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Skin complaint questions.

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Hi all, I'm a lurker on the forum - I don't actually have piggies myself. I am asking for help on behalf of my mum as her computer is broken at the moment.

She has a guinea pig called Evie who was separated from her friend Honey because of what was thought to be a wound from her on her back. Honey is the more dominant pig and occasionally will chase Evie round the cage. Both pigs belong to my brother but my mum has taken Evie to separate them as he doesn't have the room.

Since they have been separated my mum has noticed that Evie has something wrong with her skin - it's flaky and when you brush her clumps of hair come out with a bit of dead skin holding the fur together. She has been bathed with mite shampoo today and the flakiness seems to have improved but obviously it's early days and they don't want it coming back.

The wound on her back is right in the middle of her back at the top of her body, about the size of a 20p piece, with smaller scabs around it. Evie keeps scratching at it and my mum wondered if it might be irritation because of the flaky skin rather than a fight. They have tried putting a sock on her with holes for her front feet but she's very good at taking it off, does anyone have a suggestion to stop her picking at it?

They would also like to know how often you can bath a guinea pig without stressing them out - apparently Evie seemed to enjoy her bath and wasn't fazed by it. I only have a rabbit and they hate baths so I really have no idea!

So, to summarise;
What could the flakiness/fur clumps be?
Could the scabs be from irritation or is it likely to be fighting?
How can we stop her picking at said scabs?
And how often can you bath a guinea pig?

Thank you for reading my essay, :red any help would be much appreciated :)
 
hi welcome :)

it sounds like a fungal infection something in which a dumped boar i have here is suffering with.

you could apply canesten 1% cream 2 times a day to the affected area for around 3 wks which should clear it..

also nizoral shampoo poo can be used to bath her in, every week for 3 wks..

these treatments can be brought from the pharmacy as they are human treatments, but work really well in guinea pigs with fungal..

i would also bath the other guinea pig in nizoral shampoo as fungals are highly transferred to other guineas and it can take 4 wks before they show signs of it..

if they are left fungals can be very hard to get rid off, also good hygiene is a must and remove any shavings while a guinea has a fungal infection , either bed them on newspaper, towels, fleece blankets with newspaper ot puppy training pad underneath...

also did the shampoo you used contain ivermectin? if not it will not work to kill mites, this can be brought from the vets and they must have 3 treatments 7-10 days a part .
love clairexxx
 
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Wow, thank you for the quick reply!

Will the canestan and the nizoral do any harm to her if it's not a fungal infection she has? My dad did say it looked fungal but as I say none of us are pig experts!

I wanted to add that obviously we would rather she went to a vet but the vet in my parents area is not very guinea-pig savvy and has let them down badly in the past :0 so they're very reluctant to take her there.

ETA - I don't know if the shampoo contains ivermectin, I will ask. They have rabbits and use ivermectin as a spot-on treatment when they have mites, I don't know about the pigs though, I don't think they've ever had a problem like this before.
 
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the nizoral and canerstan will not harm her at all, with you saying the hair comes out with tufts of skin on the end this is common in fungal infections...

i will put up a good thread for you in a sec for you to have a look at x
 
Thank you, I'll have a good look through that thread. My mum is hoping to get onto another computer tomorrow so I'll email her the link to this thread and she can have a read.

She also asked me to ask you how Rodney is getting on, hope he is well. She asked me to PM but you've conveniently turned up on thread! :))

Thank you very much for your help.
 
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