Daisy's bits in trouble again. :-(

[blossombrooks]

I've posted about this before and basically the base of daisy's ureathral cone gets a little swollen and dry looking. This is prob the 3rd time it's happened and I've narrowed the cause down to excessive wheel use or excessive grooming/nipping from pepper. She doesn't seem worried and I've had her at the vets before for it but they couldn't help much.

Anyway what I'm gettin around to is, is there anything I can put on for her to soothe her a little? It's not very swollen but I am worried about the dryness. They don't exactly make Dove for degus. ;0) As always any suggestions are gratefully received. Thank you!

[smux]

Dove is basically a Ph neutraliser for water as well as a soap (that's its selling point, anyway, the Ph scale goes from 0 to 14 so any solution at Ph level 7 is considered neutral...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PH_Scale.svg might help, as might the actual article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH_level), so you could try bathing (or wiping over) the area with Ph neutral water. Excessive wheel use would result in sweaty lower regions, I've seen it on both boys and girls among mine although not always from wheel running, and urine is Ph level 6 (slightly acidic) so alkalis (baking soda, salt water, etc) would have the desired opposite effect...however, in this last case I am theorising and you should see what other people say (also would need to confirm if it's urine that's causing the dryness, sweat's Ph level might be different so perhaps you need to get a Ph test strip to find out the Ph level of her sweat to work out if it's where the problem might be :-))

If it's excessive grooming or nipping, perhaps the evil of all evils and put a dab of bitter apple down there for next time she tries :-)
I'm joking, poor daisy might have to clean down there herself, you don't want to be putting that on her :-P

[blossombrooks]

Lol at the bitter apple! That's a very good idea about the ph testing, not quite sure how to get daisy to co-operate but I'm sure I'll find a way. I'll try to wipe her with a cotton bud, still making slow progress with picking up, it's all very much on their terms. It won't be too long before their new cage arrives, maybe that'll persuade daisy to spend less time sweating it out on the wheel! They get time out but she is such a ball of energy.
Ill see if Boots have the ph strips tomorrow.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with a goo who's had this problem. I don't know what I'd do without the forum!
Thank you smux. :-)

[smux]

The problem in my case is just the sweating, although it's not so much a problem as a natural occurrence among active degus...if they have a lot of active time (usually it's from humping attempts, although I'm sure you wouldn't want to know that :-P) they are going to get sweaty down there because of all the fur and I think they sweat all over but we only get to see it in areas where there is less fur (so their legs and places like that) and the fur traps it elsewhere, probably removed by dust bathing. Ph testing is a natural thought process from you mentioning Dove, because I remember the advert suggesting that the Ph level of Dove is lower than most soaps (which score quite far up in the alkali level from what I remember of that image I posted earlier :-)) so logically the right thing to do to act like Dove is to counteract the imbalance :-)

[deguconvert]

I would try putting a tiny bit of olive/vegetable oil around the area to see if that will help it to heal and moisterize. If you find that it doesn't help . . . the tinest dab of zinc cream, like that used for baby bottoms, can help and will also discourage excessive grooming in that area.

[blossombrooks]

Thanks deguconvert :-) I'll give that a go. I didn't know what wouldn't harm her if she licked it. I adjusted the thermostat in the room too incase it was too warm for her to exercise. It's tricky cos pepper really isn't an exercise freak like daisy so she'll have to be a little colder. Don't worry tho I've got a very close eye on the thermometer in there.
I went to the chemist for test strips but they don't carry them, they asked why I wanted some....I think that was the most random reason they'd ever heard! Lol. I've always got olive oil in so fingers crossed that'll help.
The things we do for goos! Worth every bit tho.