Hair loss near spine

[Aga]

Hi! I have two US Teddy females (both 4 years old). One of them has a place where hair is much thiner (although not completely bald). It is located at her back, just near the spine. She had such place since she was very young although recently it seems bigger. It is not fungus infection or parasites (at least no vet said so). The other pig is healthy and has no such problems. She did not have ultrasound (unfortunately no vet in my place has such equipment) but I don't think that it is related to cysts (as I said - she had it since she had less then 3 months but smaller, and it is not symmetric). I thought that maybe the other pig bites her but I never saw this happened. Any suggestions? Can it be her nature (but then why it is bigger now) or maybe some lack of vitamins?

 

[Aga]

I attach some pictures

 

[Siikibam]

I’m afraid I don’t know. Hopefully someone with more experience will be along soon.

Has she been barbering the area at all - biting on it? That can sometimes be an indicator of pain.

 

[Free Ranger]

What a lovely girl!
I'm just looking at the pics and seeing loose hairs on her. Of course they shed hairs sometimes but a bald patch on the rump and shedding hair would suggest mites to me. They are too small to see with the naked eye but sometimes can be seen down the microscope if the vet does a skin scraping... but not always. Does she scratch a lot or suddenly jump and turn to nibble? Is she uncomfortable when you touch her? If you stroke her does the hair come away in your hand? Because apart from the odd one or two it really shouldn't. When one of mine arrived with mites she appeared to have a healthy shiny coat and there wasn't really much scratching but she did seem to shed a bit more than the others. It was hard to tell as she's a two-tone piggy so I couldn't tell her hair from the colours of the other two. I only really realised she had passengers when I got her a fluffy white mat to sleep on - she trotted off the next morning and it was like she'd left a shadow behind!

One common treatment we use for mites in the UK is ivermectin in the form of a spot-on product called xeno (I get the xeno-450 version for my adult pigs and it is dobbed onto bare skin behind ears or where hair is lifted up). It is prescribed by our vet and it is dependent on body-weight: you have to be very careful not to overdose a piggy. I treated all my 3 at the same time and each pig had to have 3 treatments in total (two weeks apart). I'm telling you this because I think it's worth going back to your vet and asking if they'd consider treating for mites anyway... if she has them it'll sort out her problems and if she hasn't it shouldn't cause any harm as this stuff is generally very well tolerated. Some vets treat by injecting it - personally I'd think carefully about that because any injection is not very nice for them. Ask your vet what method they would use. If they are piggy mites her friend probably also has them so treat both together. But these mites don't survive on people so you are safe!

Good luck Polish Piggies - and get your loving owner to keep us informed

 

[Aga]

She almost doesn't scratch and jump suddenly, doesn't bite herself. She's very calm in comparison to her mate who is very nervous, doesn't like being touch etc. The hair doesn't come away when I touch her and she doesn't react when I touch this place. The hair that is left in this place is sharp and shorter (not as soft as the rest of it). Looks like it was partly trimmed, but it is also much thinner.

 

[Free Ranger]

To me that suggests this area has definitely been barbered by somebody as those short, sharp hairs sound like re-growth - such as when the end of a hair has been cut (or nibbled). A bit like when you shave your legs (or beard - whichever!) and stubble growths through. But the question is who did it and why...

Sometimes one guinea pig will nibble another's hair. This is a different type of 'barbering' and can have all sorts of reasons, mainly social (or antisocial!). Here's a forum link with videos telling you more about this behaviour Barbering ( Eating Hair) So it could be the companion doing it - except that it tends to be long-haired piggies that attract this type of chewing by cage-mates. And in section 4 (Problems that can look similar to Barbering) you'll see a bit about mange mites and there is a reference to the "classic mange mite triangle pattern on her back"... and that's what you might be dealing with here. If I were in this position myself I would treat both pigs with ivermectin as a precaution. It could be that she's carried a low level infestation of these mites all her life but that as she gets older and her immune system starts to fail they begin to cause her more trouble. Have a think about it - it's worth doing.