# Oral ivermectin - Safe?



## Skurra (Jul 5, 2014)

Hello. I have a 2yo male mouse who's bem scratching, losing fur and had white flocks on his skin, and started to make noises very sporadicaly. squeaking, cough,etc. but wasnt too frequent nor strong. Also, he was becoming less active.

I took him to the vet and he gave:
- A shot of some anti-inflammatory;
- A shot of ivermectin;
And to me to administer:
- 10ml of Enrofloxaccin( 1ml per day, oral)
- 4 ml of ivermectin ( 1ml every 7 days, oral)

The vet examined him for respiratory problems first, but didnt found anything, after the ivermectin shot he made some noises and i was given the enrofloxacin.

3 days after taking the meds, his fur is back, hes more active and i havent heard any noises.

but i was reading about mites and i found that oral ivermectin is pretty toxic if given orally.
But it was.. pretty divided. some said it is ok, some said its bad.
It seemed that the idea of ivermectin being toxic came mostly from the TFM, i saw that idea being pretty repeated in there.
but in here it didnt seem to, also other sites in google seemed to say it was ok.

(obviously, not overdosing)

So, which is it?

I didnt say the percentages/doses/ml etc. that he gave me, but which ones would be OK?

And sorry for any mistakes - i rarely write in english.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

What I don't understand is why the vet had you use oral Ivermectin. I use it in a spray made from diluted Pour-On; spray on the back and rub it in a little. The meeces lick some of it off, but just the act of adminstering oral meds to a mousie when it could be done otherwise seems like pointlessly stressing out the poor thing.

I'm curious; how do you get the meds into the mousie?


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## Skurra (Jul 5, 2014)

I asked about topic ivermectin but he didnt answered.
Well, it's been a pain to give it to him, since he hates the taste apparently.
On the first day i had to hold him firmly with one hand and apply to it's mouth really slowly, drop by drop, because the syringe has a needle and i'm afraid of hurting him. it took like, 40 min or so...
on the second day he gave up struggling at the last 5 minutes or so, but I still had to hold him.
yesterday he didnt struggle at all, he just stood there and let me give it to him. i didnt even need to hold him.
but today he struggled...
hope that the ivermectin tastes better. 
giving it this way is stressing him a lot. 
I think he peed on my hand 2x and pooped about.. 12 times? in 5 days, that is.


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## Serena (Dec 29, 2011)

what concentrations are the meds? 1ml of each seems awfully much.


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## Skurra (Jul 5, 2014)

for the ivermectin i have no idea, but the enrofloxacin is 2.5%


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## Serena (Dec 29, 2011)

then 1ml is way too much. the normal dosage is 10mg/kg for mice. 1 paper describes how they used 85mg/kg for pasterella pneumotropica (Goelz MF, Thigpen JE, Mahler J, Rogers WP, Locklear J et al:
Efficacy of various therapeutic regimens in eliminating Pasteurella pneumotropica from the mouse.
Lab Anim Sci 46: 280-285, 1996), but that's still way less than what youre giving right now.
1ml contains 25mg, thats enough for 2,5kg of mouse! Even if you use double the recommended dosage it's still too much. If I did the math orrectly, you're at 833mg/kg if it's a 30g mouse right now. 
For a 30g mouse the dose is 0,012ml of the 2,5% solution if you use 10mg/kg. 
I really would like to know what your vet was thinking when he told you 1ml/day


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## Skurra (Jul 5, 2014)

Asked him if he dilluted it in water. 
Will update when i get the answer.
Would there be a huge problem in delaying the ivermectin? tomorrow it'll be 7 days after he got the shot.
---------------------------------
EDIT: he said that he can't tell. (lol?)

so, huh, the enrofloxacin has only 2 days left - he didnt had any effect so far so i guess its dilluted?
about the ivermectin, im going out and plan on buying the pour-on for him, going to a bigger city at thursday. Will search further tomorrow morning.
thanks for the help


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

I dilute Ivermectin Pour On to 5 parts water one part Ivermectin. I use three drops per mousie on the back right behind the head. I can do it with a spray, but needed to compare volume against that of three drops. I do this three times at one week intervals to cover all subsequent hatchings of eggs.

I have no idea what the daily oral dose was supposed to be, but the vet might have just taking a stab in the dark. Hope your mousie is OK.


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## Serena (Dec 29, 2011)

Well, mice are fairly tolerable, but I still don't see the point in giving extraordinarily high doses. 
Usually, side effects of antibiotics are problems in the gastrointestinal tract (diarrhea, anorexia, weightloss), and since it's not a juvenile mouse there shouldn't be problems with the joints (chondrotoxicity).

I somehow doubt your vet diluted it. At least I wouldn't do that, knowing how difficult giving meds in those small critters can be anyways. You don't want to have more volume than neccessary. At least I wouldn't dilute it that much. 1ml is a lot of volume.

For the ivermectin I found the following dosage: 1-2mg/kg p.o. once daily for 3 weeks, 
other than that I only found dosages for s.c. use. That would be 0.2-0.4mg/kg s.c. 2-3 times at an interval of 7-10 days.
For topical treatment the recommended dose is 2mg/kg as well.


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## Skurra (Jul 5, 2014)

Guess what, I live in a cave!
In all seriousness though,
I was actually giving 0,01. YEP. But he said " ml, ml" without the 0's in front and I really thought it was 1 ml. now that i got the ivermectin in a bigger syringe i know what 1 ml REALLY looks like. 
I'm really sorry for making you lose your time... 
but anyway Im going to use the topic ivermectin. 
Soooooo sorry! really! Im ashamed ahaha

Even when you said " 1ml of each seems awfully much", I didnt ask any further because giving 0,01 was really being hard and seemeed like A LOT.

but about mixing with water. tap water(has clorum, but not much i guess), or mineral?
or let the tap water sit for 48h for the chlorum to vaporize?


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## Serena (Dec 29, 2011)

no problem  
As long as you mouse gets well

Not sure about the water question, though. Hope moustress can answer that one. I have a dilution with propylenglycole, never did the one with water.


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## Cameron (Aug 21, 2014)

I mix ivermectin with apple sauce for my rats and mice, sometimes I add small amounts of yogurt to hide the flavor. It works for me! Good luck with your two boys!


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Distilled water, generally fond near the baby formulas mix, is good, or reverse osmosis filtered water, which I use works well also.

The Pour-On is easier than trying to get it into them orally. Now that I'm using the spray it is easier than ever. I treated all the meeces I brought on the Mini Mousetrain just to be safe, and I hope the guys that got these little darlings have kept up with the other two doses.

I know some breeders claim never to have had a problem with mites, but I am skeptical.


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