• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Cause of liver cirrhosis

Hannah Boyd

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Nov 25, 2014
Messages
280
Reaction score
140
Points
365
Location
Leeds
Hello, one of my lovely girls was put to sleep today with suspected heart failure but post mortem actually discovered liver cirrhosis. What causes liver cirrhosis in guinea pigs? The vet admitted to not knowing much about it in guinea pigs and his best guess was that there was something poisonous in the hay. She shares a pen with 3 others and touch wood no one else seems unwell at all. Is this likely? Any other ideas? Want to make sure my other 4 aren't at risk.
 
I'm very sorry for your loss. Liver disease can have many causes, and often as in many cases a genetic predisposition can be a major factor. Certainly toxins from plants could be one possible cause, but if the liver was visibly cirrhotic then the damage has likely occured over a long period. Many plants that are toxic when fresh are less so when dried anyway. Ragwort is a common hepatotoxic plant. Another source of toxins could be from mouldly hay- aflatoxin from fungi growing on damp hay. Pesticides too.
However, there are also many other things that can cause liver disease aside from toxins- a high calorie diet can certainly contribute, one of my old girls is currently suffering liver failure which personally I think is partly caused by her very poor diet before we adopted her.
But sometimes, organs just become diseased and fail- there are many rare metabolic disorders in most mammals that can stop the liver processing nutrients and medicines and usually harmless environmental toxins correctly.
I'm sorry for your loss, if the vet does suspect poisoning of some kind perhaps they could send urine samples from your surviving piggies to a toxicology lab?
But there is probably no need to be too concerned, hopefully what happened was unrelated to any type of poisoning x
 
Back
Top