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Guinea pig Autopsy

Wild4piggies

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I saw a post here about a vet doing a autopsy on their guinea pig, if my vet, (will have to phone tomorrow) does not offer autopsy, can anyone reccomend a vet in Gloucestershire UK please, I want to know I did everything I could for her but also want to help piggies in the future
 
I’m sorry for your loss. I think you may have to ring around and see if anyone would be able to carry out the autopsy I don’t know that there are many members (if any) on here who have had one carried out on their piggies.

I hope you can get some answers.
 
I saw a post here about a vet doing a autopsy on their guinea pig, if my vet, (will have to phone tomorrow) does not offer autopsy, can anyone reccomend a vet in Gloucestershire UK please, I want to know I did everything I could for her but also want to help piggies in the future
I’m sorry for your loss. ❤️
 
I'm sorry for your loss, and I understand that you may want some confirmation and reassurance about why your pet passed away, and that you did everything you could. It would be very unusual for a vet who the piggy wasnt registered with to agree to perform an autopsy. Perhaps if you wanted an independant opinion, another vet at the practice you are registered with, could perform the autopsy. But autopsy on piggies is quite rare, this really is not an exact science- much less so than vet care of live piggies. Transferring bodies of any species from one place to another for post mortem investigations usually requires samples to have been taken at the point of death then stored correctly, the boyt stored correctly, and appropriate refrigeration to have been in place throughout, a refrigerated vehicle for transfer, etc. It is very unlikely this has been in place or could be arranged once an animal has passed away, unless you have made your wishes known in advance and paid for this upfront.
I'm very sorry your piggy passed away, and I am sure both you and the vet did your very best for them- piggies are fragile creatures, and far too often are gone far too soon. Perhaps making an appointment to talk to the vet who has treated your piggy, and gain a better understanding of what was diagnosed, how it was treated, why those decisions were made, and why they think there wasn't a good outcome, would be a good way forward for you.
 
On top of what PigglePuggle has said, I don't think post mortems for piggies are always thorough enough to give exact answers as to what happened and, I imagine, are very expensive. Obviously it is your choice whether to investigate this or not but if you are looking for answers then it might not be the closure you feel you need. I'm really sorry for your loss but all I can add is that you saw a vet, you were guided in treatment and made decisions based on the advice you were given. There's not always a right and wrong with these decisions but it is clear that you did do everything you could
 
It will depend on what was actually wrong with your piggy, whether you will get answers or not. If you need to have samples sent away, or the entire body, this can get expensive and more often than not unfortunately you will not get any remains back. Your vet will likely be able to give you answers on findings based on how their organs are looking or the presence of any tumours etc.

I've had 4 post mortems done on my piggies now, 3 were done by my regular vet and 1 by a locum who trained in pathology. Each one gave me peace of mind and the answers I was looking for without having to send them away. My regular vet didn't charge me very much, about £30 I think? although bless him he doesn't charge me as much as he should for most things, the locum charged me £60 and I was able to have the remains back to have them cremated. You'll have to specify if you want them back.

2 of mine were lost to tumours, 1 of which also had a massively enlarged heart, 1 just had an enlarged heart and the last passed due to an accident but they'd felt a mass that they didn't know what it was, turned out to be a failed kidney caused by internal damage during the accident.

You can only ask, one of the staff said they don't really do many of them but I don't think many people even ask so it's worth a try.
 
It will depend on what was actually wrong with your piggy, whether you will get answers or not. If you need to have samples sent away, or the entire body, this can get expensive and more often than not unfortunately you will not get any remains back. Your vet will likely be able to give you answers on findings based on how their organs are looking or the presence of any tumours etc.

I've had 4 post mortems done on my piggies now, 3 were done by my regular vet and 1 by a locum who trained in pathology. Each one gave me peace of mind and the answers I was looking for without having to send them away. My regular vet didn't charge me very much, about £30 I think? although bless him he doesn't charge me as much as he should for most things, the locum charged me £60 and I was able to have the remains back to have them cremated. You'll have to specify if you want them back.

