every week on 60 degrees and pee pads and sleep sacks more frequently. We followed everything as best we could from the long post.
Stan was checked by vets as was buddy Jim (18months). Jim had no signs then. Stan had scraping done. Turns out this ringworm is dog/cattle/horse ringworm! We found this out about 3 days ago ish.
We (stupidly!) focused on Stanley. Cream twice a day, bath every other day, for the last 11 days. We thought we were winning…… we took for granted Jim was ok. Vet said he was. We should have checked. I am an idiot. I can’t defend that. A naive idiot. I’ve dealt with it all, squeaky poops, masses in bladders, hay poke, heart disease and failure, huge cysts that we thought were cancer (this was a foster pig that we adopted in the end). I thought I was safe…. Until Friday evening when I saw his eye looked a bit sore….. and we picked him up and my precious boy is covered on his underside. He has about 5 nasty patches with the tell tale red sodding ring….. as I said. I am an idiot. It’s all in his undercarriage and is starting on his eye lid

I’ve sprung into action. Bathing, creaming, deep clean, F10. But Jim’s patches are nasty. He is clearly itchy because they are bloody and scratched.

We spoke to the vet a day before we discovered Jim had it to get our results and she confirmed ringworm and confirm it’s the dog/cattle/horse version. Vet said that it’s hard to get the oral meds and she doesn’t rate them as the side effects outweigh the benefits. She is an exotic vet and we trust her as she is from a well known vet and she has treated all our boys bar one, but even then she was behind the scenes helping. She mentioned Imervaol but said it’s a ‘nuclear option’ and if what we are doing with Stanley is working to carry on, because he is so small and so young. She recommended F10 cream, which we have brought, but it mentions on the back about ingesting it is bad, so we have not used it as the pigs clean themselves and I didn’t know how dangerous it was. I called the vets this afternoon as Jim is clearly struggling to not attack his spots and I had read about Benadryl being used to help, she has replied asking if I want to go with imervaol. I’m worried about this and worried about using the F10 cream. ‘Nuclear option’ sounds great but also terrifying. Can people advise what they did with the Imervaol, if they used on young pigs and what the heck I do about it being so close to his eye?
Can anyone advise on the F10 cream as well. I know cream is outdated now (thanks to the super post for that!) but I’m keen to know if people have used it.

Sorry for the long post. And thanks in advance for help. I appreciate it.
 
Sorry that I don’t have the experience to help but want to assure you of my support.
Other members who have dealt with ringworm as well as our health experts will have more to offer.

Welcome to the forum
 
Generally speaking people won’t cream for ringworm anymore (they may cream for other types of fungal but not ringworm) and you will find most are given oral meds (as they just work better but bathing/dips is the next best thing), so I'm not sure if you will find much, if any, recent experiences in creaming specifically for ringworm.
I do know there are people who have used f10 cream for other conditions on the forum such as sore feet.

You can use cotton buds to dab topical meds on areas close to the eyes but you still have to be super careful due to the risk of causing the eyes to swell. This is why the oral meds are better as it systemic and is catching those hard to bathe/dip areas.

To add so you don’t blame yourself - you actually did the right thing in not quarantining him yourself at home. Babies under 4 months of age cannot be quarantined due to their high companionship needs (companionship is the priority over quarantining). That is regardless of where you have got them from. So even if you had found us before the ringworm, we still would have told you not to quarantine, and even moreso if he has come from a reputable rescue.
 
Back
Top