Question:
It appears that the new pony came with hitchhikers. The former
owner's vet diagnosed fungus (living out, damp heavy coat), but he has
lice.
He got ivermectin the day he arrived, and he got a bath the following
day, so we kinda lucked out there, since at the time, we still thought
it was a fungus. Once I realized the "scurf" was alive, he (and
everyone else) got ivermectin and another bath, and they've all been
powdered with ectiban. Doofy is a teeny bit itchy, but the others
seem to have escaped.
So, here we are at day 11, and I'm still finding eggs at the base of
the pony's mane. What more can we do to kill the little buggers? How
often can I give him ivermectin? How long is the life cycle of the
little bugs? How long does it take for a louse to hatch, mature, and
lay eggs? How long can eggs hang around unhatched?
Answer:
So have you gone through his hair with a fine-toothed comb to pick out
all the nits? One human treatment which is recommended as a
pretreatment for nit-picking is the use of a coconut-based
shampoo--smear it on (it smothers the little buggers) and comb it out
with no wetting involved, getting all the creepy-crawlies and the
eggs. One way to check if the eggs are viable is to see if there's a
little black dot in 'em--at least that's what we do with human lice;
eggs with black dots are viable, eggs without are dead. The nits will
stick even after the little buggers are dead.
With humans you've gotta repeat the treatment at least once a week, or
perhaps the interval is 14 days between treatments (pyrethrin-based
topical treatment). It's been a thankfully long time since I've had
to mess with it. And don't forget to quarantine all brushes,
disinfect after use on him (so you aren't retransmitting it back to
him), same with all tack, I'd think.
