"Full" scent gland

[Emma]

Alfie has a very prominent ventral scent gland, one of those that normally looks like a lump and could be mistaken for a tumour by the uninitiated. Lately he's been looking quite scruffy and doesn't seem to be taking very good care of himself grooming-wise, since his tooth troubles started. He's also started to smell a bit more - his scent gland is much more active, with yellow staining underneath it.



I was checking him over today and I noticed that his scent gland seemed bigger than usual - like it was full - and there was a large plug of the yellow waxy secretion in the pore of it (the pore is quite obvious, maybe a few mm across). I gently squeezed the gland and loads of the stuff came out, so I cleaned him up with some damp cotton wool. Alfie didn't seem to mind this any more than he usually minds being held for checking over. The fur beneath his scent gland, and under his chin/across his chest, is quite thin and the skin underneath looks a bit pinker than normal.



I was just wondering if anyone else's dwarves had had big scent glands, possibly blocked scent glands? I have watched him licking at it many times whilst he was grooming himself normally, maybe he hasn't been doing this recently. I'm not sure I did the right thing by cleaning him up, I have read before not to squeeze the scent gland but it just looked so much puffier than normal and it did seem like there was a plug. It looked back to normal afterwards - pore still visible but not with a huge yellow blob in the middle of it. I don't think there's anything particularly nasty going on with it, just got blocked up maybe?



I'm thinking of changing his litter over to something else after seeing his pinky skin, in case it is irritating him. At the moment he's on wood shavings, so I might try something paper-based.

[babyboos]

Older males get this problem a lot Emma - and this time of year too seems to make the gland really overactive. You probably did the best thing squeezing the puss out in this instance, especially as it sounds like it flowed quite freely - this is a good sign. Keep it clean with a little lukewarm saline solution and a cotton bud. You may be right and he is having some issues with grooming due to his teeth troubles. Be careful what paper based litter you use - these really are not intended for use in hamster enclosures - can you get Megazorb? If you do go with a paper litter please make sure to do the pinch test. The vast majority of paper based litters are designed to be ultra absorbent which as you can imagine is not very good if ingested.

[Emma]

I'd like to use Megazorb, but as I'm moving out of this flat in a few weeks time I don't have anywhere to store the huge bale at the moment! I thought I might give a few horse supplies shops a ring to see if they do trial bags though. I might relent on my dislike of Carefresh for a few weeks!



I'm not sure if it was pus or just a build-up of the normal secretion (the smell was VERY boy-hamster!). I haven't seen it yet this morning so I'll check it later - he stuck his head out his bed when I came into the room, to say good morning, and then snuggled back down as it's far too early! Bless him.



Thanks for putting my mind at rest at this being a thing older males get.