Hair Loss on a Baby GP

Question
Hi
My sow (Brandy) gave birth on christmas day without any problems whatsoever to 4 little piggies. They are gorgeous and all eating, suckling and running around well. Out of the 4 babies there was a runt. He/she's been fine, messing about with the others,suckling etc until today when i noticed the hair is starting to thin all over his/her little body. He/she is smaller than the other three but i just thought he/she might be a late developer. Why do you think this hair loss is happening? He/she is still hopping around and eating/suckling well although he/she'd rather suckle than eat hay or pellets. Will the pig lose all his hair? Would it grow back when he/she's a bit older. They are all only 4 days old but just wondered why this was happening.
Thank you for your time x

Answer
The hairloss could either be nutritional or the other babies or mom could be nibbling on the hair because the baby is a runt. Since the mother had 4 babies and guinea pigs only have 2 teats, it is most likely nutritional, so you may want to try to handfeed the runt to supplement what he is getting from the mom. You could also try placing some uncooked oats or bread in some warm goats or evaporated milk in the cage. The best milk to use to supplement babies is goats milk, it can be found with the evaporated milk in cans at WalMart. You can feed it to him luke warm in an oral syringe. You may have to force feed him at first, but he should catch on quickly, try feeding him 3 times a day. There is also the possibility that there could be something genetically wrong with him, and the mother cleaned him off any ways at birth. Any little bit of inbreeding in guinea pigs causes babies called clef palets, they often only want to drink milk, but the milk is spit through the nose, some goes in the lungs, and a little goes in the stomach. These babies are usually unthrifty in appearance and die by the age of 3 weeks. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Brittany
PWOOBY@aol.com