Large chunk of hair missing

[feistychins]

Hi Everyone,

I have a female that overnight has had a large spot of hair missing. Now before you even think it, Fungus is NOT the problem, so please expand your thoughts beyond that.

I would actually like the opinions of the breeders on here because of her history. I rescued her the end of December last year with her son. She had two pregnancies with the previous people in which the first litter died. The people told me she would not product milk and they had no clue how to hand feed. They allowed her to become pregnant again and once again, all but one of the kits died (her son which I have). Somewhere along the way her male companion passed, don't know why or when.

They had her living with her son who was about 1 year at the time I rescued them. Shortly after she was here, she gave birth to two kits. Her son is the father and has been neutered. She was pregnant when I got her. Both kits are healthy and since I supplemented her, she took great care of them and both are doing well.

After the kits were about 1 month old, the mom had a seizure in which she was in a daze and when I picked her up, she was starting to twist her head. I gave her liquid calcium and dextrose. Within 15 minutes she was alert and steady on her feet. She had this happen again (not to the extent as the first one), about a couple weeks later and again I did the same thing and she was fine. She has had no problems since and that was about three months ago.

She has recently lost some weight, but has a good appetite. Just today, she suddenly has this hair loss, but seems fine. It looks like fur slip, but it is a large area. The skin is perfectly healthy, smooth with no irritation at all.

Would something from her pregnancies still be affecting her or causing a loss of nutrients? Her teeth are nice and orange and she gets Oxbow pellets and hay.

She is going to the vet tommorow, but I wanted to see if I could get a general idea what may be wrong before then.

 

[feistychins]

Sorry picture is so large, but at least you can see what I am talking about.

 

[Tanya]

Is there any chance that someone could try to take her out of the cage or something when you did not see? Maybe it happened due to rough handling or something scared her.
I do not see the picture (it says image has been moved or deleted), fur loss can be caused by hormonal imbalance, vitamin B deficiency. What color is her poo ( brown or darker?). Maybe tannins cause the problem. Adding vitamin C can help then.

 

[feistychins]

Sorry, I deleted the picture and did not realize it.

No one has handled her except me. She had a bath the day before yesterday and was fine. She always faces the back of the cage when she eats, so her back is completely visiable and as of very late last night her fur was fine.

Her poop is brown, a little on the lite sided color this morning. I wondered about a hormonal imbalance since she had such trouble with her pregnancies. What effect would tannins have? I can easily give her Vit. C.

Here is the photo.

 

[Parkerspetchins]

Wow, that's a huge patch of fur for a fur slip but that is what it looks like because of the way it came out right down to the skin. Perhaps she spooked herself (or heard a noise) and slipped the fur. Is she in with her son who is neutered still? They could have had a skirmish...It looks like fur slip to me. I'm not sure a vet is needed and may cause her further stress. You are sure it isn't fungus so I am not sure what a vet could do. I know how chin savvy you are so you would know best but I'm not sure I would go the vet route. Where did she encounter tannins, from Oak?

 

[feistychins]

I don't give my chins oak. I'm not sure about the tannins, that's why I was asking how that could be an issue; what part it would play in loosing fur. It looks exactly like fur slip, but such a large spot.

It has just thrown me and I keep peeking in on her to make sure she is eating.

If it was a hormonal imbalance, how do you check for that and how do you resolve it?

 

[Tanya]

Poo is brown (tannins color the stools from deep brown to black).So, I doubt it's tannins.
Some wood, nuts, legumes, sunflower meal, rose petals, some unripe stuff, etc contain them. But I forgot to ask about urine color, it should be yellow most of the time and only occasionally reddish/orange. As orange/red urine can mean excretion of phenolics. Tannins can also cause vitamin B deficiency, iron deficiency.Chins who get significant amount of tannins chew fur trying to get more protein.
Tannins modify proteins structure and make them resistant to digestion (chin moms unable to produce milk). Vitamin C neutralizes some of tannin's effects, especially effecting iron absorption.
So, maybe she just got scared?
I would just monitor her to see if it gets worse.

 

[feistychins]

I don't give my chins any of the things you mentioned and her urine is normal color. It does not look like the fur is chewed and this literally happened over night.

I just checked my records and the litter she had here was born in March, so it has been 5 months. It seems if there was a hormonal imbalance it would have shown itself by now.

 

[Tanya]

I think most likely something just scared her and she slipped the fur.

 

[Cuddlebug]

I agree. It looks like a really large fur slip. I have a girl who slipped a similar amount of fur once when she got spooked. It looked just like that. I saw it happen, so I knew what caused the bald spot.

 

[feistychins]

Well I took your advice and did not take her to the vet. She is acting normal and eating. She is a mellow girl so I have no clue why she would slip such a large amount of fur. I'm going to keep a close eye on her just to make sure everything remains ok.

If she had not had health issues with pregnancies and seizures, I most likely would not have worried so much.