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Very Dry Skin?!

J

Jesse Skrobak

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Our guinea pig has very dry skin maybe? About 3-4 days ago is when we noticed. Behind her right ear had all scabs and some flakes which we know she's scratching. Along her back (not her grease gland) also has very flaky skin. There are 2 pretty big scab looking things too which she is probably scratching at. She's eating, drinking, popcorning. There's also some scabs and flakes under her fur behind the neck. We put coconut oil on but that made it a lot worst. Not as irritated looking today as it was yesterday. She seems happy! She turned 1 sometime in July
 
Jesse Skrobak said:
Our guinea pig has very dry skin maybe? About 3-4 days ago is when we noticed. Behind her right ear had all scabs and some flakes which we know she's scratching. Along her back (not her grease gland) also has very flaky skin. There are 2 pretty big scab looking things too which she is probably scratching at. She's eating, drinking, popcorning. There's also some scabs and flakes under her fur behind the neck. We put coconut oil on but that made it a lot worst. Not as irritated looking today as it was yesterday. She seems happy! She turned 1 sometime in July
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Hi and welcome!

Please see a vet for a diagnosis. it sounds like it could be a fungal infection or mites (there are two different varieties). All three issues need different treatment; we cannot and are legally not allowed to diagnose just from your description or a picture.

Please DO NOT treat on spec - you are more often than not making things worse rather than better because your oil is not helping with any diagnosis and you are allowing things to get worse with using inappopriate products. Please be aware that cheap broad spectrum shop products are also usually not strong enough to cut through an acute outbreak and should be avoided. Some can even be harmful to guinea pigs!

In the end, you have all the extra cost from your DIY care products as well as needing to treat a more advanced problem by the time you see a vet. Unfortunately, vet cost and health care are in the long run your biggest financial factor when keeping any pet. :(
It would be good if you started saving up on a weekly or monthly basis so you can always afford to see a vet, especially in an emergency or with severe illness.

If you have only had your guinea pigs less than 2 weeks when the problem started, you can reclaim any vet cost from your pet shop as exposure and infection has happened there if you present the sales receipt together with the vet bill and insist on seeing the store manager.

If your piggies are newly bought, you may be dealing with ringworm (tinea), the most agressive and transmittable form of a fungal infection which can affect all mammals including humans and which is sadly not at all uncommon in shop piggies.
Please be careful when handling your guinea pigs and use good hygiene until you see your vet and know what you are dealing with! The time between infection and outbreak is 10-14 days. You always need to treat all guinea pigs in contact with each other when you are dealing with fungal skin infections or skin parasites.
 
Hi Jesse. Welcome to the forum. I'm not an expert on this, but it could be a fungal infection, in which case you will need to see the vet. Previous posts have recommended not using shop bought preparations, as they don't work well, and can make it difficult for a vet to diagnose and treat properly. Be very careful with hygiene, wash your clothes in a hot wash, and hands after handling any of your piggy's things, as if it is ringworm it can be passed to humans and other animals. It might not be, but better safe than sorry. Ringworm is not a worm, but a fungal infection. I'm sure you will get more advice from someone else too. Best of luck with this.

Edit - Wiekbe's advice is the best you will get.
 
Thank you everyone! I've posted on other sites and pages and everyone said it's ringworm or a fungal infection so I'm gonna go with ringworm. What is the time period until it starts spreading. She's had it for 3-4 days so I want to treat it before it spreads to us or the other guinea pigs.
 
Please don't treat on speculation.. take it from someone going through ringworm treatment with one of my pigs right now: if it is ringworm (which only a vet can determine), you will need to treat all guinea pigs that live together anyways. They will need actual vet-prescribed meds, as well as a meticulous hygiene regimen and deep cleaning of everything they've touched. Even with throwing away almost everything they owned, deep-cleaning my whole house with vet-grade antifungal several times and dosing vet-prescribed itroconozole (arguably the most effective ringworm treatment), my boy still cultured positive for ringworm after 6 weeks of treatment! Finally after 9 weeks of intensive hygiene practices and medication, we've gotten our first negative culture and are almost done. Ringworm is nasty and is not going to go away with store-bought treatment, even if the actual sore goes away. The microscopic spores can live a year and a half on almost any surface with no host.
 
PLEASE NEVER treat on spec at home with just an online diagnosis from people who haven't seen your guinea pig and who often have no medical training and in fact in many cases very limited knowledge - this does not replace a vet visit and a proper diagnosis. I've seen too many hip shot diagnoses online and too many preventable deaths to be VERY wary of them! Cheap home treatment on spec is no replacement for good quality medication!
We have been repeatedly confronted with cases of home treatment gone wrong with the piggies suffering badly and unnecessarily for weeks or even months on ends because their owners thought they knew it all better than a vet who has trained for years and could flout the cost of a vet visit. In sadly far too many cases this has ended with the pointless death of poor pets that have been totally failed by their owners. If you love your pets, you care for them properly.

The most effective and much easier way of treating ringworm these days is by a prescription only oral course containing itraconazole (the UK brand name is itrafungol). It means that the treatment reaches all areas, even the hard to reach ones and the very sensitive ones around the ears, eyes and mouth/nose which you all have to cover VERY CAREFULLY with topical treatment. Just a bit of cream on the affected areas (which are much larger than you think) will not do the trick. It also saves you and your piggies most of the stress of requiring an antifungal bath every three days.

Here is our ringworm care guide with our very detailed hygiene tips to prevent ringworm from spreading and returning. these tips have been learned the hard way. It covers the home care side, but not the vet treatment. Please accept that we have also learned the hard way that you flout a vet trip at the peril of the health and wellbeing of the pets in your care. Ringworm: Hygiene And Pictures
 
Thanks for your help everyone! I know it is costly but I'd rather be safe then sorry. I scheduled an appointment for next Monday at 230. I just want my guinea pig to be fine and happy. She is isolated from the others and it's not going well, they all miss each other. I'm happy I can get her to the vet even though it's nearly an hour away. Not many vets near me deal with guinea pigs or unusual pets so many are quite a drive!
 
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