Is it possibly genetics?

[nbhalla19]

If an adult guinea pig that has been healthy throughout it's life suddenly gets sick, is it possible that it is due to genetics? Assuming that the guinea pig it is with is fine and doesn't have any of the symptoms. When I say healthy I mean no issues at all, comes back from their annual checkup perfect and all.

 

[ScrufflesRules]

Many guinea pig issues are a genetic ticking time bomb- it is rarer (luckily?) for them to get a contagious illness. Lots of illnesses are a mixture of many factors though, including plain old bad luck.
I'm no scientist, but sometimes illnesses happen which aren't 'caught' or 'genetic', e.g. bladder stones or cancer. Many of these illnesses some piggies are more genetically predisposed to though, and even diet adjustments etc. can't prevent everything.
That's why it's so important to help your piggies have the best day of their life every day.
(P.S. Annual checkups don't necessarily mean a guinea pig is perfectly healthy unfortunately. There are lots of issues which can be missed in an annual checkup which you can only pick up on when you see your guinea pigs every day).

Are you worried about your guinea pigs' health at the moment?
If not and you're just curious, there's some really good information on this page about health checking your pigs: Daily Care Guides | The Guinea Pig Forum

Edit: I've read through your previous posts, and am really sorry for your loss. @Wiebke has given you amazing advice. Sadly these things normally happen out of the blue, not due to anything you have or haven't done. That has always been my experience with guinea pig illnesses too unfortunately, and it is always very sad. Please do read through the forum bereavement guides. ❤

 

[nbhalla19]

Many guinea pig issues are a genetic ticking time bomb- it is rarer (luckily?) for them to get a contagious illness. Lots of illnesses are a mixture of many factors though, including plain old bad luck.
I'm no scientist, but sometimes illnesses happen which aren't 'caught' or 'genetic', e.g. bladder stones or cancer. Many of these illnesses some piggies are more genetically predisposed to though, and even diet adjustments etc. can't prevent everything.
That's why it's so important to help your piggies have the best day of their life every day.
(P.S. Annual checkups don't necessarily mean a guinea pig is perfectly healthy unfortunately. There are lots of issues which can be missed in an annual checkup which you can only pick up on when you see your guinea pigs every day).

Are you worried about your guinea pigs' health at the moment?
If not and you're just curious, there's some really good information on this page about health checking your pigs: Daily Care Guides | The Guinea Pig Forum

It already happened unfortunately. I had one guinea pig that just passed. 9 months ago I took her to vet he said she had URI. Gave her meds and was fine in few weeks. No issues. Month or two later I went out of town and dropped her and the other one for boarding. When they were there, they noticed blood in urine. Turns out she had a UTI. Doctor gave meds for it on and off(vet said to avoid her becoming resistant to it and all) and over the next 8 months I adjusted her diet accordingly. Took her to the vet for checkups and all. It kept coming and going. She managed to live 8 months after before she passed. The thing is is before the UTI she was fine. Never any issues. Even when she had the UTI she acted normal apart from the last two weeks. Before this happened, every annual physical/checkup I took her to she was fine, nothing wrong with her. I understand what you're saying, it's a matter of luck. It seems once they get an illness it's often hard to recover from it. Just sucks.

 

[ScrufflesRules]

I'm so sorry about what happened to your piggy- we can all understand what you're going through on here, and I hope you feel slightly more at peace knowing that you gave her the best possible chance.
Is your remaining guinea pig coping OK? Looking After A Bereaved Guinea Pig | The Guinea Pig Forum
Please continue to look after yourself too, and don't be afraid to reach out for support if you need it. We all grieve in our own way, in our own time. Human Bereavement - Grieving, coping tips and support links for guinea pig owners and their children | The Guinea Pig Forum

 

[nbhalla19]

I'm so sorry about what happened to your piggy- we can all understand what you're going through on here, and I hope you feel slightly more at peace knowing that you gave her the best possible chance.
Is your remaining guinea pig coping OK? Looking After A Bereaved Guinea Pig | The Guinea Pig Forum
Please continue to look after yourself too, and don't be afraid to reach out for support if you need it. We all grieve in our own way, in our own time. Human Bereavement - Grieving, coping tips and support links for guinea pig owners and their children | The Guinea Pig Forum

Thanks. So like you said some are just predisposed to such illnesses like you said?

 

[ScrufflesRules]

Absolutely- it's the same with humans, and all other animals. There are some things we can do to try and prevent this, but no matter how hard we try, nature sometimes has its own way.
Sometimes there is nothing you can do to prevent an issue (like with satin syndrome), whereas with issues such as bladder stones you can do your best to adjust their diet, but ultimately they may form anyway.
It's a natural part of grieving to try and question whether anything could have stopped your beloved piggy from dying, but this isn't always a healthy way to think about things. Instead, please try and focus on the fact that 'guinea pigs measure their lives in happy days'- not the amount of years they lived, just how happy and loved they were.

 

[Piggies&buns]

URI and UTI are not anything genetic. They are caused by bacteria getting in and sadly that can happen to any piggy.
The issue is if the immune system is rundown then any opportunistic bacteria will take their chance. This isn’t anything genetic and not something a piggy is predisposed to.

A UTI isn’t something which requires diet adjustments. It’s bacteria getting into the urinary tract and not something which diet can do anything to prevent in the way that it can assist in the prevention of bladder stones for example.
With that said, a healthy immune system will always help but not something it can fully prevent. In a similar way that we can have a healthy immune system but still catch a cold

 

[Wiebke]

Thanks. So like you said some are just predisposed to such illnesses like you said?

