# Lice/mites on feeder mice - how to get rid?



## xdow (Mar 26, 2010)

so peed off!
i'm already battling a fungal problem with the guinea pigs, found out today that my feeder mice have blooming like/mites too

they're pure white, so i assume them to be lice, as rodent mites are brown/red?
i only noticed them when i thinned out the ranks this afternoon at a clean out, culling the weaker looking mice. which, once cooled down, the pests crawled up to the ends of the hairs and stood there, until i held a flame next to the expired mouse, which when they realised it was warm, they began dancing.

but the mice are kept in my BEDROOM. so i want whatever it is to be gotten shut of now and gotten shut of quickly!

there are around 40-50 mice of varying ages, most of them are just coming up to 5 weeks, so have recently been separated. they're my last foray into breeding my own mice because mum's sick of the smell & the price of the food is getting a bit high.
so all of these mice are going to be eaten between my cali king and my friends royal.

i always freeze them before feeding anyway so i'm not worrying about the parasites affecting on the snakes themselves as they'll be long dead before the mice are thawed and consumed. i imagine them to be completely different species of mice/lice to the ones which will affect reptiles anyway

what would be the best way to get shut?
i've had the problem before a couple of years back when i first started with the mice (this is a completely different colony) which was cleared with jhonsons insecticidal spray as those adults weren't going to be consumed, but as it's a permetherin spray, i can't do that again.

but i've read differing opinions today regarding it all, permetherin is a no go, which i knew anyway but ivermectin is okay in small doses?
and watering it down and misting the mice could work apparently, but i've never heard of this before.

by all rights i could wait the 2 weeks it'll take to get these mice up to weight then whack them & freeze, but with them being in my bedroom that's not an overly appealing prospect!
not especially nice for the mice either, mind you.

moving them into the shed isn't an option as they might pick up the fungal spores from the pigs, so what would be best?

any input appreciated 

Edit: I have 0.5% ivermectin in the house all the time for the guinea pigs and rabbits, as well as tea tree oil.
if either of these are any good


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