Guinea Pig Stopped Eating - Maybe a Dental Issue? Not Sure

[crn001]

Hi all, I'm having some issues with my female guinea pig, Coco. She's about 2.5 years old and weighs ~900g.

The last couple of days, Coco seemed to be eating less timothy hay than usual, but we didn't think much of it because she was still eating some and she was still eating all of her veggies and pellets.

However, this morning (Saturday morning), we noticed that she only ate a tiny bit of her overnight veggies and didn't touch the pellets or timothy hay.

We immediately weighed her and she hasn't lost any weight as of this morning. She's still 909 g, which is pretty much normal for her.

However, she's now stopped eating pretty much everything. She does show interest in food but she doesn't really eat it. She has eaten a cherry tomato and some banana. She'll also eat some orchard hay and the timothy hay flower, but she won't eat the rest of the timothy hay. She also tried nibbling on a cucumber but stopped after a bite.

She's also not drinking water and when we leave Coco in the cage, she just sits in her hidey all hunched up. However, when she's on our lap she actually seems decently active,

We started syringe feeding her critical care as soon as we noticed she wasn't eating. We also got her into the vet today, but the vet couldn't find anything specifically wrong. We live in Vietnam so it's hard to find vets with guinea pig experience, but our vet was the best we could find and she does seem to have a decent understanding, though I'm not sure if she's as knowledgeable as a dedicated exotics vet you'd find in other countries.

Our vet did notice a little inflammation on the inside of Coco's mouth on the right side. I also noticed that when we can get Coco to eat the orchard hay she closes her right eye while she's chewing sometimes, almost as if she's in pain. She's also had some of the grooming liquid coming out of her right eye (but not the left).

So right now we're wondering if it's some type of dental issue or abscess on the right side of her mouth. It doesn't seem like bloating because her abdomen seems totally normal.

Our vet has prescribed her .16 ml of Metacam, but only once per day. I thought the normal dosage was twice per day? Could anyone share insights here?

The vet said to give her the Metacam once per day for four days and see if there's any improvement. If not, the vet recommended putting Coco under sedation to be able to look at her back teeth and see if there are any issues with her molars and so on.

Right now we're going to keep syringe feeding her critical care and water with vitamin C, along with the one dose Metacam once per day.

Is there anything else we should be doing or checking? And should we ask to do the Metacam twice per day instead of once per day?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Wiebke]

Hi

Please NEVER equate loss of appetite with just dental issues. Just because people are becoming more aware of the importance of needing to check the mouth in the case of appetite loss it doesn't mean that it is the only or even the main cause of piggies stopping to eat. All the other causes are still there as much as ever and need checking, too. Hay is in most cases the first food group that is being dropped, whatever the cause. Awareness fads are unfortunately one of the pitfalls of private online research.

Hunching up usually indicates a source of pain, discomfort or sickness inside her body where she can't get at. This tallies more with what you are reporting. Dental problems usually start with slower eating and then a gradual shift to softer and easier to eat foods (i.e. stopping to eat hay, pellets and harder veg first), dropping of foods they can no longer chew and finally salivating/wet chin when swallowing becomes tricky due to the tongue being trapped by overgrown premolar spurs.

Symptoms will hopefully become clearer in the coming days. It could be a brewing dental root abscess (but even that would follow the soft foods rule with pellets dropped before any soft veg), but it could also be a whole host of other issues inside the body that are not palpable (i.e. can be felt during an examination). Mystery weight and appetite loss are my least favourite symptoms simply because so many different issues can be behind them.

Can you please tell us whether your vet has prescribed cat or three times stronger dog strength metacam? If cat strength, then the dosage is as low as can be prescribed and verging on the ornamental.

Please follow our syringe feeding advice:
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide

 

[crn001]

Hi

Please NEVER equate loss of appetite with just dental issues. Just because people are becoming more aware of the importance of needing to check the mouth in the case of appetite loss it doesn't mean that it is the only or even the main cause of piggies stopping to eat. All the other causes are still there as much as ever and need checking, too. Hay is in most cases the first food group that is being dropped, whatever the cause. Awareness fads are unfortunately one of the pitfalls of private online research.

Hunching up usually indicates a source of pain, discomfort or sickness inside her body where she can't get at. This tallies more with what you are reporting. Dental problems usually start with slower eating and then a gradual shift to softer and easier to eat foods (i.e. stopping to eat hay, pellets and harder veg first), dropping of foods they can no longer chew and finally salivating/wet chin when swallowing becomes tricky due to the tongue being trapped by overgrown premolar spurs.

Symptoms will hopefully become clearer in the coming days. It could be a brewing dental root abscess (but even that would follow the soft foods rule with pellets dropped before any soft veg), but it could also be a whole host of other issues inside the body that are not palpable (i.e. can be felt during an examination). Mystery weight and appetite loss are my least favourite symptoms simply because so many different issues can be behind them.

