Questions About Cleaning A Boar's More Private Areas!

[Maddykins]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this thread, it's not specifically about illness and such, more general hygiene.

I genuinely had no idea we were supposed to properly check our boar's penises until the other day when I saw someone post about it on here! We've had them for nearly a year, I felt awful! But then I did lots of research on the internet and I'm finding all kinds of conflicting info and I have a bunch of questions:

1) Is it necessary to extract the boar's penis and clean off smegma and if so how often are we supposed to do this? We tried them both yesterday, with me holding them and my partner in charge of the work haha. He tried to get Nelson's penis out but he couldn't so we put him back and then he tried Martin and managed his and then it was like covered in reallyy thick smega. He took it off very gently using lukewarm water. We're planning to do the same to Nelson today, is this ok? Obviously we had a look at it too and didn't notice anything worrying.

2) I've read about using a q-tip to clean the perianal sac too, I've also never done this! Should we be doing this and if so how often? I just feel like it's not such a great idea to be sticking a q-tip up such a sensitive area of my boys?

At the moment we bath them both a few times a year, and we usually give them a quick wipe with a baby wipe over the external parts of their genitals/grease gland/anal area/lower tummy and their ears.

What kind of cleaning regime do you do with your boars?

 

[Wiebke]

Feel regularly for any hard areas around the penis area, apart from the penis ridge; they usually indicate a build-up of smegma or semen rods. Sometimes hair or even hay gets trapped in by the penis, too, so it is worth expressing the penis at least partway to check.

The same goes for the sac. It very much depends on your boys: some are very dirty and others quite tidy; you need to clean according to their nature. Use a cotton bud, but very gently if there is a build-up of gunk in the sac (the most widely spread video on that aspect is unfortunately rather an example of how NOT to do it!). Some boys that love to mark everything by dragging their a bottom a lot along the ground also tend to pick up what is on it. #

Have a sniff to see how rank a boy is smelling, that is also a good indication that you need to give your boy a thorough clean up. A slight swelling of the sac area usually is a sign of impaction; when usually older boars are no longer able to push out the vita-poos as their muscles weaken. A simple bum bath with hand warm water can also help to keep the bum end tidy on the outside.

My boys are all neutered, so their sac is not as big as a full boar's. But I check their bits about once a month to make sure that they are all OK; that is about as often as mine need checking at the moment.