Clare King
New Born Pup
Hello there, I’m a longtime reader of all the advice on here and occasional poster. I just wanted to come and have a whinge as am feeling overwhelmed at the moment. We’ve 9 pigs and right now it feels like they’ve all decided it’s the perfect time to be poorly when needing urgent vet care is slightly more challenging than normal. We have a pretty good vet but I’ve only ‘met’ him via the phone so far due to lockdown but up until this week then he’s seemed to be brilliant.
I had Bella needing a spay In March and then took a long time to recover but thankfully did.
In April, Raffy started to lose hair from her sides and became very quiet so she was diagnosed with substantial ovarian cysts so needed an urgent spay which she had and thankfully recovered extremely well.
Rosie also at that time became extremely wet and smelt quite badly so I rushed her in and it transpired that she had a large bladder stone (no previous symptoms though) which was removed and after 2 weeks of antibiotics has recovered well.
For the last 3 weeks has been stable and then suddenly last weekend Barney suddenly started to struggle with eating. Barney is a huge foodie pig and he was suddenly doing all the classic mouth pain signs of big chews / ears waggling etc. We syringe fed him all weekend and he was able to see the vet on Tuesday. Barney’s face seemed slightly swollen on the right side, his eye was slightly swollen too and incisors slanted so we presumed that there could be an abscess brewing. He went in on Tuesday for what I thought (I spoke to the nurse when handing him over) was going to be an examination and anaesthetic to take xrays of his mouth and jaw. When the vet phoned me later then he said that there was so soft tissue swelling but no noticeable abscess and his teeth generally looked fine but he’d given them a burr and a tidy up (
). He said there was a dark area on one of the xrays that could be elongated roots but he was more used to seeing them in rabbits. At this time my heart was sinking as I had a horrible feeling that we hadn’t had a correct diagnosis and Barney had just had a rabbit tooth trim. We got Barney back home and sure enough his incisors didn’t meet and he’s made no attempt to eat anything since. He occasionally mouths at food but won’t attempt to eat it. We’ve cut food into matchsticks, spiralised it, grated it but to no avail so we’re syringe feeding him. When we have tried to poke matchsticks of food in then he obviously can’t grind them up as he sounds like he’s choking on them and coughs and splutters so for safety’s sake we’ve stopped doing that. I phoned the vets on Thursday to explain that he still wasn’t eating and they said to give him vetergesic (he’s on septrin, metacam, metaclopramide) as well as he might be in pain. By Friday he was still no better so I phoned Cat and Rabbit and got an appointment for Tuesday morning. I was then panicking as obviously Cat and Rabbit want his notes from this week and as annoyed as I am about this dental then I don’t want to lose this vet as for all other surgeries then then our exotic vet has been great and Cat and Rabbit are 100 miles from me so I need a nearby reliable vet if I need urgent treatment. So I’ve been thinking all weekend about what and how to say to try not to offend our exotic vet’s knowledge but explain that Barney is definitely not right and I want him thoroughly checked but without an anaesthetic.
I’ve now come down this morning and there’s a strong smell of urine and Rosie (who lives with Barney) is soaking underneath again and I presume has another UTI (Rosie does get very stressed and I wonder if she’s stressed herself with Barney being so unwell) so I’ll be rushing her to the vets in the morning.
Saffy is also not really eating this morning and instead has taken to chewing vet bed and demolishing carrot cottages with ferocious ability and I’m wondering if she is either bloated or if she needs spaying urgently. I’m pretty convinced that she’s got cysts as she’s also a butternut squash shape but as she didn’t seem worried by them then I was going to leave them for a little while to see if they could be dealt with out of lockdown and also when our bank accounts had recovered from the previous surgeries that we’ve had to have over the past 10 weeks but it looks like I’ll try and get her seen tomorrow too.
If you’ve read my tale of woe then you definitely deserve a
. I’m not sure if there’s much advice that I can have, I just really wanted to put it all on paper as I just feel overwhelmed by it all and can’t understand what’s happening to all our pigs at the moment 
.
I had Bella needing a spay In March and then took a long time to recover but thankfully did.
In April, Raffy started to lose hair from her sides and became very quiet so she was diagnosed with substantial ovarian cysts so needed an urgent spay which she had and thankfully recovered extremely well.
Rosie also at that time became extremely wet and smelt quite badly so I rushed her in and it transpired that she had a large bladder stone (no previous symptoms though) which was removed and after 2 weeks of antibiotics has recovered well.
For the last 3 weeks has been stable and then suddenly last weekend Barney suddenly started to struggle with eating. Barney is a huge foodie pig and he was suddenly doing all the classic mouth pain signs of big chews / ears waggling etc. We syringe fed him all weekend and he was able to see the vet on Tuesday. Barney’s face seemed slightly swollen on the right side, his eye was slightly swollen too and incisors slanted so we presumed that there could be an abscess brewing. He went in on Tuesday for what I thought (I spoke to the nurse when handing him over) was going to be an examination and anaesthetic to take xrays of his mouth and jaw. When the vet phoned me later then he said that there was so soft tissue swelling but no noticeable abscess and his teeth generally looked fine but he’d given them a burr and a tidy up (
). He said there was a dark area on one of the xrays that could be elongated roots but he was more used to seeing them in rabbits. At this time my heart was sinking as I had a horrible feeling that we hadn’t had a correct diagnosis and Barney had just had a rabbit tooth trim. We got Barney back home and sure enough his incisors didn’t meet and he’s made no attempt to eat anything since. He occasionally mouths at food but won’t attempt to eat it. We’ve cut food into matchsticks, spiralised it, grated it but to no avail so we’re syringe feeding him. When we have tried to poke matchsticks of food in then he obviously can’t grind them up as he sounds like he’s choking on them and coughs and splutters so for safety’s sake we’ve stopped doing that. I phoned the vets on Thursday to explain that he still wasn’t eating and they said to give him vetergesic (he’s on septrin, metacam, metaclopramide) as well as he might be in pain. By Friday he was still no better so I phoned Cat and Rabbit and got an appointment for Tuesday morning. I was then panicking as obviously Cat and Rabbit want his notes from this week and as annoyed as I am about this dental then I don’t want to lose this vet as for all other surgeries then then our exotic vet has been great and Cat and Rabbit are 100 miles from me so I need a nearby reliable vet if I need urgent treatment. So I’ve been thinking all weekend about what and how to say to try not to offend our exotic vet’s knowledge but explain that Barney is definitely not right and I want him thoroughly checked but without an anaesthetic. I’ve now come down this morning and there’s a strong smell of urine and Rosie (who lives with Barney) is soaking underneath again and I presume has another UTI (Rosie does get very stressed and I wonder if she’s stressed herself with Barney being so unwell) so I’ll be rushing her to the vets in the morning.
Saffy is also not really eating this morning and instead has taken to chewing vet bed and demolishing carrot cottages with ferocious ability and I’m wondering if she is either bloated or if she needs spaying urgently. I’m pretty convinced that she’s got cysts as she’s also a butternut squash shape but as she didn’t seem worried by them then I was going to leave them for a little while to see if they could be dealt with out of lockdown and also when our bank accounts had recovered from the previous surgeries that we’ve had to have over the past 10 weeks but it looks like I’ll try and get her seen tomorrow too.
If you’ve read my tale of woe then you definitely deserve a
. I’m not sure if there’s much advice that I can have, I just really wanted to put it all on paper as I just feel overwhelmed by it all and can’t understand what’s happening to all our pigs at the moment .
for Barney x