Dehydration?

[squeaksandcarrots]

Cocoa has been lightly squeaking when she poops or pees for a couple weeks now. I took her to the vet last week. She said Cocoa looks healthy and didn’t find anything concerning. She believes Cocoa isn’t drinking enough. I noticed last night and today that Cocoa is producing more tear-dropped/pointed poops. I read this is linked to dehydration. I called the vet about the poops and she couldn’t really give an answer as to why she’s now making those poops. Other than the squeaking and weird poops, Cocoa is acting normal. Do you have any advice as to what’s going on or what I can do to help her drink more?

 

[Pretzelpigs]

I f she seems to be drinking from the bottle, I would suggest to give watery veggies. Good luck!

 

[Piggies&buns]

You cannot make them drink more - they will drink as much as they need to and will be getting some water from their veg - and their own need is individual to the piggy. The need to drink comes before the need to eat so they do not purposefully dehydrate themselves.

All you can do is check the bottle is working properly, check the water is always fresh, perhaps add a bowl as well, but otherwise, it is down the piggy

All About Drinking And Bottles

Have you been weighing her weekly as part of routine care? When you have health concerns, you then need to switch
to daily weighing so you can more closely monitor hay intake. Abnormal shaped poops can also be down to reduced food intake, so I’d definitely keep a closer eye on her weight so you can be sure her hay intake is still up. If not, you will need to step in and syringe feed and see a vet.

Not Eating, Weight Loss And The Importance Of Syringe Feeding Fibre

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

You cannot make them drink more - they will drink as much as they need to and will be getting some water from their veg - and their own need is individual to the piggy. The need to drink comes before the need to eat so they do not purposefully dehydrate themselves.

All you can do is check the bottle is working properly, check the water is always fresh, perhaps add a bowl as well, but otherwise, it is down the piggy

All About Drinking And Bottles

Have you been weighing her weekly as part of routine care? When you have health concerns, you then need to switch
to daily weighing so you can more closely monitor hay intake. Abnormal shaped poops can also be down to reduced food intake, so I’d definitely keep a closer eye on her weight so you can be sure her hay intake is still up. If not, you will need to step in and syringe feed and see a vet.

Not Eating, Weight Loss And The Importance Of Syringe Feeding Fibre

Cocoa drinks from a bowl when you mentioned the reduced food intake I made a connection. When I first took Cocoa to the vet she said to reduce her pellets so she will drink more. Maybe that’s the reason she’s making those poops? I want to give her pellets back if that’s the reason

 

[Piggies&buns]

Cocoa drinks from a bowl when you mentioned the reduced food intake I made a connection. When I first took Cocoa to the vet she said to reduce her pellets so she will drink more. Maybe that’s the reason she’s making those poops? I want to give her pellets back if that’s the reason

Hay is the most important part of the diet. Encouraging more hay eating is only ever a good thing so by increasing pellets you run the risk of decreasing hay intake which is very unhealthy for them.
How many pellets are you giving her?

When reduced food intake is mentioned, it always refers to hay intake, not anything else. Veg and pellets are only ever considered as snacks only.

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

Hay is the most important part of the diet. Encouraging more hay eating is only ever a good thing so by increasing pellets you run the risk of decreasing hay intake which is very unhealthy for them.
How many pellets are you giving her?

Very little, nothing like she normally got

 

[Piggies&buns]

Very little is good. Pellets are the least healthy part of the diet and they should only ever have just one tablespoon of pellets per day. Depending on the type of pellets, it amounts to literally just a few grams.
There is no benefit at all in increasing pellets again. Too many pellets can lead to unhealthy weight gain and due to ghe calcium content it can cause bladder problems.
Mine only get half a tablespoon each and even then they only get pellets a few times a week

Routine weekly weighing (daily when there are health concerns) is the only way to check they are eating enough hay, hay being 80% of their daily food intake.
Any weight loss is due to reduced hay intake (never reduced intake of veg and pellets as they are only snacks).

What veg does she have? You can put water on the veg before feeding it to her as that can give them a little extra water but you can’t make her drink more via a bottle or bowl. They take what they need.

