Guinea pig has sudden watery diarrhoea

[weepweeps]

They do grow back quite quickly. he’s soon on the mend again.

 

[GuineaDan]

They certainly do grow back quickly - he lost one of his incisors biting on the cage bars once and it was back before I knew it! It's just very anxiety inducing to try to keep him going when I know he's not able to eat or drink for himself. I find myself expecting the worse every time I go to feed him, yet he's just standing there squeaking at me for food lol.

 

[GuineaDan]

He still needs a lot of help eating, however he is beginning to show signs of being able to eat more "solid" foods - he can eat broken bits of muesli, a little bit of grass and grated carrot! It just requires little bits at a time and to be held up to his mouth. Still not eating on his own but the signs look promising.

 

[Swissgreys]

Just wanted to say you are doing an amazing job.
It can be exhausting caring for a very ill piggy so remember to make some time for yourself too.

 

[GuineaDan]

I appreciate the kind words. To tell the truth I don't know if I've gotten proper sleep at all for the past month lol, they do cause a lot of stress!
Here's a picture of him enjoying one of his meals.

 

[GuineaDan]

Mario has been getting diarrhea, likely from the sudden diet change, the poor thing. This thread just came to a full circle it feels like! Luckily not anything very watery, but very soft and mushy. We're going to reduce the carrot and pepper syringes in hopes that might help his gut stabilise a bit more. It's just frustrating when you have to suddenly completely change their diet with no weaning! Unfortunately he wasn't eating or drinking at all by himself so it couldn't be helped. He seems to do one big lot and then bits of soft poops after.
We were told to stop the Baytril if it caused diarrhea again, but with such a coinciding diet change I'm not too sure. We'll probably ring up to ask if it doesn't improve.
On the bright side, he's slowly getting better at chewing bigger things, still can't pick them up but it's early days. He's also perfectly active, practically standing on his hind legs to beg for food lol. His wees also look clear, thankfully.

 

[GuineaDan]

Another update: he seems to be able to eat quite a bit of grass as long as you push it past where his incisors are! He wasn't able to eat any grass at all so this is a major step and should hopefully help to settle down his poops! He still needs regular feeds as he can't eat or drink by himself, but it's promising signs.

 

[GuineaDan]

Just a small update: Mario has been improving slowly but surely with what he can eat. His incisors look closer together, however as there's still a substantial gap between them he can't quite eat on his own yet. He can nip me again though lol. But earlier he was able to eat a whole bowl of grass with help, which he hasn't done since the dental! His weight is remaining stable at around 650-675g, with him eating 20-40g in one sitting! I'm hoping we'll be able to wean him off of support care soon, but I'm also not going to rush him - if I need to feed him often on the upcoming holidays, so be it lol.

 

[GuineaDan]

Hello, I just wanted to post an update after the holidays! It seems very likely his weight loss was due to his dental. His front teeth look normal again, hopefully the back ones have regrown back to normal as well. He's been putting on some weight slowly but surely - he's currently at 730-750g today! His poops still look to be small, but they don't seem to be any different than normal poops other than size. He's certainly hungry, goes around demanding food from me lol. I'm giving him very little supportive care (5-8ml of EmerAid once or twice a day, reducing probiotics in the water and giving him 5 minutes access to muesli every few hours), since I want him to get back to eating by himself. He did drop a little bit of weight the other day, but that may have just been daily fluctuations so it's hard to tell! Thank you to everyone for your advice and support.