Scaly skin patches on a robo

[kyrilliondaemon]

Hi all
Skip our male robo has always had a bald leg with a small lump on it, he's seen a vet and thats fine. Now however we've noticed that his front left leg has a patch now completely bald and slightly scaly. He also has a patch roughly where his left shoulder joins his neck and thats either bald or sparsely furred, again with scaly skin.
His leg-fur is always sparse, but bald is new for his uninjured legs. His skin appearing scaly is also new.

He has had a few changes this month, with a cage upgrade (mini-duna to ZZ2), substrate change (woodshavings to aubiose), a few new toys (wooden houses, sputnik, hammock and hay tunnel), and the diet has finally completed the switch from P@H food to other mixes, but it started changing a few months ago. He also tried some Trill budgie food recently. I know its a lot of changes but they have been spread out and he seemed to do fine with each step. Am listing them now incase one is likely to have caused this.

As a rescue we can't be sure of his age, but our guess puts him at about 13 months.

We're going to get him out and do our best to have a good look at him later, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about what this could be?

I'm thinking it may be a reaction to the aubiose, but thats entirely because its the change most likely to have triggered a problem. I don't really know much, hence asking here.
I can and will get him to a vet if needed (we can see one by 10am tomorrow if needs be) but wanted to ask here before rushing out to see one, especially since I'm wondering if the cage substrate caused it in which case a vet can't help.

Thanks for any comments, and I'm sorry this is so long but I wanted to include everything I could think of to try and reduce the questions everyone will need to ask before answering.

[fluffymunchkins]

Robos can get cushings, so thats worth considering as a possibility.
I would reccommend trying Tea tree cream, its really helped my Treo who has ongoing skin problems x

[kyrilliondaemon]

Meep, he has lost a tiny amount of fur from his back actually... Looked really bad and had me worried, but then it seemed to mostly heal and now is just a tiny bit of loss.

Right, will get some other opinions (mostly because I'd prefer to get more before letting myself get too worried over this) but yeah, I'm going to go redo my cushings research and may be heading to the vets in the morning.

Thanks for the comment on the tea tree cream though Fortunately Skip is our robo most interested in humans so if we get some he may just about let us apply it.

[souffle]

I don't really know what this could be caused by. Certainly an allergy to the aubiose could be the problem. It could also be age or hormonal related but unless it is mites which seems unlikely going by the symptoms it isn't going to be treatable I don't think.
It would be worth changing the bedding again I guess. I have heard of cases where dwarfs get ringworm which seems to present like this but I can't imagine he could catch this especially if nobody else has symptoms.
The vet could do a skin scrape and light test but he sounds very tiny to put through this.
I think I might try the bedding change first but you know him best. Hope it is nothing x

[kyrilliondaemon]

Right, he's going off the aubiose tonight then lol
We've got a load of woodshavings still because we use them for Scamp's burrowing bit so we'll change him back later. I did guess/hope it might be, so yeah, we'll go change him back to the shavings soon - we know those don't bother him.
As its unlikely to be treatable then we probably won't rush to a vet until hes had some time back on those for us to see if they help the situation.

And no, no other hams have symptoms and we've seen all of them close up today. I also doubt its mites as there is nowhere he could have picked it up.

Age or hormones make sense though, especially given the slight fur loss on his back. I had been thinking he may be starting to age, even if he hasn't noticed yet lol

Oh and even if he does see a vet it would mostly be for the opinion. He's tiny even for a robo so we'd never want to put him through tests when chances are nothing can be done.
For now its hope its an allergy and change his substrate back, then if that doesn't sort it we'll get a vets opinion but will just do our best to make sure it doesn't bother him at all.

Thanks for all the help, even without concrete answers (which I didn't expect lol), I do really appreciate that you've both tried to help.

[Pompompoms]

One of my boys Whizzbit is allergic to pine shavings, and lost all his leg hair, plus the hair on the side by his bum that he sleeps on, and also quite a bit on him tummy. A change to carefresh totally got rid of it, and he was fluffier than ever. He's on megazorb now as everyone is, but I'm keeping a very close eye on him ready to switch him back if needed.

The leg hair does go when they get older with their little old man legs, but not till they really are little old men.

With the mites, they carry mites all the time, but when something happens such as an allergy or an illness the mites can activate and multiply making the hams itchy and sometimes resulting in more hair loss. Whizzbit's mites went out of control with his allergy, then when I realised the cause and fixed it, they totally calmed down again not to resurface.

Good luck, and I hope he's got his fluff back soon

[kyrilliondaemon]

Thanks Pompompoms. I'm sorry Whizzbit has the allergy but hearing about it was quite reassuring, I can't know as much as I'd like yet as right now I have a syrian on my lap, but Skip is out next and now I won't panic as much if I see he's lost all his belly fur.

And yeah I knew his leg fur would go when he gets old, it was more the scaly patch that worried me. (I can't use his age for any judgements as realistically his estimate may be months out for all we know, its why fur loss wouldn't make me worry too much without other symptoms.)

Thanks for explaining the mites thing too, I'd forgotten that they're always there so its good to be reminded. I've spent hours doing pet research so that if they ever developed issues I'd be able to be sure about it all, apparently the next step is to make sure I remember it when someone starts showing signs lol

So yeah, thanks for everything you said.

[Pompompoms]

Ah, it's easy to remember things when our hams aren't going through stuff, I find the extra worry can pickle my brain!

[kyrilliondaemon]

At least its not just me then
Thanks again, we're now off to put Scamp away (after quadruple checking she hasn't got fur loss I missed lol), sort her cage and then Skip gets a major check over and a thorough cage clean.


Edit - Just had a good look at him and his fur is mostly ok. Until now I was relying on what my partner had spotted as Skip had a drink earlier, but he kindly sat in his sandbath and showed us most of his body quite nicely just now.
Looks like its definetly just those patches and they're really small but we'll be keeping a close eye on him over the next few days and if we do see anything it'll be straight onto a complete cage clean. As it is we'll leave him for now since he's kindly refusing to wake for long, but will watch closely and if needed keep him up for a full cage clean soon.

Thanks again for the help all

[racinghamster]

I read on a roborovski webpage not too long ago that robos can have deficiencies that can cause skin and fur problems, so he may have a vitamin deficiency? Something to look at? I use Aubiose for my chinese hamster but I take a load from the sack and air it out in a BIN (de-dust it) a month before using it to make sure there is no fine particles flying about. Having said that though, if you switch back to shavings, you may or may not see an improvement. I found using shavings caused her to sneeze more just because of the aroma shavings give off. Aubiose has a much reduced scent, but it still has one none the less.

The best shavings I have found are Snowflake. No dust (dust extracted properly) and very fluffy flakes, but still benefit from airing long before use.

If there is no irritation, redness or visual scratching, I would rule out mites/lice and look at diet and environment. Research what diet deficiancy in robos would cause skin and fur problems and then add back the vitamin that could help?