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Skin Problems Scabs on guinea pig- bites or mites?

tmsquirg

New Member
Cavy Gazer
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
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Joined
Oct 11, 2014
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Hi,
My daughter has two male piggies-- Ginger is 6 mos and Meep is 5 mos. Meep has a few scabs (dried blood) on his body. The largest is less than a cm. He is not losing fur and is eating fine. I took him to vet today (not a specialist- Saturday), and the vet focused on nutrition and told me to use silver colloidal cream on the scabs. Ginger and Meep don't usually fight, but my daughter was away for two nights on a school trip (I fed them, but they slept in my daughter's room). Are there characteristics of wounds caused by mites vs. bites? Thanks for any help or insight.
 

bpatters

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Cavy Slave
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Sep 23, 2009
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First, mites don't cause wounds themselves -- they're invisible, and they burrow under the skin and make the pig itch. If a pig has a really bad mites infestation and is scratching and biting at itself a lot, it can injure its own skin. But if that's the case, you'd be aware of the massive scratching, and there would be patchy hair loss as well.

It sounds like your two pigs have gotten into a squabble. That's common at that age, as the teenage hormones are raging and they're trying to establish who is the dominant pig. It can be exacerbated by a cage that's too small and/or too crowded, hideys that have only one entrance, not enough water bottles/pellet dishes/food bowls, etc.

Click on the Main tab at the top of this page for cage size recommendations, and remember that bigger is always better, especially with boars.
 
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