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Baby Guinea pig on antibiotic stopped eating! Need help ASAP!

R

Rudra Chouhan

New Born Pup
Joined
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Location
Jaipur, India
Gave my baby guinea pig 18 days old, 155 g, baytril as recommended by vet and internet users(due to uti).I was giving him baytril with poop soup after 1 hour. But i have found he whas stopped eating and producing some dry and yellow poops. I have been giving him cucumber, tomato and capsicum in grinded in liquid form through syringe, and vitamin c supplement but i am afraid. I think he has also stopped eating hay. What should i do now, I need help as there is no experienced vet in my city. He was crying less while wheeing but less But day before there was some red wee too. Please help fast.
 
Hay fibre is the most important part of the diet and if a piggy stops eating it is that which you need to replace. Their diet is 80% hay and veg is only 15% so veg through a syringe will not replace his food intake enough.
Do you feed him a plain guinea pig pellet? If you do, then mush the pellets with water and syringe that slurry to him. It contains the fibre his gut needs to keep functioning.
Do you have access to fibre rich recovery feeds such as Oxbow Critical Care? If so, then that is the beset thing to be syringe feeding to him.
Make sure you use a kitchen scale and weigh him once a day so you can monitor his weight and therefore whether he is getting enough food to keep his weight stable.

This guide explains further

All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

Weight - Monitoring and Management
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Gave my baby guinea pig 18 days old, 155 g, baytril as recommended by vet and internet users(due to uti).I was giving him baytril with poop soup after 1 hour. But i have found he whas stopped eating and producing some dry and yellow poops. I have been giving him cucumber, tomato and capsicum in grinded in liquid form through syringe, and vitamin c supplement but i am afraid. I think he has also stopped eating hay. What should i do now, I need help as there is no experienced vet in my city. He was crying less while wheeing but less But day before there was some red wee too. Please help fast.
Click to expand...

Hi

You need to syringe feed fibre because hay makes three quarters of what guinea pig eat. Do you have access to guinea pig pellets you can soak in water? Otherwise try a little baby feed without potatoes; it is not ideal but likely the best you may be able to access.

Please do not give the poo soup together with the antibiotic; that will kill it off. You need to give it either an hour before or two hour afterwards.

Because of the small size of your baby, be very careful that nothing is going down into the lungs. Medicating babies when they are ill so young and still so very fragile and - to be honest - should still be with their mother and have the benefit of her milk, you are sadly very much up against the odds. All you can do is try your best.

Not your fault, so please don't beat yourself up. You have been handed a very difficult task.

All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Hand rearing and support feeding orphans and tiny babies
 
I'm so sorry your baby piggy is unwell. Good luck with the syringe feeding. I hope they start to feel better soon. I’m sending healing vibes your way. ❤️
 
I've no advice to offer, but just wanted to offer my support. It's exhausting looking after a sick piggy. I hope he gets better soon
 
Thank you for all the advise
As I live in India and there are not much owners of guinea pig. Here we don't have supplies for guinea pig like Critical care or pellets. So please please tell another option for fibre as he is not eating hay, he is with his mum and drink the milk But he seems weaker than the other baby.
I am thinking of switching to Bactrim, I am confused as can we give the human Bactrim to them as the proportion of ingredients are the same like 200mg sulfamethoxazole and 40mg trimethoprim per 5 ml. Check this link Bactrim Suspension 50 ml Price, Uses, Side Effects, Composition - Apollo Pharmacy Or tell any other medicine from this site. Please also tell how should i give him bactrim like mixed in liquid or just how it is.
Thank you all for the help
 
Gave my baby guinea pig 18 days old, 155 g, baytril as recommended by vet and internet users(due to uti).I was giving him baytril with poop soup after 1 hour. But i have found he whas stopped eating and producing some dry and yellow poops. I have been giving him cucumber, tomato and capsicum in grinded in liquid form through syringe, and vitamin c supplement but i am afraid. I think he has also stopped eating hay. What should i do now, I need help as there is no experienced vet in my city. He was crying less while wheeing but less But day before there was some red wee too. Please help fast.
As I live in India and there are not much owners of guinea pig. Here we don't have supplies for guinea pig like Critical care or pellets. So please please tell another option for fibre as he is not eating hay, he is with his mum and drink the milk But he seems weaker than the other baby.
I am thinking of switching to Bactrim, I am confused as can we give the human Bactrim to them as the proportion of ingredients are the same like 200mg sulfamethoxazole and 40mg trimethoprim per 5 ml. Check this link Bactrim Suspension 50 ml Price, Uses, Side Effects, Composition - Apollo Pharmacy Or tell any other medicine from this site. Please also tell how should i give him bactrim like mixed in liquid or just how it is.
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Gave my baby guinea pig 18 days old, 155 g, baytril as recommended by vet and internet users(due to uti).I was giving him baytril with poop soup after 1 hour. But i have found he whas stopped eating and producing some dry and yellow poops. I have been giving him cucumber, tomato and capsicum in grinded in liquid form through syringe, and vitamin c supplement but i am afraid. I think he has also stopped eating hay. What should i do now, I need help as there is no experienced vet in my city. He was crying less while wheeing but less But day before there was some red wee too. Please help fast.
As I live in India and there are not much owners of guinea pig. Here we don't have supplies for guinea pig like Critical care or pellets. So please please tell another option for fibre as he is not eating hay, he is with his mum and drink the milk But he seems weaker than the other baby.
I am thinking of switching to Bactrim, I am confused as can we give the human Bactrim to them as the proportion of ingredients are the same like 200mg sulfamethoxazole and 40mg trimethoprim per 5 ml. Check this link Bactrim Suspension 50 ml Price, Uses, Side Effects, Composition - Apollo Pharmacy Or tell any other medicine from this site. Please also tell how should i give him bactrim like mixed in liquid or just how it is.
Click to expand...

