Hair Loss New Baby Pigs Hair Loss Issue

That could be mites, could be a fungal, or it could be from barbering. Hard to tell. Those meds you used, are they made for guinea pigs? I've never heard of them before. Also, are they housed on straw?

It could be any of the above and since you treated them, that should cover mites. If it's fungal, that's another issue and will need different meds from a vet.

I don't think it's barbering because I've never seen one barbered down to the skin.

It "might" be the way the hair grows since abbys have the swirls in their hair pattern. I only mention this because the skin looks healthy from my view.

I don't know the conditions they were housed in, some breeders are good about housing and some are bad. So that could have contributed.

Keep an eye on it and if it gets worse, you need to see a vet. If it IS mites and the meds work, you will see the hair grow back fairly quickly.

PS> I know you didn't ask about this but if you are housing them outside, which I know is common in Australia, you might want to read more here about housing them inside. Just so you have all the information to make an informed decision for your new pets.

Good luck!

It does look like it could be mites, but it could also be from another pig yanking the hair out. Were the pigs kept in crowded conditions?

I would need to see the ingredients of the mite spray, but I doubt it's good for guinea pigs.

The Beaphar Anti-Parasite Spot On is fine, though--it's ivermectin. They will need to be treated with it again in a week, and again a week after that.

Thank you so much for all the prompt replies. The mite spray that I'm using is made in Australia, the brand is "Aristopet" which it looks like this:



On the bottle, it said the active constituents include:
0.2g/L Pyrethrins
0.36g/L Piperonyl Butoxide
0.60g/L N-Octylbicycloheptenr Dicarboximide

Honestly, really have no idea what those chemicals are..but that's the only product I can get from most of the pet shops here. In Australia we don't have a wide range of pet products or medicines that are solely designed for guinea pigs. This is the only product that I can see from pet shops here and so I just give it a go to see whether it can help my little Mocha (and yes, that's her new name ). Even for the Beaphar Anti-Parasite, I have to order them online through UK ebay since this brand "Beaphar" is not available in the Australian market.

I picked up the babies at a location that is away from the breeder's home since he lives in a city that is approximately 3hrs driving distance away from my place. So..I actually have no idea how the piggies were housed in but just knew that they didn't live together since they are from different mothers. I'm now housing them in a wooden hutch (pics as shown below) that is located under a shaded area, using newspaper and Oaten Hay as bedding as fleece bedding are very VERY uncommon here. I knew there is a lady at Perth who designed and make her own fleece cage liners for sale at local pet shops and online cross Australia, however, those liners are not cheap at all if I need to get a few sets for routine cleaning every week.

Anyways, today I have noticed there are some very very short hair growing on the empty skin area on Mocha, I'll repeat the treatment with the spray on the weekend and see how she goes. She eats normal and won't refuse not to eat, everything seems to be doing ok just need patience to see if her hair is growing again or not. I'll post some more pics later to update on how she goes

RubyRain said:

It could be any of the above and since you treated them, that should cover mites. If it's fungal, that's another issue and will need different meds from a vet.

I don't think it's barbering because I've never seen one barbered down to the skin.

It "might" be the way the hair grows since abbys have the swirls in their hair pattern. I only mention this because the skin looks healthy from my view.

I don't know the conditions they were housed in, some breeders are good about housing and some are bad. So that could have contributed.

Keep an eye on it and if it gets worse, you need to see a vet. If it IS mites and the meds work, you will see the hair grow back fairly quickly.

PS> I know you didn't ask about this but if you are housing them outside, which I know is common in Australia, you might want to read more here about housing them inside. Just so you have all the information to make an informed decision for your new pets.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I have one, an abby who will barber himself straight down to the skin.

I'd also reconsider using that hutch. Wood is not good for guinea pigs. It will soak in the urine, and obviously you cannot dry wood. Hay also becomes moldy and stinky quite quickly and can lead to URI's. I would look into bringing them inside. Being outside is very hard for a guinea pig. They can get terrified by the noises and a predator could scare your pigs, causing death in some situations. They are prey animals. You may not have a dog, but any neighbors dog barking could lead to terrified animals. Just think, if you wouldn't live there then they shouldn't either. Fleece is actually quite economical. You don't have to buy premade liners. You can make your own. I change fleece once a week. I spot clean it daily, if not several times a day. However, fleece only really works with an appropriate cage too.

I do agree that wood is not a good material to be used for housing, however in Australia, we don't have a wide range of housing options for guinea pigs, sadly it is either a hutch or a wired plastic cage. With hutches, there are wooden ones or metal hutches. The hutch that I'm using is made with pine wood with a black plastic tray that can be taken out for easy cleaning. I wanted to use C&C grids cages but they are not available at pet shops, the only place that sells them is an online shop that only sell the wire grids in 4 cubes, but not the Coroplast that suppose to come with it, which means it is useless with no cage bottom.