2 of mine were lost to tumours, 1 of which also had a massively enlarged heart, 1 just had an enlarged heart and the last passed due to an accident but they'd felt a mass that they didn't know what it was, turned out to be a failed kidney caused by internal damage during the accident.

You can only ask, one of the staff said they don't really do many of them but I don't think many people even ask so it's worth a try.
Thank you that's very helpful, I suspect she was just old... but I want to protect the rest of my herd if I can
 
I’m sorry for your loss. I think you may have to ring around and see if anyone would be able to carry out the autopsy I don’t know that there are many members (if any) on here who have had one carried out on their piggies.

I hope you can get some answers.
It was from pig in the city, in 2012, I don't know if theres a way to message and ask what vet they used, but that's what gave me hope, I'd just like to know what happened if I can, to help my herd and others pigs in the future
 
I’m sorry for your loss.

One of the best ways to protect your herd if you are concerned it may have been something contagious would be to switch to daily weight checks to more closely monitor hay intake. Weight loss can sometimes be one of the first signs of illness and any issues there may alert you to needing to take the others to the vet.

I’ll tag @pig in the city here now (who is still an active member) in case further help can be offered on autopsy. (You won’t be able to message anyone given you are a new member)
 
I’m sorry for your loss.

One of the best ways to protect your herd if you are concerned it may have been something contagious would be to switch to daily weight checks to more closely monitor hay intake. Weight loss can sometimes be one of the first signs of illness and any issues there may alert you to needing to take the others to the vet.

I’ll tag @pig in the city here now (who is still an active member) in case further help can be offered on autopsy. (You won’t be able to message anyone given you are a new member)
I usually weight them weekly, but now daily, my fist sign was another one loosing 100g she's been to the vet 3 times in the last week, so I'm concerned it's related, but it could be coincidence as she was about 7!
 
I usually weight them weekly, but now daily, my fist sign was another one loosing 100g she's been to the vet 3 times in the last week, so I'm concerned it's related, but it could be coincidence as she was about 7!

Definitely keep a closer eye on them and step in with syringe feeding for any weight loss over 50g
 
I usually weight them weekly, but now daily, my fist sign was another one loosing 100g she's been to the vet 3 times in the last week, so I'm concerned it's related, but it could be coincidence as she was about 7!
Aw, 7 is an amazing age. I’m sorry you lost your pig and I hope you find what you need xx
 
I'm so sorry for your loss and your worries x

I've just lost my 5 year old girl within a week of my 6 year old boy. Completely unexpected and physically unrelated, although I knew she had a sensitive digestion generally. My big fear was actually her going first because he adored her so! Sometimes we humans put our own emotions onto the piggies and think they've followed their friend over the bridge because of a 'broken heart' but the reasons are likely more complex. My vet says that a stressor, or even just a change, can trigger any underlying health conditions to come to the fore and that seems to have been what has happened in our case. It wasn't contagion, it wasn't genetic, they were just two old piggies who got tired of battling their respective conditions. If George had still been alive would we still have Louise? Likely yes, but I don't think they pondered about that. Piggies measure their lives in 'happy todays'. It's an awful shock for us though, my heart goes out to you x
 
Thank you everyone, a local vet has got back to me, he thinks it's either cardiac (old) or pneumonia (infection) so he has offered to help, its £80, incase anyone is interested, he says its very common for him and therefore would not be useful to vetenary science unless they find something unusual, I just want to do what I can to not waste her body and be a better owner in the future
 
It was from pig in the city, in 2012, I don't know if theres a way to message and ask what vet they used, but that's what gave me hope, I'd just like to know what happened if I can, to help my herd and others pigs in the future
I'm glad that you have got sorted out. My vet is the guinea pig vet at Matlock. She has done a post mortem on piggies for me on two occasions, once for her interest and once for my peace of mind. She offered to send the piggy to the vet school in Nottingham for a fuller examination but at the time it was lockdown so we couldn't access the service. But it is available if anyone ever needs this in the future xx
 
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