[Experimental studies on the course and the effects of pediculosis in domestic swine]

Weaned piglets, aged between six and eight weeks, underwent one single experimental infection, using few imaginal stages as well as second and third larval stages of Haematopinus suis. Louse populations of various densities developed on animals of the same litter under the same keeping and feeding conditions. No unambiguous reduction in body weight increase was observed throughout the two months of the experiment. Even pigs with 2,107 or 2,135 adult lice and their larval stages were not affected. Some of the pigs developed allergic dermal inflammations in the course of pediculosis and suffered from considerable aggravation of pruritus which used to be of minor importance before. Excessive rubbing, in response to that itching, led to mechanically caused skin lesions, some of them bleeding.