Lucky in my living area there are no dogs and no cats around, the area that I live is not allowed to have dogs as pets and there are no other predators around where I live since I live in a big city. The only issue that I always want to improve is the bedding issue, to be honest I do want to use fleece, but it's so hard to have it since it's not common in here. I would say a majority of guinea pigs owners here all use hay as bedding, some use wood shavings instead but I found it not so good as the shavings soaked up all the urine and it become a mess. I have also tried to use cat litter that is made with recycled papers, it works quite well in terms of absorbing all the urine but it can't be used in wired cages as the pigs will kick everything out while they jumping around. It is a very difficult decision to choose the right type of bedding to be used here, since Australian don't have many options if compared to other countries like UK and US.

Pyrethrins shouldn't be used on guinea pigs. You can get plain ivermectin at any store that sells supplies to farmers, and that's much safer to use as long as you dose it correctly.

But that hair loss looks much more like fungus or bacteria to me than mites. Pigs don't scratch all the hair out where they have mites, so there are patches of hair left. Losing all the hair in an area implies a fungal or bacterial infection. See https://www.guinealynx.info/search_bacterial_infection.html and https://www.guinealynx.info/fungus.html for how to treat either one.

There is another member here @RodentCuddles from Australia that may be able to give you indoor cage ideas.

ETAops, she's from New Zealand but probably still has some ideas for you.

You could still use a wire pet store cage and add grids or some type of wall to extend it as others have done here when they were challenged to find cage materials.
I will try to find some pics later when I get back.

Hi! It's great to see another Aussie on here. bpatters is correct, please don't use that Mite Spray, not only is it completely useless it's also very dangerous. For mites, you can purchase Revolution over the counter at any good pet store. You need the puppy/kitten one.

You don't need liners to use fleece. I purchased some towels from Kmart ($5 each) and you can buy fleece blankets from places like The Reject Shop, Sam's Warehose, Best & Less, even Coles and Woolworths sell fleece (mostly during the winter months though). C+C cages don't come pre-assembled, you have to buy the individual components. You can get the grids online, the corflute (or corrugated plastic) from sign stores or Bunnings, the cable ties come from Bunnings as well. You also don't need to make it a C+C exactly...it just needs to be a cage of appropriate sizing made with whatever materials you can find. That hutch is too small for two pigs. If the grids can't be found, you can use closet shelving (available in the Storage section of Bunnings/Masters), cable tie that together and then put in a Corflute base (doesn't even need to be corflute, I've used $10m Lino from Bunnings and it worked fine). For about $100 you've got a decent sized indoor cage.

These are some images of cages I either currently have or have used in the past. I've used C+C in various sizes and configurations for nearly 6 years now, I don't think there is any other way to keep them personally.

This is my current pig room, 3 cages, using both grids and storage shelving.


This is a 2x3 cage I knocked up in about 45 minutes (this was a foster pigs cage)


This is a 2x5 cage made from Grids and Lino, using cat litter trays for their 'kitchen'.


You are only limited by your imagination.

Thanks all for the great advices, it definitely helps to give me some ideas of how to take a better care on my piggies. Appreciated on all the great inputs

bpatters, after reading the info from those sites, I think may be you are right about fungal infections. The empty skin area on Mocha looks very similar to these ones here as shown below, but her skin is rather smooth and not so rough if compared to these photos, just that the edge of the area indeed got a bit of debris on the side. However the good thing is the hair seem to be growing back now. I have checked on Mocha again today and saw that the skin area is now covered with lots of little new soft fur, where now the pink skin is mostly covered with caramel baby fur. I'm thinking to try Malaseb on both of the pigs and see how they go with the flaky skin (the white guinea pig also has a little bit of debris on one of its ear and a little dot under its eye, looks similar to the 3rd pic but in a mild condition).





Aertyn, thank you so much for your advice. I really do look forward to have a spare room just for guinea pigs. It won't be too long as I will buy a new house soon maybe in 1 or 2 years time. At the moment, my house is running out of space and we don't have anywhere that fits neither a hutch nor C&C cage. But I will keep what you have taught me in mind and will definitely go for the grids once we moved to the new home. As for the bedding, I'll have a look on trying the fleece as these piggies are gonna be having long hair once they grow up, using hay as bedding at the moment is only temporary for now.

Can I please ask a question, why does pyrethrins shouldn't be used on guinea pigs while there are a few mite spray products that printed it's safe for guinea pigs? Why is it dangerous to be used on pigs?