Hair Loss Mites or Fungus?

-Steph- · Sep 14, 2009

I've just took on two new baby boars today as a 'friend' of a friend was trying to get rid of the new babies she had recently bought - she's had them a matter of weeks, one is 11 weeks old and the other 8 weeks. It seems she didn't want to pay for vet bills as once I went to see them I noticed some hair loss and flakey skin near ones eye and the others nose. They are very cute pigs and once I'd seen them I couldn't imagine leaving them to go untreated so I've brought them home.

Since getting back and having a proper inspection, the 11 week old is a Peruvian and under his hair on his back he has quite a large bald spot with some flakey white skin around the edges and his hair feels almost a little greasy. The 8 week old has curly hair so its rougher and its harder to see his skin but it seems he only has thinning hair on his nose.

I've made a vets appointment for both first thing tomorrow morning but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas whether it sounds more like mites, fungus or maybe both at once?

I have some pour on Ivermectin solution I've used for my two boars but obviously these boys are so young I imagine its not safe to use it on them. If its mites will the vet still be able to treat them at such a young age? I hate to think of the poor piggies suffering because the Peruvian appears to have been scratching near his eye enough to leave a scab.

I've been trying to find my camera to take a picture of the bald spot as its really pretty big for such a little pig.

akstrohm · Sep 14, 2009

8 weeks is plenty old enough for treatment for mites. I used Revolution (for lice) on my girls at about 6 weeks.

SammiD · Sep 14, 2009

I noticed that your from engaland uk? Im from wales uk and took my 2 boys to the vets about a year ago now when I first had them and the one vet I saw wasn't very good and didn't seem to know much. They did a skin scrape which makes the skin bleed, the vet said they had to do this to determined if mites were present but that came up as clear. She then said i should use xeno 450 and its just a spot on which contains Ivermectin. This worked on my boys and the ones hair grew back quickly and were fine after. I found that the vets were very expensive and bought my other doses of Xeno 450 from vetuk it was much cheaper as the vets were over priced. I still took them back for the check up after 4 weeks but bought the treatment from vetuk. You could also try gorgeous guineas they do very good shampoos, the one you want is the coconeem melt and mankeem and neem shampoo which is a herbal treatment for mites or fungal infections. The lady who runs gorgeous guineas is also very helpful and there are pictures on guinealynx to show you the types of mites etc. But always take your piggy's to the vet's if the problem becomes serious. I just wanted to share my experince and would recommend that you see a good guinea pig vet such as an exotic vet. When i went back for my second check I saw a different vet who had very good knowledge of piggys as she owned some herself.
Good luck in the vets and hope your piggys are cured soon.

-Steph- · Sep 15, 2009

Thanks for the advice, luckily my Vet didn't try to do any skin scrapes, she says its fungal so I have a bottle of 'Surolan' which I've checked out online and seems to be used safely on guinea pigs. So I've now got to apply this to all infected areas daily for a week, which turns out is a lot of places, poor pigs must be sore. They've been so sweet and behaved though considering I've been rubbing them all over.

Lucky you mentioned gorgeous guineas shampoo SammiD and reminded me - I have a bottle of mankeem and neem shampoo I've used on my older boars before so I bathed the Peruvian in some earlier, since he is older and is much more infected. He wasn't too pleased about it but his hair is looking much better already. Hopefully they'll be cleared up soon!

SammiD · Sep 16, 2009

Glad that your piggys are getting sorted out. My one Joey who had the skin scrape was so good too! I rescued him from an awful home and I had to cut his nail,bath him and he didnt have much fur. Thats why i looked on the net and booked the vets appointment but luckly he was ok and all his hair has grown back and looks like a totally different piggy now! Gorgeous guineas is such a good site and they are so helpful.
Wish you and your piggys well.

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Hair Loss Mites or Fungus?

-Steph-

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akstrohm

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SammiD

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-Steph-

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SammiD

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