I will start this post with a DISCLAIMER: If you suspect that your guinea pig is passing abnormally coloured urine (discounting obvious dietary discolouration e.g. beetroot), I strongly advise a visit to the vet asap.
I have kept guineas for many years and unfortunately have come across a couple who have suffered and unfortunately succumbed to bladder stones. Therefore I am very vigilant. I keep my pigs on a low Calcium diet and give them Oxbow Urinary health biscuits everyday - Strawberry is so cute - she comes up to me every morning and begs for her biscuit
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I adopted Strawberry and Pebble last year and they are quite young (2.5 years). I noticed from the start that they they have a load of sludge in their wee. I also have Primrose who is almost 8 (a re-homed brood sow) - she has never done sludgy wee.
About a year ago, Strawberry passed some very red, clearly bloody wee. She was in no discomfort and I took it upon myself to just flush her out with lots of cucumber and celery and it worked. I reckoned that it tied in with when I decided to give her a high calcium treat about a week before - I think it was dandelion leaves. This has happened since a couple of times and I can work back to giving them a naughty high calcium treat. Again, no sign of suffering or straining so I flushed her out with watery veggies
So a couple of weeks’ ago Pebble started to do patches of bloody wee and because she hadn’t done it before, I took her to the vet. This was a really educational and really helpful experience that I would like to share with you.
I explained their history (and Strawberry’s bloody wee experiences). He said firstly that I had done absolutely the right thing with Strawberry - to flush out the bladder. He explained that (and this is exactly what was happening with Pebble), they can do a really big nice wee and then a small, bloody wee comes out due to gravity of the fluids in the bladder. He gave Pebble a really good examination but obviously said that he couldn’t rule anything out. But he suspected viral cystitis - top tip - as he told me, bacterial cystitis will make your piggie’s wee smell really bad - he said like a mixture of cat wee and rotting cabbage.
This vet also gave me some amazing tips. I had always thought thought that porphyrine discoloured wee was associated with really young pigs but he said that was not necessarily the case - it can happen with older ones too. He showed me an IV torch with which you can check for porphyrine in urine (just bought one on Amazon!). But better than that, he said that if you can get your piggie to pee on a diagnostic test strip if you are worried about blood in the urine - just buy a pack of them - he was so refreshingly honest. He said that the test strips cost pennies, you are just paying for vet time.
Regarding the viral cystitis, I’ve had so many vets over the years blanket prescribing Baytril. This vet’s advice? Lots of cucumber, celery and watermelon - all the things Pebble really hates
NOT!
According to this vet, viral cystitis can last for up to 6 days. Symptoms to look out for are a healthy wee followed about 5mins later by a small patch of bright red wee. Pebble was over it after 5 days.
Things to obviously be concerned about are nasty smelling wee, straining, grunting, hunching up and crying - vet asap then!
I hope that this has been helpful.
I have kept guineas for many years and unfortunately have come across a couple who have suffered and unfortunately succumbed to bladder stones. Therefore I am very vigilant. I keep my pigs on a low Calcium diet and give them Oxbow Urinary health biscuits everyday - Strawberry is so cute - she comes up to me every morning and begs for her biscuit
. I adopted Strawberry and Pebble last year and they are quite young (2.5 years). I noticed from the start that they they have a load of sludge in their wee. I also have Primrose who is almost 8 (a re-homed brood sow) - she has never done sludgy wee.
About a year ago, Strawberry passed some very red, clearly bloody wee. She was in no discomfort and I took it upon myself to just flush her out with lots of cucumber and celery and it worked. I reckoned that it tied in with when I decided to give her a high calcium treat about a week before - I think it was dandelion leaves. This has happened since a couple of times and I can work back to giving them a naughty high calcium treat. Again, no sign of suffering or straining so I flushed her out with watery veggies
So a couple of weeks’ ago Pebble started to do patches of bloody wee and because she hadn’t done it before, I took her to the vet. This was a really educational and really helpful experience that I would like to share with you.
I explained their history (and Strawberry’s bloody wee experiences). He said firstly that I had done absolutely the right thing with Strawberry - to flush out the bladder. He explained that (and this is exactly what was happening with Pebble), they can do a really big nice wee and then a small, bloody wee comes out due to gravity of the fluids in the bladder. He gave Pebble a really good examination but obviously said that he couldn’t rule anything out. But he suspected viral cystitis - top tip - as he told me, bacterial cystitis will make your piggie’s wee smell really bad - he said like a mixture of cat wee and rotting cabbage.
This vet also gave me some amazing tips. I had always thought thought that porphyrine discoloured wee was associated with really young pigs but he said that was not necessarily the case - it can happen with older ones too. He showed me an IV torch with which you can check for porphyrine in urine (just bought one on Amazon!). But better than that, he said that if you can get your piggie to pee on a diagnostic test strip if you are worried about blood in the urine - just buy a pack of them - he was so refreshingly honest. He said that the test strips cost pennies, you are just paying for vet time.
Regarding the viral cystitis, I’ve had so many vets over the years blanket prescribing Baytril. This vet’s advice? Lots of cucumber, celery and watermelon - all the things Pebble really hates
NOT!According to this vet, viral cystitis can last for up to 6 days. Symptoms to look out for are a healthy wee followed about 5mins later by a small patch of bright red wee. Pebble was over it after 5 days.
Things to obviously be concerned about are nasty smelling wee, straining, grunting, hunching up and crying - vet asap then!
I hope that this has been helpful.
