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Specialist Irritated Grease Gland?

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Freela

Freela

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Sundae has quite an active grease gland, and lately it has been acting up a lot and she has a permanently greasy spot just at the end of her back. The fur gets very clumped together. I've been cleaning the area as best I can, but it seems to hurt her (she spends the whole time biting the blanket she's on in a panic) and today I noticed an area where the skin itself looks normal but there seems to be some fur loss. Does anyone have some recommendations? Products that are specific to guinea pigs are hard to come by here, but is there something generic to help clean the area and soothe any skin irritation?
 
I know that the grease gland itself can get infected, but as I have never had to deal with this problem myself, I am tagging @Pebble for you.
 
One of my girls always had a very active grease gland-I would normally leave it &it would kind of cake together &come off similar to a scab when it got really thick. But it didnt cause her any irritation so that's why I left it.

I know others have used swarfega (a UK hand degreaser often used by mechanics for really oily hand cleaning or leave it neat on clothes with grease spots or paint to aid removal prior to washing) to soften the grease for easy washing/removal.
If u can't get hold of any swarfega try a little dab of washing up liquid instead

Dont let the piggies ingest it -but gently massage it into the greasy spot &wash off with tepid/warm water afterwards.
Then thoroughly dry piggy.

If the hair has started coming out it may be worth taking piggy to the vets &get them to check for mites or fungal &that the gland hasn't got a bit of infection.

If there is less hair to cover the gland it may look worse as its not hidden as usual.
Might be an underlying cause as opposed to the gland itself being overactive.

Let us know how u get on :)
Hope its soon sorted

Xx
 
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Hi, oddly enough my son has just come out of the vets with our two boars, the vet has said that they are both producing too much grease and that on Jericho it's irritated his skin. So she's given us some scrub and I think but not 100% sure my son said something about inflammatory stuff, she said it would have turned into something like dermatitis if it had been left.
 
One of my boars has a grease gland like this where the hair sometimes comes out abit and also one of my friends boars can get like it too. I dont worry about it as his hair always grows back.
 
I've given her a good wash and will keep a close eye on it. If I don't see any improvement with keeping it extremely clean, I'll book an appointment to see the vet. She did just see the vet a couple of weeks ago to have antibiotics renewed and good a good going-over, so I don't think there is any risk of mites or any other potentially serious problem. Thanks for the pointers!
 
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