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2 Severely Balding Guinea Pigs

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bob2sea

bob2sea

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We have 3 female GPs and over the last few weeks, 2 of them have become terribly bald. Legs, all down one side of the body and under the chin. It looks very sore. One of them in the past had this issue before and we treated her with an anti flea treatment for a few months and this cleared it up. We have tried the same thing this time around but it doesn't seem to be working at all.

Can anyone shed some light on what this might be and how it can be treated?

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Please have them all seen by a good vet; it rather looks like severe fungal skin infection to me (in which case please ask for itrafungol, which is a systemic oral fungal medication, and use imaverol dip for external treatment) rather than mange mites (which need ideally ivermectin injections for best efficiency). It is likely that your home flea treatment on spec has masked a former outbreak, which has now come back much worse. :(

We have got a piggy savvy vet locator on the top bar. https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/pages/guinea-pig-vet-locator/
 
I agree with Wiebke, looks like fungal and needs Itrafungol together with Imaverol dips. I would also recommend taking them off shavings if you can as it will not help. You will also need to remove any wooden toys or cabins and use an anti-fungal cleaner on their cage or hutch like F10.
 
Here are our tips on how best to deal with a fungal infection (even one that is not transmittable to humans): https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/ringworm-hygiene-and-pictures.115402/

It would be good if you had them on a softer, less irritating surface until the hair has grown back, like a fleece with an absorbent underlay of some sort. Please prewash the fleece with softener-free detergent 2-3 times, so it wicks away all moisture and keeps the surface as dry as possible.
 
Vet has taken skin scrapings to be analysed. As much as I was trying to tell her what it looked like, she was the vet. She also injected her with Panomec. Will this suffice?
 
Panomec is for mange mites and is very effective for that but will have no effect on fungal. It will help if they have a combination mite and fungal problem though which is fairly common.

It is common to take scrapings but they are only likely to get a positive fungal result if the pigs have ringworm as other types of fungal tend not to show when a standard culture is done. Therefore it could come back negative. This is likely to be a different type of fungal, possibly Candida related. The treatment with Imaverol and Itrafungol would apply still, though Nystatin (another oral medication) is also effective but you would need to get this from the vet.

You could get some Imaverol in the meantime from here (it is non prescription):

http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/Enilconazole-100mg_ml-100ml/productinfo/ENILCON/

It is used as a dip and left on to dry. I dip once a week and use it topically between dips. I can give you the ratios if needed. You will need to patch test for 48 hours behind the ear first though and also it cannot be used within at least 24 hours of any mite treatment.
 
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