Is there something wrong with my guinea pigs eye?

Question

 

  I've had my guinea pig for a few years now, after adopting her and another guinea pig from a guinea pig rescue shelter. I've noticed that she appears to have what looks like a lump of sorts under one of her eyes, although it doesn't appear to cause her any discomfort. Is there something wrong, or is her eyelid just open wide?

Answer

pea eye aka fatty eye  

another pea eye   There's nothing wrong with her in the clinical sense. She has a condition called 'fatty eye' or 'pea eye'.  It's mostly seen on guinea pigs who have short round noses. The longer nose pigs almost never have it.

It's much like a Basset Hound who has droopy eyelids, causing the conjuntival tissues inside to show and appear to be coming out. It's harmless, painless and causes no problems other than being disqualified by cavy judges as a severe fault.

Wild cavies have very long noses. But as breeders of any species do, we begin to breed for what we think "looks better" and in doing so we've caused faults in nearly every species. But we like that short little bunny type nose as it's more visually appealing than the long snout. Hence we've created a condition that is hereditary called pea eye.

In horses we've bred out the wide hoof and created a more refined "prettier" thin leg and small hoof because we think it looks better. In doing so we've caused leg problems. Wild horses have those big feet because they're functional and can carry the horse over any terrain without injury.

In dogs we've created issues such as hip dysplasia in some breeds like German Shepards, Labrador Retrievers, etc because we think we know how to make them "more appealing" to look at. The function has been sacrificed to create form.

The same thing has happened to our guinea pigs. In Basset Hounds that droopy eye is attractive, in cavies it's not. It's just a breeding issue. She will not suffer any side effects and is in no way compromised as far as health.

Here are a couple of pictures of pea eye in two different pigs. The multi colored pig was given to me as a baby and developed pea eye at a very young age. The other belonged to a friend of mine.  They are both examples of the same thing.