Behavior Piggie's Chewing Each Other's Hair and Hurting Each Other

[AnaStick]

A few days ago I noticed one of my girls, Freya, had a strange horizontal part going across almost the entire width of her body. I picked her up and looked at it, and noticed the hair in the line was shorter than the rest of her hair and that she even had some scabs in it. I thought maybe my pigs had gotten mites, but I've been doing a preventative treatment and hadn't noticed any excessive itching from any of my girls. After looking at the others, I saw that two of the others, Debbie and Bean, had it too, but in a v-shape instead of a horizontal line, and didn't have scabs, only dry, flaky skin in the areas, while Minnie and Alula were unaffected. I was confused until I saw them chewing on each others hair later that night, which I'd seen them do to each other before but it's never been to the extent that they'd hurt each other.

Is there any reason why they might suddenly be doing this, and a way I can stop it? I'm worried since they're doing it to the extent of actually causing harm to Freya and quite a bit of skin irritation to Debbie and Bean.

 

[K4tr1n4]

A few days ago I noticed one of my girls, Freya, had a strange horizontal part going across almost the entire width of her body. I picked her up and looked at it, and noticed the hair in the line was shorter than the rest of her hair and that she even had some scabs in it. I thought maybe my pigs had gotten mites, but I've been doing a preventative treatment and hadn't noticed any excessive itching from any of my girls. After looking at the others, I saw that two of the others, Debbie and Bean, had it too, but in a v-shape instead of a horizontal line, and didn't have scabs, only dry, flaky skin in the areas, while Minnie and Alula were unaffected. I was confused until I saw them chewing on each others hair later that night, which I'd seen them do to each other before but it's never been to the extent that they'd hurt each other.

Is there any reason why they might suddenly be doing this, and a way I can stop it? I'm worried since they're doing it to the extent of actually causing harm to Freya and quite a bit of skin irritation to Debbie and Bean.

Guinea pigs can sometimes chew off each other's or their own hair, in a behaviour known as barbering. Barbering can be caused by boredom, stress, and lack of roughage like hay. Keep supplying hay, and try and provide some objects of interest for your guinea pigs and see if this helps.

This is what I found on the internet I hope it helps and your girls will be better


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[bpatters]

You've got a barber pig causing Freya's hair loss.

The V-shaped hair loss is classic for mites. You need to treat all of them for mites, and that may also take care of the barbering problem.

See https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/threads/111160-How-to-treat-for-mites-and-lice. Don't use spray on stuff, as the pigs will ingest it when they're grooming themselves.