Can you please tell us whether your vet has prescribed cat or three times stronger dog strength metacam? If cat strength, then the dosage is as low as can be prescribed and verging on the ornamental.

Please follow our syringe feeding advice:
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide

Thank you for your response! I'm not sure about the metacam strength to be honest. The label from the vet just says Meloxicam oral syrup. It doesn't specify cat or dog. I will ask them tomorrow when they open.

Coco's last few poops have been very weird with what looks like mucus on them and weird bubbles. Do you have any idea if this is a result of her not eating normally or if this is a sign of something else?

I attached some pictures.

 

[crn001]

Hi

Please NEVER equate loss of appetite with just dental issues. Just because people are becoming more aware of the importance of needing to check the mouth in the case of appetite loss it doesn't mean that it is the only or even the main cause of piggies stopping to eat. All the other causes are still there as much as ever and need checking, too. Hay is in most cases the first food group that is being dropped, whatever the cause. Awareness fads are unfortunately one of the pitfalls of private online research.

Hunching up usually indicates a source of pain, discomfort or sickness inside her body where she can't get at. This tallies more with what you are reporting. Dental problems usually start with slower eating and then a gradual shift to softer and easier to eat foods (i.e. stopping to eat hay, pellets and harder veg first), dropping of foods they can no longer chew and finally salivating/wet chin when swallowing becomes tricky due to the tongue being trapped by overgrown premolar spurs.

Symptoms will hopefully become clearer in the coming days. It could be a brewing dental root abscess (but even that would follow the soft foods rule with pellets dropped before any soft veg), but it could also be a whole host of other issues inside the body that are not palpable (i.e. can be felt during an examination). Mystery weight and appetite loss are my least favourite symptoms simply because so many different issues can be behind them.

Can you please tell us whether your vet has prescribed cat or three times stronger dog strength metacam? If cat strength, then the dosage is as low as can be prescribed and verging on the ornamental.

Please follow our syringe feeding advice:
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide

The vet confirmed it was the dog version. 1.5 mg per ml I believe (maybe I'm mixing up the units but it was the 1.5 version not the 0.5 version for cats). Does that dosage make sense for a 900 g guinea pig then? I keep reading that it should be dosed twice per day for guinea pigs, so it seems a bit odd that the vet only told me one time per day.

 

[Wiebke]

The vet confirmed it was the dog version. 1.5 mg per ml I believe (maybe I'm mixing up the units but it was the 1.5 version not the 0.5 version for cats). Does that dosage make sense for a 900 g guinea pig then? I keep reading that it should be dosed twice per day for guinea pigs, so it seems a bit odd that the vet only told me one time per day.

Hi

Good that it is at least the dog version. Personally, I would prefer to give it twice daily to one of my own piggies for it to be effective because if you split that dosage, at 0.08 ml it will still be very low. Even 0.15 ml twce daily is on the lower side. Your vet can go up safely to 0.7 ml once (or 3.5 ml twice) a day with dog metacam in the case of severe pain (i.e. 0.4 ml twice daily for a 1 kg piggy). I have been even prescribed higher metacam dosages in the case of a jaw abscess by own vet.

Please step in with additional syringe feeding and make sure that your piggy is also drinking as much as they are willing to take by drinking from a syringe. Mucus around the poos is generally an indication of dehydration. The funny poos also reflect the unbalanced food intake with too little fibre.

Give plenty of probiotics and also consider additionally poo soup (i.e. live healthy gut microbiome transfer) from a healthy companion to help the beleaguered digestive gut bacteria, which are also impacted by the antibiotic.
Please switch from weighing once weekly to weighing daily at the same time in the feeding cycle in order the monitor the actual food intake as antibiotics can dampen or even kill the appetite. Your food monitoring by scales instead of by eye or by poo output (which runs about a day behind) is important so you know what is going on now and can adjust your feeding support accordingly. The poos are likely getting smaller and funnier before they start reflecting your round the clock support feeding because the time lag as the internal conveyor belt take its own time to transport the food through the digestive factory.

Emergency Resources and Critical Illness Care - Contents list and subforum link

PS: It would really help us to know which country you are in as we are answering questions from all over the world and from very different access to vets (including out-of-hours services or lack thereof) and differently branded medication. Please click on your username on the top bar, then go to location in account details and add your country, state/province or UK county to make it appear with every post you make and allow us to tailor any recommendations to what is relevant and available where you are. Not knowing this, I cannot advise you any further unfortunately. In order to answer all posts in my own free time, I really helps when we do not have to read back on the whole thread. Thank you.

 

[Free Ranger]

Hi @Wiebke poster tucked Vietnam in one of the posts - they may be in bed now I suppose, not sure of time differences

We live in Vietnam so it's hard to find vets with guinea pig experience, but our vet was the best we could find and she does seem to have a decent understanding, though I'm not sure if she's as knowledgeable as a dedicated exotics vet you'd find in other countries.