Missing fur

[Frivalicious]

Last night i noticed my goo Sasha missing quite alot of fur on her left side and I'm wondering how this could have happened?
I saw it the other day, probs about a week ago and I just thought she was wet. Xena usually gets herself soaked when she drinks, silly thing, so without thinking about it just assumed Sash had gotten wet or something.
But last night I was holding them and alot of it is missing! Its just the grey underfur left.
I dont know if she could have done this to herself or of someone challenged her position of pack leader? There is nothing in the cage that could possibly have done this, I've searched it properly. Has anyone had this happen?
Sash lives together with three other goos in a large cage (two p@h cages put together)
Thanks

[rich555]

I would be interested in any replies to this too, as Mine have various bits of fur missing. They were like this when I got them a few weeks ago.
The mum, Molly is perfect
Her sister, daisy has some fur missing round one eye
Daughter Dinky has perfect fur but only half a tail!
and other daughter Nippy has a bit of fur missing round one eye and some fur from the end of her tail missing!

[deguconvert]

Sometimes one of the group will get a little over zealous with grooming another and they will remove areas of fur. I can see that this is the case here because there is still the grey coat fur still there. If it were perfectly bald and just the pink skin showing, it could be either over grooming OR spontaneous alopecia, which degus are known to occasionally have. Neither one is a problem to the degu, and both should correct themselves in a relatively short frame of time. I've noticed with two of our boys that the excessive mutual grooming comes and goes, but it is always with each other and seems to be a result of their close bond more than anything else. I think they just get carried away and don't realize how extreme they are being! Silly goos!

There can be other reasons for a degu to over groom themself, such as stress, grief, boredom, or a too confined cage space, but these forms of over grooming are most often expressed on their feet and legs which will gradually go bald.

[rich555]

Heres my girls. You can see daisy has some fur missing around her eye. is this common?

[rich555]

More pics

[rich555]

This is them again.
Dinky is always at the bottom being kept warm by daisy

[Deleted]

One of the girls I adopted last week has a bald patch over her right eye, just like Dinky.
She also has one bald leg. The other is bald on all four legs. They had been kept in a tiny
guinea pig cage with barely any space to move, so that is probably what caused it.
Now that they have lots of space to run and climb their fur has already begun growing back

[rich555]

These are in a massive cage and I assume that is what they have always been in as I got it with them, but you never know, but sounds as though its nothing to worry about.

[jenowuk]

Hi, we had a problem with one of our degus (Bill) developing a bald patch, it was high on his back, just below his head. We asked the vet about it, and they advised that it was due to over grooming, but that thsi could be caused by boredom or over excitement. No contradiction there! We eventually noticed it coincided with Bill making a dominance play, which constantly failed. We think it was Bob over grooming him to basically put him in his place. Could be the same for your goos

[abirose]

Perhaps keep an eye on who is doing the grooming if it is Sasha it could be she is stressed about something. If it is another goo it could be that she's bored or that she's just a bit over zealous! If she is stressed you could try and list what it could be e.g environment/squabbling etc and if its another goo try and make things to distract her e.g stuffing an eggbox or a walnut in its shell to prevent her going bald!