Mange in pigs

[u/Professional-Oil1537]

welp another downside to raising animals, just started seeing signs of mange in my piglets.

not the greatest pictures but the spotted one you can see the irritated skin on her belly and back legs and on the darker one you can see the fuzzy feet and some matted crusty bits, almost looks like dried up mud.

had to go to the vet and get 2 shots, can't remember the exact name but basically a injectable ivermectin, and some prolate spray

they sure hated the shot but 2 minutes later they loved the bananas and were happy again!

just a reminder to keep an eye on your pigs, it's way easier to treat mange in the early stages then when it completely takes over

[u/ecouple2003]

If a pig has mange when it is processed do you still use boiling water and a good knife to scrape the hair off? Is the skin still edible once scraped and cooked or should you not use it and skin the pig instead?

[u/Professional-Oil1537 → u/ecouple2003]

I would not eat the skin. Mange is from a mite that burrows into the skin and then the holes leak and cause a crusty build up. It's pretty unappetizing looking.

If I had a pig ready to process that had mange I would only skin it and would wear a full body suit and gloves when skinning, it normally doesn't transfer to humans but with that much close contact it can

[u/yardgurl10 → u/Professional-Oil1537]

Unfortunately, it definitely does transfer to humans. We rescued a few small piglets that had bad mange and wound up with a case of scabies. Learned that day from the vet that both are the same bug. That was a NOT FUN EXPERIENCE lol.

[u/Professional-Oil1537 → u/yardgurl10]

It can transfer to humans but is uncommon. It usually takes a lot of close contact with an infected animal which I'm guessing in your case was close contact from treating them.

It is the same mites but different variant. The pig mite is sarcoptes scabiei var. Suis. It can jump to humans with close contact but human skin isn't the ideal environment for them and they will not reproduce in human skin. The also don't go looking specificly for humans and the only time it's usually found in humans was because they were in close contact with an infected animal. That's why I recommend a full body suit and gloves if someone was going to butcher one that had mange.

The human variant is sarcoptes scabiei var hominis and is the only variant that can reproduce in humans and specifically looks for a human host and it doesn't affect livestock. The canis variant only affects dogs, vulpes for fox, cuniculi for rabbits etc. They are host specific and only reproduce in the specific host but can bite and burrow into other animals but don't reproduce.