Ivomec Pour-On?? Frontline Spray??

[casportpony]

Lol, I never saw the lice on my bird, ever, until I was taking a close up photo of an eye injury and had the eye magnified on my cell phone screen. Then, as I was sitting there looking at the eye and trying to get a good photo, I started seeing the nasty little things crawling across the edge of the eyelid to drink.

Then I was totally freaked out and my skin started crawling.

I would never have seen them if it weren't for the magnification thru the cell phone camera.

I'm no longer confident in my ability to distinguish dirt from creepy critters without magnification -- but then, my eyes are getting old

I know in dogs, ear mites often look just like dirt. Apparently the peas' eyes are good enough to see the individual lice, as they pick them off each other while grooming. I've come around to the opinion that a periodic external parasite treatment might be good preventative medicine.

I think the parasite load might have to be fairly high to cause noticeable harm, but I think I'd rather just be sure they aren't there.

Edited to add:

I dug out the old photos -- check this out:



Here it is again with less magnification, but still quite a bit:



Now, I know it looks REALLY obvious in the photos, but honestly, even with the eye injury on the bird, I did NOT see that gross creepy crawly until I was taking the photos. Yecckkk

Excellent pictures! I bet @Folly's place and @aart will like these pictures.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Has anyone noticed a correlation between the ear mites that drink from the eye and eye problems? I always seem to notice them especially on eye problem birds and am beginning to wonder why this is? Do they actually damage the eyes per problems in the ear canal? I mean other than general irritation. Just things that are making me go Hmmm.

Almost forgot... what I have noticed is a coloration change on the boys. I'll try to get some pictures to show what I mean.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Oral Ivermectin will treat these lice, but I'm still trying to figure out the minimum effective dose.

-Kathy

 

[KsKingBee]

Oral Ivermectin will treat these lice, but I'm still trying to figure out the minimum effective dose.

-Kathy

Please do!

 

[Garden Peas]

Quote:
For the Ivomec pour-on, used externally, what kind of interval (time separation) between using it and Safeguard internally for worming?

 

[casportpony]

 

 
Oral Ivermectin will treat these lice, but I'm still trying to figure out the minimum effective dose.

-Kathy

Please do!

For the Ivomec pour-on, used externally, what kind of interval (time separation) between using it and Safeguard internally for worming?

I've used both at the same time.

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

Oral Ivermectin will treat these lice, but I'm still trying to figure out the minimum effective dose.

-Kathy

@casportpony , this is one of those places where I get confused. I don't -- at all -- have a good understanding of the various external parasites. I know there are different kinds of mites and lice, and that some external parasites suck blood meals and others just live off of shed skin or who knows what. (The whole thing makes my skin crawl

-- I start itching just thinking about them) Some of them drink fluids from the eyes, some can live in ear canals... there's all these different critters, and I am clueless as to how they are categorized or even what they are.

I thought I had heard that medications taken internally (such as the ivermectin paste or liquid) or the fenbendazole, or even the albendazole wormers, ONLY killed some kinds of external parasites? I was thinking that perhaps it was only those external parasites that took blood meals from the host? But I just don't know and can't remember for sure -- and I could be mis-remembering, too!

That's part of why I'm trying to figure out this external application stuff -- it seems as though someone said (a long time ago) that it took external treatments to get rid of the whole gamut of external parasites, because some of them don't feed off the host in such a way as to be killed off by the internal wormers. Do you know if that's true? Or am I just totally confused, lol?

 

[KsKingBee]

@casportpony , this is one of those places where I get confused. I don't -- at all -- have a good understanding of the various external parasites. I know there are different kinds of mites and lice, and that some external parasites suck blood meals and others just live off of shed skin or who knows what. (The whole thing makes my skin crawl

-- I start itching just thinking about them) Some of them drink fluids from the eyes, some can live in ear canals... there's all these different critters, and I am clueless as to how they are categorized or even what they are.

I thought I had heard that medications taken internally (such as the ivermectin paste or liquid) or the fenbendazole, or even the albendazole wormers, ONLY killed some kinds of external parasites? I was thinking that perhaps it was only those external parasites that took blood meals from the host? But I just don't know and can't remember for sure -- and I could be mis-remembering, too!

That's part of why I'm trying to figure out this external application stuff -- it seems as though someone said (a long time ago) that it took external treatments to get rid of the whole gamut of external parasites, because some of them don't feed off the host in such a way as to be killed off by the internal wormers. Do you know if that's true? Or am I just totally confused, lol?

That is the way I heard it too. And the reason I use the pour on.

 

[casportpony]

 
Oral Ivermectin will treat these lice, but I'm still trying to figure out the minimum effective dose.

