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Old 08-16-2017, 03:31 PM  
JOYRIDING
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 12
Default Unexplained fur loss.

Hi there,
In the last month or so my female syrian hamster, Beau, has been gradually losing fur. She has patches of fur thinning or missing altogether all over her body, near her shoulders, on the top of her head, on her chest and a little near her hips. Her skin looks quite sore and dry (not just where the hair loss is, but all over), and we noticed a little cut in one of the hairless patches on her back where she must have scratched herself. She doesn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort, and she's still eating/drinking/playing normally except we have noticed her getting tired a little faster when playing out of her cage. She is around a year and a half old though so I'm not sure if she's just getting a little tired as she's getting older.
We took her to the vets around 2 weeks ago when we noticed her fur thinning and the vet we saw thought it was either mites or old age, so she gave us a mite treatment and told us to come back if it got worse.
The treatment didn't seem to help at all and Beau's fur was continuing to fall out, her skin looked a bit worse than before and we noticed the little cut she had on her back. We took her back to the vets yesterday and the vet had no idea what the problem was. She doesn't think it's mites because the treatment made no different and the hair loss isn't in the usual areas for mites. She also put Beau under a lamp to look for signs of ringworm and everything looked fine. She didn't seem to think the hair loss would be so quick if it was merely down to old age. She did mention skin cancer as a possibility, but at the moment Beau doesn't seem to be in any distress and she's still very lively so she wasn't sure about that either. In the end, we left with antibiotics just in case she has an infection (which the vet also thought was unlikely).
I know there are lots of very knowledgable hamster owners on this forum and was just wondering if anyone had any ideas? I was also wondering if there is anything I can put on her bald patches to help if its sore for her?

Annie.

Edit: I forgot to mention that she does seem a little thinner to me, and between the first and second vets appointment she went from 211g to 205g, though the first time we visited the vets she had her pouches full of food so the vet estimated 211g accounting for the food.

Last edited by JOYRIDING; 08-16-2017 at 03:41 PM.
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