Hi
Antibiotics can badly ffect the gut microbiome in some piggies, especially frailer ones with a weaker microbiome like your baby that has been separated from his mother too early; so they need feeding support.

I am merging this thread with your others on the same ongoing case. You will find all the advice in there. At this stage, it doesn't matter so much whether you switch the antibiotic brand (you can ask your vet if you wish to) because the appetite won't come back quickly. It takes a while for the gut microbiome to recover, or in the case of the baby, for the microbiome to build up fully.

You need to feed preferably hay/grass based fibrous food because you are mainly replacing the hay fibre that makes about three quarters of the daily food intake and keep the veg to preferably leafy and green. Try fresh herbs like coriander/cilantro. Veg only replaces the role of supplementary wild forage in the guinea pig diet. It is not their main food.
You monitor the weight of an ill piggy by weighing daily at teh same time on the kitchen scales.

Here are the practical how-to links to our illness support information again:
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures (including advice on loss of appetite, weight monitoring and improvisation tips)

PS: I am merging all your threads. Please bookmark the thread or find it again by looking through our Health/Illness section (white field) or pick it up via the Find Threads/your thread button by the top bar, when you expand it with the three horizontal lines icon. Thank you.

PLEASE keep all your questions to your single support threat in order to avoid confusion and contradictory advice. We are not part of social media but as none of us is around all the time or able to read everything, we rely on your cooperation to keep all relevant information to a single ongoing support thread. Our personalised support can only be as good as you cooperation.
 
Thank you for your advise
I wanted to ask if there is any home made recipe for pellets or any other thing through which i can provide him hay, because of all your whishes he has started to eat some hay but i dont think its enough so if you can suggest any recipe it would be great help.
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Thank you for your advise
I wanted to ask if there is any home made recipe for pellets or any other thing through which i can provide him hay, because of all your whishes he has started to eat some hay but i dont think its enough so if you can suggest any recipe it would be great help.
Click to expand...

When they aren’t eating enough hay, then you syringe feed either mushed pellets or a recovery feed.
Do you normally feed a dried food to your piggies? A plain guinea pig pellet?
Do you have/can you get some Oxbow Critical Care? This is a recovery feed for poorly piggies
 
Actually the pellets are not available in my country nor does critical care. So i am asking for a homemade recipe to provide fibre.
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Actually the pellets are not available in my country not does critical care. So i am asking for a homemade recipe to provide fibre.
Click to expand...

Ok, just wanted to check what you had access to.
I wouldn’t think anybody has any recipe as pellets and recovery feeds are a commercially available product here and not something we can really replicate

It sounds as if syringing the puréed vegetables is all you can do but you need to make sure he has lots of hay available to him as well.
 
Yeah thanks, he has a lot of hay with him and try to feed him hay on my lap so he is eating a lil bit, but sometimes he is having some yellow poops. Which i think is because of lack of hay.
 
I’ve not heard of it but I’ve just had a look online and if it is the same one, then it’s not great. It’s grain and alfalfa based (which isn’t ideal) but most problematic is that it seems to contains milk so should not be given

It might be that it’s all you can give though
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Hey i have found that pellets of company boltz are available, are they good? If you know by any chance
Click to expand...

They are rabbit pellets and are therefore not enriched with vitamin C (rabbits make their own vitamin C while guinea pigs don't) but they are better than pureed baby veg and any other mixed feed; they are based on wheat and alfalfa meal so not great but closer to grass hay than vegetable puree.
Soak them in some warm water and try to feed the resulting paste from a spoon. If your baby makes it through, they can had 1 tablespoon daily for the rest of their life with extra vitamin C from you.

Please use a tiny bit (less than 1/8 of a tablet, which a grown piggy will need daily if you haven't go access to vitamin C enriched guinea pig pellets) of a human vitamin C tablet and give that additionally once daily. If your baby is still eating on their own, then mix some into the pellet paste, otherwise give it dissolved with a spoon of veg puree.
 
Rudra Chouhan said:
Thank you for answering, I am ordering this https://www.amazon.in/Boltz-Guinea-Nutritionist-Choice-Certified/dp/B07NGP157H/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2ORZ8K1GDEWDB&keywords=guinea+pig+accessories&qid=1652205626&sprefix=guinea+pi,aps,749&sr=8-5 by tomorrow after permission from my parents. I am regularly giving him vitamin c supplement meant for animals. Till the time pellets will come i am giving him hay grinded with veggies and simply too.
Click to expand...

Still give him ground hay since the pellets will not contribute to grinding down the crucial chewing teeth at the back of the mouth as the pellets do not contain the amount of silica needed but they will hopefully make easier feeding support in order to get your little boy through the crisis while he is off appetite.

In the long term, pellets are the part of the diet that can be left out and that should only be fed in a small measure as they mostly contain empty fillers. But it is good for you to have access to pellets that you can turn into feeding support.

Could you do some research into probiotics for herbivores or vegetarians in your country to help build up the gut microbiome?

All the best!
 
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