Completely at a loss

[Wetherill]

My Lionel is five— I made a post the other month that I had woken up to him in a mess of soft, misshapen feces. Everything has been crazy since then. He has been eating, drinking and playing, but once his feces regulated they became very dry, and his weight has been dropping. He has been to the vet many times— where multiple vets have made attempts on multiple occasions to draw blood, to no avail, as Lionel struggles too much and they do not want to put him in harm or serious distress. I have been told putting him under to draw blood would be a poor idea due to his old(er) age. He has had a urinalysis and I was told that the urine was watered down, but no other issues were apparent. He has been through 3 different antibiotics and I am adding critical care onto his daily diet (hay/pellets/veg) and his weight still does not seem to rise. He feels thin. If this was not bad enough, just earlier I went into my room to find him straining and squeaking trying to pass feces, which are— once again, misshapen, for the first time since the other month. Since then they’ve just been dry.

I do not know what to do. Three different vets attempted to draw blood but none have succeeded and I am a college student who really cannot afford to see many more vets. I am really struggling here. This is my best buddy. Any ideas what this could be?

 

[Claire W]

Hi, I am very sorry about your boy. Diluted urine and weight loss could be kidney disease but it could also be something else.

Have you taken him of fresh veg to see if that helps with his poos?

Guinea pigs are often sedated when blood is drawn as it can be a distressing process

 

[Free Ranger]

Hi, my old boar gets impaction which leads to difficulty pooping and he has to be helped. It sounds like your boy could have something more significant if he is losing weight but I can't offer any more ideas as to what that might be. I've never had 'bloods' done at a vet... over 15 pigs. It's not routine here in the UK unless there is something very specific a specialist is looking for.

In George's case sometimes a large mass of misshapen poops bound together with softer caecotrophs appears in his cage. Sometimes this can be about the size of a wine cork! The waste poops are misshapen because they are trying to squeeze around whatever mass is bunging him up at the time. He gets checked and unbunged every night but he is able to keep himself clean. He also has arthritis and I reckon the two things came on at the same time. Does your boy get impacted? It's important to know because poop form and regularity are such an important indicator of piggy health that any disturbance rings alarm bells - and yet for old boys like George his baseline of 'normal' is very different to my other pigs.

I flip George each evening and gently feel around his bottom. Usually there are 2 or 3 poops emerging at the same time (I'm not sure the doors are ever fully closed!) but I can also feel something brewing - like a big marble - just behind, if that makes any sense. A little warm water and a few kind words helps while we gently manipulate this out and he's ready for company again. I was just thinking that if your boy was getting impacted on top of whether else he has going on the symptoms might be getting put down to one thing when it's actually another?