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Conditions Strange deformed ears on newly adopted pig

Julie Ann

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Hello,

I am new here, a couple of days ago I adopted two guinea pigs from a rescue, a mother and her eight week old baby.

The mother has really strange ears, i've never seen any like them before, they are very small and crinkled, its hard to describe, she's perfectly happy and healthy in herself and they don't seem to be causing any problems, but i'm curious as to why there are like that, i wonder if she was born like that, or if she had a disease or injury to them, and i'd like to know if there are any special precautions i should take to ensure her ears are ok.

If anyone has any information about this condition, i'd really appreciate hearing about it

Here are a few pics of my darlings, showing the mothers ears as best as i could, they are hard to photograph.







Her little daughter who had normal ears:
 

pinky

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It was probably chewed off at some time. I've seen guinea pigs with no ears at all. Ears are the most vulnerable spot for pups. If you house them with an aggressive guinea, they'll often bite their ears. I picked up guinea pigs from our local animal control about 10 years ago to transport to someone who was taking them to our rescue. The shelter boxed them up and I met the woman halfway. When we got there, she opened the boxed to get a peek and one contained a mother, her pup and another female. The other female completely bit off the pup's ears. The woman's grandson adopted him and he lived a perfectly normal life. She'll be fine. You can rub some 100% extra virgin coconut oil on it to soften it. Sometimes, if they have mites, their ears will be brittle so if she's scratching, you might want to treat them for mites, too.

BTW, she's a roan and looks a lot like my Lamb Chop.
https://s738.photobucket.com/user/kavykeeper/media/20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg.html (<script class="js-extraPhrases" type="application/json"> { "lightbox_close": "Close", "lightbox_next": "Next", "lightbox_previous": "Previous", "lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.", "lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow", "lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow", "lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen", "lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails", "lightbox_download": "Download", "lightbox_share": "Share", "lightbox_zoom": "Zoom", "lightbox_new_window": "New window", "lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar" } </script> <div class="bbImageWrapper js-lbImage" title="th_20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi738.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fxx28%2Fkavykeeper%2Fth_20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg&amp;hash=7d5c77c6d6fe5cca5069a6e1066ab168" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-single-image="1"> <img src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fi738.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fxx28%2Fkavykeeper%2Fth_20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg&amp;hash=7d5c77c6d6fe5cca5069a6e1066ab168" data-url="https://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx28/kavykeeper/th_20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg" class="bbImage" data-zoom-target="1" style="" alt="th_20140911_090200_zpsd3d47192.jpg" title="" width="" height="" loading="lazy" /> </div>)
 

prettynyguen

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she is a gorgeous piggy
 

Julie Ann

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Thanks, it's horrible to think she had to endure her ears being chewed bit I'm glad she does not have an ongoing condition,

Lamb Chop looks lovely, I have not thought of a name for my two yet, I'm waiting a few days too see how thier personalities develop
 

foggycreekcavy

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Usually pigs who've had their ears chewed off have a ragged edge to the ears. Those ones look smooth and natural (at least what I can see from the photos). It looks to me more like a congenital issue-like she was born that way.
 

pinky

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Usually pigs who've had their ears chewed off have a ragged edge to the ears. Those ones look smooth and natural (at least what I can see from the photos). It looks to me more like a congenital issue-like she was born that way.
The photo looks very similar to the one I saw. I think there's a difference when an adult gets their ear nibbled (you can see the jagged edges) and a pup that gets it's ears chewed off. Since a pup is still growing, the ears are still growing and it looks cleaner. The pup I saw ended up looking more like a groundhog because he looked like he had tiny ears. I saw one with no ears at all at one of our pignics. The were chewed right off to the skin.
 

foggycreekcavy

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I've had plenty of babies here who had their ears chewed off, though, and they looked ragged. Perhaps when they grew up the ears looked different.
 

pinky

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I've had plenty of babies here who had their ears chewed off, though, and they looked ragged. Perhaps when they grew up the ears looked different.
Probably depends on how neatly the ears were nibbled..... I always laugh when I see guinea pigs eat corn on the cob because they have very different techniques. Same might hold true for ear nibbling. One of my guinea pigs has a very jagged ear like you've described so I know what you're talking about the jagged edges.
 

AmberCalzone

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I also heard that adults sometimes bite off pups ears, not out of aggression, but because they are sometimes over-zealous when cleaning them. Just another possibility!
 
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