Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => Pets without Feathers => Topic started by: Goldfinger on August 01, 2010, 15:01
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Can Guinea Pigs suffer from the dreaded Red Mite??
We have chickens in the garden also but i've checked them, and they don't seem to have any RM.
We moved our Pigs from an indoor plastic hutch, to a wooden outdoor one. I cleaned it and gave it a new coat of preservative. But since moving them in, they've developed a small bald patch on their bums, as if they've been irritated and chewed themselves.
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We had a problem with bald itchy patches when we had piggies. The "bog standard" pigs were not as problematic as the "pedigree" crestad ones. We were told to change the bedding and hay...we used readigeass (horse grass replacement) instead of hay and made sure the shavings we used were dust extracted, and at one time used just newspaper. They used to go out in a four section run in the garden regularly, but we had to cover the run over completely when a sparrowhawk tried to get one! It got into it's box just in time! We used an essential oil concoction we found on the internet, which was also recommended by the chap we got out crested pigs from. They got very greasy but it worked.
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Im not sure about Red mite but they are very susecptible to Mange mite, i used to breed and show pedigree guineapigs and it was always something i dreaded, all guinea pigs carry the mite but sometimes in cases of stress, pregnancy and birth especially it can appear, they usually have it for a while until you can see the symptoms. If i were you id pop them to the vet or you can buy those spot ons aswell. I used a product of the internet but im not sure whether i should say wot it was as its not licensed for guineapigs but alot of the big breeders use it with fantastic results. You can also get a Johnson products for lice etc, check them over for crawlies, (mange mites different as you carnt see them, they live on the blood whereas lice etc live on the skin debris). Also wot you can do is were the bald bits are if theres any scurf and hair that when you gently pull comes away in clumps with scurf attached that could indicate a fungal infection, Beapher do a good product, its a fungal spray, you can get it on fleabay. Its important that you get a good spray to clean your hutch, a great one is Virkon, i got the powder form and water it down, its a lovely pink colour. Hope this is a help and i hope your pigs get better. nickyx
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Red Mite don't live on the birds so inspecting them is no guarentee that their housing isn't colonised. RM infest the nooks and crannies in the house and only feed on the birds at night. I doubt they would feed on guinea pigs though if the house is infested they may bite them at night though I wouldn't expect them to stay long.
Adult RM are 0.5mm long or so and red to dark grey in colour depending if they have fed.
HF
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One Saturday morning one of my three piggies had marks on her like she had been bitten. I took her to the vet and she said it was something that can lie dormant in them and will then appear. All three of mine needed three injections each to get rid but thankfully it never came back so I would get yours to the vet asap.