If she is still squeaking when toileting, then id get another vet check done

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

I wonder if I gave her too many pellets before and that’s why she’s sequaking when going?
I give her cucumber, green bell pepper, green leaf lettuce, and cilantro.
The vet said our next step would be an ultrasound or fecal sample. I’m a bit hesitant since it costs so much. What confuses me is how Cocoa is overall acting normal but is squeaking and having weirder poops.
Also I just checked her poops and some are still pointed but others look a bit more normal to me.

 

[Siikibam]

If they’re pointed it may be an idea to stop veg until they’re back to normal for at least 24 hours. But the squeaking while toileting needs investigating in any case.

Have you switched to weighing daily and topping up with syringe feed?

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

If they’re pointed it may be an idea to stop veg until they’re back to normal for at least 24 hours. But the squeaking while toileting needs investigating in any case.

Have you switched to weighing daily and topping up with syringe feed?

If they’re pointed it may be an idea to stop veg until they’re back to normal for at least 24 hours. But the squeaking while toileting needs investigating in any case.

Have you switched to weighing daily and topping up with syringe feed?

I don’t have a scale at home but I do have critical care here for syringe feeding. I also wanna add that Cocoa has been eating hay, it’s her favorite food

 

[Piggies&buns]

I don’t have a scale at home but I do have critical care here for syringe feeding. I also wanna add that Cocoa has been eating hay, it’s her favorite food

Its important they are weighed every week as part of routine care, you then switch to daily weighing when there are health concerns. Its important you get some scales, just normal digital kitchen scales are what is needed. You can’t judge hay intake by eye so weighing is the only way to know she is actually eating enough hay. Any drop in weight, signifies reduced hay intake which is when you step in with syringe feeding and see a vet.

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

So to clarify, here’s what I should do, right? Take away veg for at least 24 hours, give very little pellets, and weigh her.
Also here’s a fresh deposit Cocoa made:
Sorry it’s a bit hard to see with the lighting. is there anything else that could be noted from these poops?

 

[Free Ranger]

If I saw those poops in my cages I wouldn't be unduly concerned as they are moist and mostly a good shape. It's the little squeaks I would focus on because piggies don't like to show discomfort... as a prey animal it gives them away.

One of my girls recently had a day or two where her poops were teardrop shaped and I was racking my brains because I thought I hadn't changed their diet at all and the other 3 were normal. Then I realised it wasn't the 'food' it was the bedding. I was trialling aubiose that week in the area where I normally put a bit of newspaper. It turns out that my teardrop poop girl had been supplementing her fibre intake by eating the paper! I knew somebody was ripping it up but didn't realise that removing it would make so much difference... they had a cardboard tunnel in at the time but she didn't chew that. She didn't squeak while pooping - it was just some were a weird shape - like a balloon that wasn't quite inflated. There was plenty of hay around too. When I switched back to the previous set-up a week later everything went back to normal so I'm putting it down to reduced fibre intake... in her case just paper fibre!

Mine get pellets and the bowl is next to a water bottle. I notice that when they are at the bowl chewing they will often take a swig at the bottle to wash everything down. There is a bottle next to the hay pile also but that is used much less (you can tell by how much the level drops). Perhaps your girl is still trying to find her balance between fibre intake and water intake. I had some success with a water bottle pointing into the hiding place where one previous little sow slept as it turned out she was a night-time drinker and she wasn't coming out into the open at night, but you could hear her teeth rattling the new bottle after it was put in. It was literally 8 inches closer than the other one but the difference to her was coming out of the cave in the dark or not!

The only other thing, apart from the above good advice about wetting veg and weighing, is to try and get her to pee on a white surface in case she has a low-level urinary tract infection and you might be able to spot traces of blood. If you can't see anything now and there is one it'll likely make itself known soon! The vet can only treat symptoms... you might just have to wait a bit longer for clear symptoms to appear. Pain while peeing, holding in urine and urine leaking out are also signs so see if she looks wet at the back end or if her bottom looks 'dirty'. It can affect the pooping as when the poops pass through they can agitate the inflamed urethra. If you suspect a UTI the vet can give you a little bottle and syringe to collect a urine sample (clean washing up bowls are useful!) and they will test for presence of blood or bacteria. The last time I had this done I didn't even have to take the pig in. Luckily for him he was clear (his pee was just a grim colour!)