Hi

There is usually a combination of factors involved when it comes to fatal outcomes. It is the same in humans as well. Some succumb to an illness very quickly, some develop complication and a number can fend it off and will never be affected.

Genes, general health/the strength of the immune system, conditions in which guinea pigs are kept (including exposure before you get them) all contribute to the outcome.

Unfortunately for you there is a crisis in North American pet store chains with an estimated quarter to a third of piggies sold infected with URI at the point of sale; mange mites and ringworm etc. are also an issue but not yet on the scale that respiratory bugs are. These opportunistic bugs are finding an ideal environment in a highly stressed down to cost commercial mass breeding environment and then again in cramped transport and backstore conditions in which lots of frightened youngsters with their immune system still under construction are finding themselves.

We used to have a problem in the UK over a decade ago with pet shop baby URI but then the largest chain obviously restarted with new stock and there hasn't been a problem since. Then we had the same again with ringworm before and during the pandemic in the UK but the pet shop chain must have used one of the lockdowns to really thoroughly disinfect everything and start from scratch since the ringworm problem we were swamped with stopped overnight.

Unfortunately, animal welfare and trade conditions are lot looser and much less enforced where you are.

I hope that this look at the general background helps you to lay your feelings of guilt to rest. If you can't, please seek help from a pet bereavement service who specialises in helping owners who struggle to process their grieving. You should find them by googling; there may be local groups or online services. Talking is by far the best way you can help yourself. If you can't please start a diary to help unloading and to get things moving that way. Music, dance, painting or any other creative activity or walking/running or sports can be another outlet to help you.
Pet bereavement struggles are a recognised mental health condition that can affect anybody but it often affects people with pre-existing mental health issues worse.

 

[Freela]

UTIs and URIs are sadly really common bacterial infections that guinea pigs can pick up... but sure, there can be genetic contributors to them that we don't know about. For instance, a pig prone to developing bladder stones can absolutely be at greater risk of UTI. Bacterial infections also often crop up if there is some other stress going on that lowers immune resistance... changing housing situation, another comorbid infection, simple aging, etc. Some bacterial infections can be hard to shake if the original course of antibiotics doesn't kill every single bacteria... once you stop the antibiotics, the tougher bacteria that survived grow back and are harder to kill. I've got a hamster with a UTI right now... she did a course of antibiotics, got fine, and then started passing blood in her urine again a few days after stopping antibiotics. So now she's on antibiotics course number 2 (and doing well.) For small pets, they are so close to the ground that it's easy for their urethra to be colonized by bacteria. A lot of pigs have already been exposed to UTI bacteria as babies... if they get run down or stressed or ill or old these bacteria that they are colonized with can overgrow and cause illness, which is how pigs who aren't exposed to sick pigs can suddenly get an infection. Unfortunately it happens, you didn't do anything wrong here to cause it. Just like us who can sometimes fight off an infection and sometimes end up with the flu, any pig is susceptible to getting an infection.

 

[nbhalla19]

Hi

There is usually a combination of factors involved when it comes to fatal outcomes. It is the same in humans as well. Some succumb to an illness very quickly, some develop complication and a number can fend it off and will never be affected.

Genes, general health/the strength of the immune system, conditions in which guinea pigs are kept (including exposure before you get them) all contribute to the outcome.

Unfortunately for you there is a crisis in North American pet store chains with an estimated quarter to a third of piggies sold infected with URI at the point of sale; mange mites and ringworm etc. are also an issue but not yet on the scale that respiratory bugs are. These opportunistic bugs are finding an ideal environment in a highly stressed down to cost commercial mass breeding environment and then again in cramped transport and backstore conditions in which lots of frightened youngsters with their immune system still under construction are finding themselves.

We used to have a problem in the UK over a decade ago with pet shop baby URI but then the largest chain obviously restarted with new stock and there hasn't been a problem since. Then we had the same again with ringworm before and during the pandemic in the UK but the pet shop chain must have used one of the lockdowns to really thoroughly disinfect everything and start from scratch since the ringworm problem we were swamped with stopped overnight.

Unfortunately, animal welfare and trade conditions are lot looser and much less enforced where you are.

I hope that this look at the general background helps you to lay your feelings of guilt to rest. If you can't, please seek help from a pet bereavement service who specialises in helping owners who struggle to process their grieving. You should find them by googling; there may be local groups or online services. Talking is by far the best way you can help yourself. If you can't please start a diary to help unloading and to get things moving that way. Music, dance, painting or any other creative activity or walking/running or sports can be another outlet to help you.
Pet bereavement struggles are a recognised mental health condition that can affect anybody but it often affects people with pre-existing mental health issues worse.

They can get utis at any age right?

 

[Wiebke]

They can get utis at any age right?

Yes, a bacterial UTI (it's a urine infection caused by bacterial of overgrowth of faecal bacteria in the urinary tract) is another opportunistic infection where several factors need to come together - you need some bacteria in the urinary tract (through scent marking), a marked lowering of the immune system (like for instance putting guinea pigs out on a still damp and cold lawn); which are the classics) but if a piggy has a weak or lowered immune system for some reason, then it can also happen indoors.

We get a slate of UTIs every Spring from newly bought Easter piggies stuck into an unprotrected outdoors hutch without being gradually accustomed and without waiting until the risk of frosts is over or by putting them on the lawn too early.

I am sure that in your case for such a bad outcome you need several factors in play but we cannot tell you what actually has happened. This is as far as you can go. If you cannot leave it be, please seek help for the sake of your own mental health.