GliderCENTRAL

Bald spot on baby's head?

Posted By: Anonymous

Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 02:31 PM

Hi everyone!

I had a question. The joey that I am hand raising (mom rejected her) seems to have a bald spot on her head. No she is not a male and you can see it in the picture that I have attached. Anyone have any idea what might have caused this? She had some fur there when she first came out, but now there is none. Looks like it could be growing back very faint.

Attached picture 8495-gliders038.jpg
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 02:39 PM

wow i have never seen that. some one with more experiance will be along shortly. Hopefully it is nothin bad
Posted By: Holly1221

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 03:03 PM

i would think from looking at the pic that maybe Momma or Daddy was over-grooming her. but i'm not sure. let 1 of the baby experts answer your question.. smile sorry i couldn't help more
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 09:20 PM

26 looks 2 posts? I want to know now too
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 09:25 PM

looks like some overgrooming to me. or maybe just a slow hair-grower...like some human babies don't grow hair until years after birth.
Posted By: sugarglidersuz

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 09:34 PM

Actually, this is a very common thing to have occur when hand-raising a joey. In fact, it may get much worse before it gets better. What is actually happening is that her skin is getting too dry from not having the humidity of her mother's pouch, so when the skin flakes off, the fur comes with it and leaves the hand-raised joey with bald spots. In can get very extreme. There are steps you can take to help prevent it from getting worse:
1) Add a damp washcloth to the bottom of the incubator every 6-8 hours (at the very bottom layer underneath the fleece blankies) - this will add humidity to the incubator to replicate the humidity of the mother's pouch.
2) Buy Vitamin E capsules, poke open the end of one with a pin and then squeeze a small drop of the oil onto your fingertip and rub it into the dry skin.
HTH
FYI, here's a couple pictures of my Sugar when I was hand-raising her... The first picture is when it was at its worst frown (see attachments)


Attached picture 8502-004Sugar.jpg
Attached picture 8503-023Sugareatsonherownrdc.JPG
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Bald spot on baby's head? - 05/08/07 10:27 PM

We have had this happen with a few orphand/rejected jeoys, but with us its stress related. We don't use a cage for small babies (they stay one 24/7) and when it comes time to introduce them to the cage they would over groom. Now we start intros to the cage at an earlier age, even if its just for a 10 minutes period of time. So far it seems to be less stressful for them and has helped with the last 2 babies we have raised who didn't have a glider mom or dad.
Angie
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