guinea pig babies

Question
QUESTION: Hi, my two soars have had babies four days ago and one died, at the same time another has some how gone bould all down its back and the other four have a few bold spots too, has the mothers done this or ard they ment to lose theif fur? Its my first every time havi g guineapigs and babies so im not sure what to do? I cant ask my vets as they said they dont deal with guineapigs, should i be worried aboutt the babies?  x

ANSWER: I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what you're trying to say. Please forgive me for struggling with it, the spelling is distorting the whole picture so bear with me.

Are you telling me one of the sows died or one of the babies? Baby guinea pigs are not supposed to lose their hair. There is one breed called a Baldwin that is a hairless breed of pig. The pups are born with all their fur, but they begin to lose it after a week or so.  

There is another breed called a Skinny Pig that is also hairless, but they are born that way except for little tuffs of hair at their ears and on their nose. Unlike the Baldwins they're born the way they will look as they grow up. Baldwins start out with hair then lose is all over, so by the time they're three or four weeks old they are completely bald.

If your babies are losing hair their parents may have carried this gene. If however, the mothers are also losing hair there is probably an infestation of mites or mange that's causing this. The mothers aren't pulling or chewing the hair off the babies.

Without seeing a picture of your babies I can't really tell you if you have pups with this Baldwin gene or whether they have something contagious like mange.  It would be a real help if you could send me a picture.

If you go online and search for "hairless guinea pigs" you can see picture of both of the different types.



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the baby   QUESTION: Sorry my phones touch screen and hard to type on, it was  baby that died, the two mothers are both long haired so they are not bold and it cant be mange or mites cause they live in cages in my room, and get cleaned out every two days, im worried as its realy cold so will the baby be ok? I tried to attach a picture  but it wont letme, il try again

Answer
Your picture did attach and it does help. This spot is not typical of a Baldwin baby so I don't think that's the problem. It's possible the mother pulled the hair out in an attempt to clean the baby.

Keep an eye on the pup to see if the balding gets worse. It just may be a result of an over zealous mom trying to clean her baby up. Stillborn pups or those who die the first few days are far more common than we'd like to see. It's nothing that you've done wrong, it's just one of those unavoidable things.

The baby looks otherwise healthy. If it were something like mange the mother would have had it first to pass it to the baby. Mange is a fungus that can easily be brought into your household by having had contact with an animal you didn't know had it. Just living in your house doesn't always prevent those things.  But careful hand washing before and after handling your pigs will do a lot to prevent anything like that.

The baby may just grow a nice full coat in no time at all.