-Kathy

@casportpony
, this is one of those places where I get confused.  I don't -- at all -- have a good understanding of the various external parasites.  I know there are different kinds of mites and lice, and that some external parasites suck blood meals and others just live off of shed skin or who knows what.  (The whole thing makes my skin crawl -- I start itching just thinking about them)  Some of them drink fluids from the eyes, some can live in ear canals... there's all these different critters, and I am clueless as to how they are categorized or even what they are.

I thought I had heard that medications taken internally (such as the ivermectin paste or liquid) or the fenbendazole, or even the albendazole wormers, ONLY killed some kinds of external parasites?  I was thinking that perhaps it was only those external parasites that took blood meals from the host?  But I just don't know and can't remember for sure -- and I could be mis-remembering, too! 

That's part of why I'm trying to figure out this external application stuff -- it seems as though someone said (a long time ago) that it took external treatments to get rid of the whole gamut of external parasites, because some of them don't feed off the host in such a way as to be killed off by the internal wormers.  Do you know if that's true? Or am I just totally confused, lol?  

I took one peacock with ear/eye lice and three chickens with what I call feather lice, which are the ones that you can easily see on their vents and other parts of the body. I gave those four birds oral ivermectin @ 1.5 mg/kg. Product used was 1.87% horse paste.

The next day the peacock's lice were gone, but the chickens still had lice. Checked the chickens again the following day and all live lice were gone, though I could find a few dead lice on one bird.

Most ivermectin doses listed are in the 0.2 mg/kg to 0.4 mg/kg range, though some pigeon formularies list up to 1 mg/kg. The pour on is 5 mg/ml and the injectable is 10 mg/kg.

A couple of years ago I tried similar experiments, but I only used 0.4 mg/kg. It was given orally, by injection and topically. None of those experiments worked. I even did one where I placed live lice on a paper towel soaked in ivermectin and the lice didn't die.

I'm not positive, but I think that topical ivermectin is absorbed through the skin and that is how it works, though it may kill lice that walk across it.

Bottom line... given orally to four birds @ the higher dose *did* effectively treat all lice within 48 hours.

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

Quote: I took one peacock with ear/eye lice and three chickens with what I call feather lice, which are the ones that you can easily see on their vents and other parts of the body. I gave those four birds oral ivermectin @ 1.5 mg/kg. Product used was 1.87% horse paste.

The next day the peacock's lice were gone, but the chickens still had lice. Checked the chickens again the following day and all live lice were gone, though I could find a few dead lice on one bird.

Most ivermectin doses listed are in the 0.2 mg/kg to 0.4 mg/kg range, though some pigeon formularies list up to 1 mg/kg. The pour on is 5 mg/ml and the injectable is 10 mg/kg.

A couple of years ago I tried similar experiments, but I only used 0.4 mg/kg. It was given orally, by injection and topically. None of those experiments worked. I even did one where I placed live lice on a paper towel soaked in ivermectin and the lice didn't die.

I'm not positive, but I think that topical ivermectin is absorbed through the skin and that is how it works, though it may kill lice that walk across it.

Bottom line... given orally to four birds @ the higher dose *did* effectively treat all lice within 48 hours.

-Kathy

Kathy, I'm so glad we have a mad scientist in our midst! You have helped us all so much!!

I have to admit puzzlement over how the lice could walk through ivermectin on a paper towel and not die, but then somehow be killed by ivermectin on or in the bird. That suggests to me that the lice somehow have to consume the ivermectin internally for it to kill them. So perhaps if we are trying to kill all the critters via an external application, we need some other product that is toxic through the outer layer of the pest rather something which must be consumed? Or we just have to make sure that the bird concentration is high enough to kill the bugs when they consume it. But then, what about the non-eating (or non-blood meal consuming) parasites?

The other interesting (and very technical) question that comes to mind in the administration route issue is... if the pest is killed by the tissues having a certain concentration of the medication, and we have two possible routes (internally consumed by the bird, versus topically applied to the bird's skin), is there a difference in the amount of medication the bird acquires in the skin/feather tissue, and how does that affect the toxicity to the pest, and perhaps also significantly, the toxicity to the bird? The internal paste has to go through the stomach and possibly some portion of the intestines, be absorbed, enter the bloodstream, be distributed through the bird's circulatory system to the bird's various tissues and eventually skin and feathers, and then either be consumed by the pest or absorbed by the pest through its own outer covering. With an external application, the medication has to get distributed around the bird's skin and/or feathers (and possibly be absorbed through the skin and then distributed), and then either consumed or absorbed through the outer covering of the pest in sufficient quantity to kill the pest.

Hmmm, aren't lice soft-bodied? Might it take less to kill them with contact pesticides than some harder-shelled pests? idk -- This is all beyond my knowledge base... I definitely need a better comprehension of bird pests.

Any idea whether the 5 days of Safeguard that I just finished chunking into my peas will have had any effect on the surface pesties (external parasites)?

We need to recruit a smart entomologist -- if anybody knows one, give me the address and I'll ship them some peas, gratis