Crystals in urine😔

[RosieLily]

Very upset!

Today we found out both Lily and Rosie have a large amount of crystals in their urine - luckily no stones. We hope to flush them out asap, the pigs will be receiving more watery veg and I’ll give them extra C-vitamin on the side. They will also be getting a dose of painkiller per day.

My vet mentioned adding 100% natural cranberry juice to their water (1/10 ratio), has anyone ever tried it?

 

[Piggies&buns]

Cranberry juice is not something we recommend using for guinea pigs - it doesn’t work for them like it can do for people so is very outdated advice. Plus it is too sugary for guinea pigs.

 

[RosieLily]

Should I cut out their pellets completely for now? They both get 1 tablespoon per day as of now.

 

[Free Ranger]

I can't advise as to the pellets but wanted to say I'm sorry and suggest that to encourage drinking I added more water bottles and put the spouts close to the hideys so the piggies can hide as they drink. When Zara was overdoing the pellets and starting to get gritty white pee this helped us a lot. I have 3 water bottles for each pair of guinea pigs (and use low Calcium water).

 

[RosieLily]

I can't advise as to the pellets but wanted to say I'm sorry and suggest that to encourage drinking I added more water bottles and put the spouts close to the hideys so the piggies can hide as they drink. When Zara was overdoing the pellets and starting to get gritty white pee this helped us a lot. I have 3 water bottles for each pair of guinea pigs (and use low Calcium water).

May I ask, how long did it take for your piggy to get better? I hate seeing my pigs in pain, can't wait for it to be over :/

 

[Free Ranger]

Whenever we've had pain when peeing it's always been a bacterial infection and we've always needed antibiotics to cure it.

Some pigs in the past have had stones but this has been in addition to the infection (- all piggies pee out their excess calcium so to see some white in patches of urine is 'normal' - when you get too much it can cause problems. I'm not sure what he means by 'crystals' - this is beyond our experience. I had an older boar who needed surgery for a painful stone. Sadly he didn't make it. My girls with stones have either passed them or had them 'extracted' (ouch)

Did he rule out infection? I think they can test urine samples but tbh my vet hands over the antibiotic as a first step... then we see how we go after that.

 

[RosieLily]

Whenever we've had pain when peeing it's always been a bacterial infection and we've always needed antibiotics to cure it.

Some pigs in the past have had stones but this has been in addition to the infection (- all piggies pee out their excess calcium so to see some white in patches of urine is 'normal' - when you get too much it can cause problems. I'm not sure what he means by 'crystals' - this is beyond our experience. I had an older boar who needed surgery for a painful stone. Sadly he didn't make it. My girls with stones have either passed them or had them 'extracted' (ouch)

Did he rule out infection? I think they can test urine samples but tbh my vet hands over the antibiotic as a first step... then we see how we go after that.

My vet got a urine sample from Lily, put it under a microscope and said it was gritty and had many many crystals in it. Had I not caught it early on, they would've turned into stones eventually.

No talk about infections with my vet though.. What's weird to me is that when peeing they never cry, only when passing poop. Or is that normal? At first they went in for an x-ray but it showed no bloat or stones, that's when the urine sample was taken.

So currently they are on anti-inflammatory pain meds and that's it.

 

[Free Ranger]

With mine I first notice pain when peeing - they hunch in pain and hold very still, then do quiet squeaks or 'chirps' while they go because it is hurting them. They end up with wet bottoms much of the time (boars are wet underneath on the tummy area) because they leak urine. They try to hold it in because the peeing hurts so there is some dribbling much of the time. White pigs show this up easily as a 'dirty' back end. If infection is advanced or a stone is involved there is usually blood there too, turning the pee pink. Pain when pooping is not something I noticed although both sometimes happen at the same time so perhaps I wasn't very observant. They hide their illness very well but they can't hide the incontinence so a wet and smelly back end has always been an obvious sign something is wrong.

If they have a lot of grit and the urethra tube is inflamed this might cause pooping pain as the poops move past it. The food pellets do contain a lot of calcium that can cause this grit and some people live in areas where the water has a lot of calcium which is why the forum recommends max 1 tablespoon of pellets per pig per day and the use of a water filter to remove as much calcium as possible (I use bottled water with low Ca). I saw this myself when Zara went pellet crazy over a new type that we'd got and her pees became very thick and sludgy... but even then she didn't seem to have any pain and stayed dry at the back. She's the dominant girl and she was eating both her share and her friend's too, but she's calmed down now. I still find faint white patches from all the pigs but the two dominant ones are worst and it's likely because they're first at the food.

 

[RosieLily]

UPDATE

In case anybody comes across this thread with the same issue, here's my update!

We went to the vet yesterday for check up and the girls are doing well! They've been getting tons of cucumber, I leave their veg wet in general, I also put C-vitamin in their water bottles and gave them even more water (mixed with the tiniest bit of critical care) with a syringe, as much as they took, which was plenty!

I see the white calcium spots on their fleece, so it's all flushing out nicely. They will be having another check up in a month, just in case

 

[Free Ranger]

I'm so happy to hear your Good News update! Well done ladies!