Hello forum members! I'm not an active member but received some very helpful advice last time I posted, and I hope you might please be so kind as to share your hamster wisdom again!
My Syrian hamster Skyler is now just under 18 months old by our estimate (she was a pet shop ham, adopted April 201
and since the end of June, has been experiencing fur loss - both as bald patches, and also general thinning of the fur. She is healthy and happy in every other way; eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, running around like a maniac! I know my little friend well, and she is still very much happy in herself, much to my relief
I think she may be grooming a little more than usual - but it's heard to tell since they spend so much time grooming anyway, and I'm being extra vigilant - maybe a little paranoid! She
doesn't seem to be itchy, and there are
no scabs or sore patches. Her skin seems fine underneath (though I never realised just how wrinkly hamsters are under all that fur, poor girl!!
) She's also drinking a bit more recently, but I feel that might be age and/or weather factors rather than anything sinister.
It started as a bald patch just above her tail, with a couple of teensy little scabs which we carefully treated ourselved with the tiniest dab of Sudocrem over the course of a few nights. We considered taking her to the vets, but reasoned that she was happy in herself, it may cause more stress than anything, and that we'd see how she progressed. Over the course of the next week a second bald patch then appeared over her right hip, which has gradually become larger and we decided to get her a vet's appointment and see what they thought.
We visited a lovely vet last weekend who we found very helpful (and Skyler, much to my amazement as she's the naughtiest hamster I've ever had, was the model patient! So well behaved, I'm so proud of her <3 ) He carefully and thoroughly examined Skyler and some of his thoughts were as follows:
- He checked the mobility of her hips, in case she had some pain in that location that was causing her to chew the fur away, but she was fine.
- Didn't think it was hormonal, as it would be a more symmetrical hair loss than odd patches.
- Didn't think it was any kind of dermatits, nor scaroptic (sp?) mange.
He gave Skyler a spot-on treatment for mites, more as a preventative measure to rule it out, and advised that we wouldn't see fur grow back within that time, but it should halt any further fur loss and to return in a fortnight if the fur loss continued. His next plan of action would be to then give Skyler some anti-inflammatory medicine, in case there's some issue or pain we can't see, and monitor how she responds to that.
Since then a third patch has began to develop over her left hip spot, but not as rapidly as the past two. Skyler still seems very happy in herself, and as long as she's happy and not in any obvious discomfort or pain then I'm happy.
The only thing that has changed in her little life recently was a switch to using Softacard bedding around a month before she started experiencing the bald patches and fur loss. We didn't think it was a reaction to it, since we thought it would have manifested sooner, but as a precaution I've now changed her on to Clean and Cosy which is so lovely and soft I can't stop playing with it, haha!
Skyler seems happy on it too
I've made an Imgur album here showing my 'photo log' of how her fur loss has changed over the past few weeks, with captions.
I've had a quick read around the forums and seen a few topics from relatively recently
such as this one mentioning quite 'extreme' fur loss as part of a large summer moult, which then naturally rectifies itself. I'm going to do some more digging in the meantime, but it's made me hopeful that - fingers crossed! - this may be all that Skyler is experiencing. I was totally unaware they could get so patchy and scruffy during a moult!
Any thoughts or advice are greatly appreciated and Skyler and I thank you in advance! <3
Syrian Hamster Fur Thinning & Bald Patches
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