Good luck in tracking down the source of her little squeaks x

 

[Piggies&buns]

they don’t look overly concerning to me either. They maybe look a little soft but it’s incredibly difficult to tell on a picture!

I would also be more concerned about the squeaking when toileting
Have you noticed any sludginess to the urine, calcium stains?

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

they don’t look overly concerning to me either. They maybe look a little soft but it’s incredibly difficult to tell on a picture!

I would also be more concerned about the squeaking when toileting
Have you noticed any sludginess to the urine, calcium stains?

As far as I can tell I haven’t seen any changes with her urine

 

[Free Ranger]

The other thing is to look at her position when she toilets. If it hurts to pee or poop she might 'hunch' over or look like she's straining a bit. My boar gets a bit of impaction and you can tell if he's straining because he seems to lift his rear and stand on tip-toes at the back (you can see right under him). It's quite noticeable as they mostly excrete as they walk without any effort! If you want to link a video of the behaviour that worries you please do - I'm afraid I can't tell you how though.

There's something called 'sterile interstitial cystitis' that piggies can get which is not an infection, but where it hurts to pee. It can apparently be eased with metacam painkiller and something called cystease... I think this is like a food supplement to help the bladder rather than a 'medicine' so it doesn't have to be prescribed - but that's the limit of my knowledge here although some pigs seem to have 'trigger' foods they need to avoid. Have a rummage round on the forum for more information - although the threads you find might be for those piggies who have more severe symptoms so don't let this panic you; there might easily be a ton of mild cases about where owners just haven't spotted anything wrong. If you post more about little Cocoa keep it with this thread so the experts can see your history. Keep peeing, tiny girl!

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

Thank you all for the advice and support! I will give updates on Cocoa

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

Cocoa’s poops look normal today which I’m really happy about! Still lightly squeaking. I’m keeping an eye on her and if it continues I may look into an ultrasound

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

Hi everyone, so I'm confused as to what I should do. Cocoa is still squeaking when going, but I've been limiting her pellets as the vet suggested. I really don't want an ultrasound done since it's so expensive and I don't want Cocoa to receive anesthetic. Has anyone had this situation before? Cocoa is acting normal other than squeaking when going. She's eating hay, drinking, poops look okay, and is in her normal routine. I give her cucumber, lettuce, cilantro, and green pepper for veggies. What could be the issue with the squeaking? Could pain meds help her at all?

 

[Free Ranger]

First of all has she lost any significant weight.
Second, have a think about whether it's squeaking as she poops, as she pees, or both. Did the vet test urine for something simple like bacterial infection?
Third, do you know what the ultrasound is going to be looking for? And will she actually need a general? My girl had an abdominal ultrasound last year and she was awake for it - although she had to have her stomach shaved and gel put on, neither of which she liked, but it didn't do her any harm (I had to gently clean her up at home and give her something soft to sleep on for her stubbly tummy).

I think the thing about vets is getting the testing or treatment right, because the most frustrating thing is paying for a test that tells you nothing. So I think you should have a talk to the vet and explain where you are and see what they recommend. If they talk about ultrasound again ask what they are going to be looking for and what it will either diagnose or rule out. And pain meds in the meantime won't hurt her. Well done for persisting on her behalf ☺

 

[squeaksandcarrots]

Update: I sent a fecal sample to be taken to lab, I couldn’t get a urine sample today so I’ll have to try that another time. The vet also gave me dog Meloxicam so I hope that helps. I just feel bad for Cocoa, I want her to be comfortable when she goes potty x

 

[Siikibam]

I hope that your Cocoa is on the toad to recovery soon.

 

[Freela]

My first question is if they have screened for the basics, like a bladder infection. Squeaking while peeing/pooping can be from pain urinating, and bladder infections/stones are common problems in guinea pigs. I would make sure the basics are covered before moving on to more expensive testing like ultrasound, personally. Hope that Cocoa soon feels better for you!