My degu has bald patches on his arms?

[rcrothers951]

I have 2 male degus.
They live in the same cage..
Though i've noticed that one of them has a bald patch on each of his forearms :/
I'm hoping it's nothing serious, but i'd really like to know what could be wrong with him. At first I thought it would have been his chubbyness.. But then it's on the outside so i'm not so sure :/

Would be great if someone can help me!!
Thanks x

[philbailey1806]

hello rcrothers! degus can get bald patches for a number of reasons:

1. It may be stress induced alopecia or over-grooming, unfortunately there's nothing you can do to stop this except to try and reduce stress levels and increase exercise levels. Have you started doing anything differently? Has their environment changed suddenly? Have the boys been falling out lately? These could be factors.

2. It may be lice or mites, in which case a trip to the vet will be necessary to get the right treatment.

3. It could be a fungal infection, such as ringworm etc. in which case again a trip to the vet would be advisable.

Other than this I can't say, we once had a hamster that went bald and we treated it for mites and it turned out it had skin cancer. If I were you I'd take him to the vet, just to get him checked over and put your mind at rest, its more than likely something and nothing and can be sorted out quickly and simply.

Hope this helps! Let us know how you get on.

[Kat]

Hi,

In the hope of more people replying, I have moved your query to the degu health forum.

Kat
x

[deguconvert]

Alopecia is a genetic happening in degus, and it tends to be spontaneous. It also tends to clear up pretty quickly, for the most part. Sometimes it will linger for a while though. It isn't only related to times of stress in a degu . . . it can be "just because."

Over grooming is sometimes associated with stress, but there are a lot of goos that do it because they may be bored, or they just really like doing it. It isn't always a reflection of the state of mind of the degu. If you have a large cage, cage mates that are happy together, lots of toys, chewing things, and good foods etc, then it is not likely stress related.

If you have doubts though, it doesn't hurt to have your vet look at him and ensure that there are no parasites causing the trouble, as Philbailey recommends.

[molly]

Our 2 blue degus developed a bald patch around the end of their noses at one point. We thought it was due to dehydration because we also discovered that the spout on their water bottle was faulty and infact no water was coming out of it at all...as soon as we replaced the bottle and they had better access to water the baldness cleared up completely!

[nicola27]

My friend has 4 degus and one of them has always had a bald patch on his back. They've changed bedding, got mites treatment, etc, but the vet said there is nothing wrong with him. Two of her degus she got about a month ago and she's noticed the patch is getting smaller, so she thinks that the other degu is grooming him less and that's making it clear up a bit. Yay!