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Diet advice for bladder stones?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trio
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Trio

Hi, I don't have pigs myself, but my friend has three females and I'm looking for advice for her if anyone has any. One of her girls was being treated for suspected cystitis for about a week, then because she wasn't getting any better she had an x ray where they found a bladder stone. She had been trying to pass it, so it was close to coming out and the vet was able to remove it without operating. It was the size of an orange pip, poor girlie :( She was a bit sore, but shes now on the mend, to my friend's relief! However, the vet said that she will likely be prone to them now that she has had one and told my friend to feed a wet-only diet. I don't know anything about this really, does anyone have any advice? Obviously avoiding calcium rich food, but one vet said kale is good, and another said to avoid it ? Is there a low calcium dry food that she can feed them? I know there are for bunnies, but not sure about piggies! They currently have some sort of muslie mix. Any advice would be great :)
 
wet only.. does than mean no hay/dry food? I'm confused!? that wouldn't be good for her digestive system opr her teeth for her to only have wet foods.. unless ive missed understood what you mean by wet foods.. if you look in the food section at the top are lots of sticy's of different brands of food that may help you with the dry food part, and if you search through past posts of bladder stones you should find some brill help until someone comes on who has experience with it.. hope the little piggy is alright :)
 
yeah it confused me too! for all the reasons that you have said. i hadnt noticed the stickies, ill have a read of them now thanks :) sorry i wasnt very clear by 'wet-only', she said the vet meant veg, fruit and grass/hay. basically, just no dry packeted food i think, although i thought piggies were supposed to have food all the time? ive done a search on here too (should have done that first really ::)), so having a read. I'm finding it a bit complicated though, knowing nothing about piggies! ive got rabbits myself ;) thanks for the reply :)
 
hmm.. I think they can be without dry food as it only takes up around 5% of their food daily i think its 80% hay, 15% fresh veg and 5% food.. or something along those lines.. i always keep dry in with mine so they have something to munch on if they get hungry.. i think you can leave out the dry food but you need to make sure they are getting everything from their veg, and hay, all the vitmains etc.. i don't know of anybody who leaves the dry food out on here though, but somebody might be able to help more than I can :)
 
Ah, ok, thanks for that :) I really don't know anything about piggies lol ;D I had a couple when I was little, but I just cuddled them, wasn't really involved in the feeding and cleaning part of their care!
 
Hi Trio,

I am going to pm you about this because some friends of mine who are not forum members have a 3 year old boar who recently had surgery to remove a very large stone, then within a few weeks another stone formed which was removed.A few weeks after that a lot of gravel and sludge was seen on an xray.

Findus was put on a special diet which has cleared the sludge and hopefully will prevent it from reforming.
Findus was on Gerty Guinea pig but is now on Rabbit Royale,he has filtered water,loads of hay and dried grass.Cabbage,spring greens and kale,parsley have been cut out of the diet,but he does have carrot,celery,tomato,and quite a afew other veggies.Findus is also on hydrangia root syrup.
 
Cavy Cuisine is based on Timothy Grass and is the best food to feed because Tim Grass has the correct Ca:Ph level. Others like Supreme Science claim to be correctly balanced but contain alfalfa which is not good for pigs like this.

Guineas need Calcium, yes its good for their constantly growing teeth but in moderation. A good rule to follow is to cut out or feed very little fruits and roots because their Ca:PH balance is wrong for guineas. Feed high calcium foods such as kale and parsley only twice a wheek or less. Mine hardly ever have kale and haven't had parsley for ages, I never feed spinach either unless its going cheap then they just get a few leaves between them.

Feed less veggies and up the hay and dried grass, dried grass has a lot of calcium (Readigrass etc) but the pigs would have to eat a shed load of it for it to affect them. The best hay is 2nd cut timothy, try Dust Free Hay thery have well stored hay and grow it especially to sell online.

Fluid increase (40ml a day) is also recommended to keep the bladder flushed. This doesn't always work though and seems to depend on the nature of the stone. Your friends sounds like a clean one,not gravelly, so I would try Uriflow too. A friend of mine has had great success with this. Its a herbal product for Humans.
 
My piggy was operated on in October for bladder problems. No stones just lots of sludge plus a very thick lining in his bladder (should be thin). The vet told me to feed lots of veggies and hay, lots of fluid and little or no dry food. He has been doing well so far, fingers crossed! Anyway I too have been using Uriflow and didn't realise it would be sent each month so I have bottles I will never use if you would like to take one. PM me if you would like one. Hope the piggy feels better soon
 
Piggy, this is how my boar was. Lots of sludgy stuff, small stones and a thickened bladder wall. Uriflow and fluids helped him for a year or so but I refused to put him through a third op when stones developed again, it was likely they would just have kept recurring. On the other hand Uriflow has and is helping lots of guineas :)
 
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