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Another day, another visit to the vet

I thought i should just give a little update on Peggy and Dora.

Peggy is moving around a little better and is much brighter. Although i think she may need to have Metacam 3 times a day for the long term. At age 7 i am not as worried about the chance of kidney damage as her quality of life is more important. I think perhaps the upheaval of losing Mavis and then being bonded with two new friends has caused her a lot of stress and then us leaving her with the boarders just pushed her over the edge. We have also realised that as she eats quite slowly she wasn't getting her fair share of the veggies. So we now feed her some veggies and nuggets separately to the youngsters and she has gained 40g in the past 2 weeks.

She seems much happier and has formed a close bond with Rosie. Both the new girls (who are still only 5 months old) seem to be learning from her. It is always fun when i give them something new to eat and they will not touch it until Peggy has eaten it first. The willow branch i put in the cage yesterday caused them to both to run and hide and they only reappeared once Peggy had munched a fair amount of it. Once they realised that it wasn't dangerous a tug-o-war broke out between them. Unfortunately, Peggy has also taught them some bad habits including eating newspaper and bar biting.

We know that Peggy is quite frail but at the moment she still appears to be enjoying life.

Dora has just finished her ABs and is no longer squeaking when she passes urine and the swelling seems to have subsided. So we are hoping that it was a UTI, which has now cleared up. Dora didn't lose any weight and seems as bright as usual. You wouldn't know that she has arthritis. Again, Dora has had a difficult few months, losing her long term friend Ginger Pig and then two bonding attempts before she picked her new friend. It just shows the affect that stress can have on the immune system.

We have our fingers firmly crossed that all the piggies will remain in good health for a while. I am actually worried that writing this will bring disaster upon me after all the bad luck of the past few months.
 
You’ve been through so much, what an ordeal.

That’s good about Dora. Glad Peggy is still living her life as an older lady and leading the others, lol about the bad habits!

Sounds like you have two lovely spirited pigs there!
 
LucyP said:
You’ve been through so much, what an ordeal.

That’s good about Dora. Glad Peggy is still living her life as an older lady and leading the others, lol about the bad habits!

Sounds like you have two lovely spirited pigs there!
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I had forgotten just how noisy young skinny pigs are. They are constantly making some sort of noise. Rosie wheeks so loudly that her ears flap back and forth, it is hilarious to watch. Val is still a little reserved and hides away from us but she does take food from my hand now and no longer screams blue murder when we catch her in the fleecy bag. Slow progress but good that she is less scared.

Belle (Dora's new friend) is still very nervous of us but will now happily come out and eat when we are there. I think she must have been bottom of the pecking order in the large group that she came from. She gained almost 100g in just a few weeks and now has a nice round tummy.
 
Unfortunately this is not the update i was hoping to write. Two weeks after finishing her antibiotics Dora has started to pass blood in her urine again. She is booked in for an x-ray, ultrasound and bloods on Thursday. The piggies just seem to want to keep me in a constant state of worry at the moment.
 
I'm so sorry Yvonne, it never rains but pours :( fingers and paws firmly crossed for Dora here.
 
Oh poor Dora, I’m so sorry she is poorly again. I hope the vets can find out what the problem is, sending hugs :hug:
 
Keeping everything crossed that all goes well for her on Thursday. Bladder problems can be so difficult :(
 
Dora is on her way back from the vets. There was a stone in her urethra which they have managed to remove. She also has a lesion on her liver but at her age (6 years) they are just going to keep an eye on this. I can't believe we have another piggy with a bladder stone. We give a low calcium diet, very few nuggets (they are hay based from Piggie Parcels) and lots of wet leafy vegetables. I just don't know that else to do. Dora is one of our piggies that drinks plenty of water, i often see her drinking when i am working.

Our vet thinks that some bladder stones are age related as older piggies don't move around so much and this gives the stones opportunity to form in the bladder. I'm not sure what i can do to make her move around more, especially as she has arthritis.

My OH has been piggy taxi today as i have this awful summer cold that is going around at the moment. I think he was more upset about the £700 vet bill than anything else.
 
I wish I had something useful to say, you've had a hell of a time with it with the stones recently :( but we can only do so much ourselves, we can't beat out genetics and you know you're doing everything you possibly could.
 
I am sorry @YvonneBlue stones and sludge are a nightmare, you are doing all you can. A vet recently told me that the oldies especially the ones with arthritis are more prone to bladder problems because they don't squat properly, if the angles not right the bladder doesn't empty completely to expel sludge making a build up and stones more likely.
 
Poor Dora, sending loads of healing vibes and hope she recoveries well, she will certainly feel so much more comfortable now. So sorry you have had such a tough time lately, hopefully now, there’ll be no more illness and shocking vet bills :hug:
 
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