Oh yuck! Lice!?!

[catherine]

Oh help, folks! Last night I found some kind of tan little eggs behind and inside our new little Red Wattle boars' ears and under their elbows!!! I thought it was just feed dust at first, but then it didn't wash off with the hose, and when I scraped them with my thumbnail they came off and I could pop them between my nails. OMG, I about freaked! I figured they were probably lice, though I've never seen them before. Then I saw what I think was a louse, looking sort of like a small black tick, crawling through the eggs. ARGH! I'm itching all over just thinking about them! My daughter and I both have long hair, pulled back in pony tails, but still, my brain locked onto whether or not we could we have gotten close enough for the lice to jump over!?!?!?! I called my sister, who's dealt with head lice in the past, and she freaked even worse than I did! DO NOT go into your house! ARGH. Where would we go, then? She advised a motel for 2 weeks! lol. Wouldn't the owners LOVE that? Anyway, we looked up lice online on my DH's Blackberry (so we didn't go inside), and the two sites we found seemed to agree that lice are species specific. Then, we talked to an E.R. Vet. (the only Vet open last night!) who confirmed that while pig lice may get on you, they can't survive without the pig and will die in 50 something hours apart from their host. WHEW! I could have just cried with relief! We could go HOME, have a hot shower and sleep in our own beds!!! Life, and the prospect of the next two weeks, was good again! Oh, I also called the breeder who was horrified that she'd sent pigs with lice to us, but confirmed that they don't bother people a bit and are killed off by cold weather.

So...now the question is, how do we delouse the pigs? I dusted the pigs down with D.E. all over, and spread more in their little wallow and in their hay bedding. I also dusted my daughter and I down, just in case! lol. My daughter later found a fly dead on my shoulder from the D.E.! So, I rather imagine that that will have killed the actual insects, but what about the eggs??? I was impressed that these piglets let me get "familiar" enough with them to let me dust them, having just met. I don't think they'll be patient enough to let me scrape off all the eggs, too, though. Shudder. Ick! So, do I just keep using the D.E. every few days until all the eggs have hatched or what? I gather that lice have become pretty immune to most medications, and that really only mechanical removal works to get rid of them...and the breeder also said that cold weather will kill them. However, that will do we Gulf Coaster residents almost ZERO good, as we quite often have winters with NO temperatures below freezing. Wow, this is one of the first times I've been SAD about the fact that our winters are so warm. LOL. Anyway, I'll be VERY thankful for any and all your advice on this nasty subject. Thanks!

[Tricia]

Oh I know people that had lice on pigs in winter. Around here it seems that is when it crops up. Nice moist conditions in barns. Outdoor pastured pigs don't often get them in summer. I think the mud smothers them!

De is great for this. GIve it a chance to work on them.

Also, here is a recipe from Karma Glos of Kingbird Farm here in NY (www.kingbirdfarm.com). Disregard all the stuff in ( ) it is for the Organic certification info.

Karma’s Louse Oil
3.8 L mineral oil (Restricted)
30 ml lemon essential oil (general EPA #8022-96-6)*
30 ml white camphor essential oil (general EPA #8022-96-6)
30 ml rosemary essential oil (EPA #8000-25-7)
30 ml lemon grass essential oil (EPA#8007-02-1)
30 ml eucalyptus essential oil (general EPA#8022-96-6)
15 ml citronella essential oil (EPA #8000-29-1)
15 ml lavender essential oil (EPA #8022-15-9)
*Use of essential oils is Restricted and must be EPA registered if used as a parasiticide.
Directions: Apply oil with squeeze bottle starting at the top of the head and running along the topline to the base
of the tail. Apply and massage in extra oil to hot spots such as behind the ears, inside the ears, and under the
flank. Do not get this oil in the eyes, nose, mouth, or other mucus membranes. Repeat at 14-21 days. I prefer
mineral oil because pigs don’t lick it off each other, it doesn’t go rancid or freeze, and it smothers lice.

[catherine]

Thanks Tricia! That sounds like a cool recipe. However, will it kill the eggs, or will the D.E.? Or is that why you repeat the oil every couple of weeks, to get the lice that have hatched out? I REALLY don't want to have to get in there and scrape all those eggs off of each hair, but...sigh...will if I HAVE to. How many times can I say...YUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! Wow, I've got no problems with poop, or blood, or mucus, or whatever, but the LICE have really gotten to me!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!

[BissyAndBessie]

I know that with the goats the vet told us that we had to redust in 2 weeks to kill the hatching nits.
I used seven. I was not going to mess around. Ewwww. But that's just me.

[catherine]

Well, today the piggies had managed to rub off all the D.E. that I'd put on yesterday to try to kill the lice. Shudder. They didn't appear to have as many eggs today, which are in clusters of about an inch which I guess is not all that big, as I gather that pigs can potentially have so many lice that they can become anemic and even die! Shudder. Personally, I want a zero tolerance policy on the foul beasts! I about freaked again when I saw one of those nasty little insects go scurrying through their hair again. Argh! Yuck! It's making me itch even now, just thinking about it. Drat...at least one of the little beasts is still alive, and where there's one...there will be eggs! To be fair, I didn't get the pig's bellies dusted, as they weren't keen on letting a comparative stranger roll them over, so I dusted what I could reach, and hoped that dusting their bedding would take care of their bellies. Man...this whole topic just gives me the everliving willies. Time to try out the Essential Oil recipe now......and I'll report back my results! If that doesn't work...the Seven dust is sounding better and better! Hmm...nuke the things...til they glow!!! Thanks guys!

[Tricia]

Read TimNy post about Sevin on the chicken forum. Not a good thing to use. There are insecticides out there specific for lice on animals. Even human shampoo (okay, forget that they are host specific so it might not work).
The DE does work it takes time. And repeated treatments.
The essential oil works, it takes time! karma (whose recipe I posted) has been raising her pigs for almost a decade and really knows her stuff. She wouldn't write it if it didn't work.
I believe you do have to wait for eggs to hatch that is why the repeated doses. The ingredient mineral isn't certified organic, as I don't recall ever finding a source but it is allowed for certain cases. That really applies for certified organic-some rules make sense and some just don't.
Yes it gives me the shivers also but remember this it will take a huge infestation to kill a pig, a huge infestation. You don't have that. So breath deeply. You have time to work on this.
One sure way to get the lice out of the bedding is to move them outdoors or elsewhere to new bedding. Clean out the old area and leave to "air out". Douse them with the oil or De or whatever when you move them.
This will break the cycle of infestation in their original area and give you a jump start on eradication. Then you can move them back. Repeat pen cleaning.
Some googling showed up that doses of ivermec were used for lice treatments if you want the chemical stuff. (just read the labels for the right one and doses of course!). You will still have to do repeated treatments to catch the egg hatching.
Please don't go for Sevin, you could risk killing an animal.