Kidney slurry advice please

[Annie73]

Hello ,
I have just joined this wonderful site. I have spent hours trying to find out information for kidney slurry
One of our girls was scanned yesterday and this was diagnosed.
Our vet has prescribed Metacam and told us to totally cut out hay and pellets and feed a wet diet only for the next 6 weeks. I understand about the teaspoon of pellets on a normal basis. However I am confused as to whether totally removing hay is a good thing. He said replace with grass and wet foods. I’ve checked all your information for low calcium foods and am grateful to see this information as my vet just said leafy greens etc… so can we in the opinion of all you experts … still allow hay, I will feed more grass as we have plenty but am introducing it slowly with hay at present until I learn otherwise as I can’t believe a sudden change is good or stopping hay totally is good?. Looking at spring greens cucumber bell pepper as main foods. Can you advise me with anything else ? Changing to Timothy hay after reading advice if you think that would be ok, and filtered water.!Also ,can a drop of unsweeetened cranberry juice help.?Thank you in advance . I’m a Guinea pig Gran of 4. My daughter has autism and these beautiful creatures help her so much. I want to do the best for her and our 4 year old pickle ( who has the sludge)
Kind regards
Anne

 

[Betsy]

Welcome to our Forum. We are mainly UK based and its the early hours if the morning here. One of our Health Experts will be along later to advise you.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear of the issues.

Completely stopping hay is a very bad idea. While grass and hay make 80% of their daily food intake, I’m not quite how sure you would totally replace hay with grass in winter either. I have a large garden and the grass is still growing but picking the necessary amounts every day for six weeks in winter doesn’t sound practical.
Grass does wear their teeth like hay does and it is of course their natural food but do introduce it slowly.
What type of hay you feed doesn’t really matter - as long as it is a grass hay - so you can feed Timothy, meadow etc.

Having a wetter diet is a good idea though to keep the bladder flushing through, but completely stopping hay altogether and cold turkey at that and replacing all of that 80% of the daily food intake with a totally wet diet I would think risks further health issues including digestive issues/soft poops/diarrhoea.
Cutting out pellets is fine - they arent a necessary part of the diet.

Spring greens - they are a milder form of cabbage but are high in oxalates. . I would never give them daily - a small strip once a week is fine but giving something high in oxalates daily is a bladder problem risk and of course something you are trying to work against now.

Safe daily veggies which are also low in calcium are are coriander, lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper.

Cranberry juice does not do anything for piggies other than introduce unnecessary sugar into the diet.

My piggies do have a wetter diet, but their majority food intake is still vast amounts of hay. They get a little more than the recommended one cup of veg per pig per day - it’s something they are used to and have always had. They also get handfuls of grass throughout the colder months but in the summer they are on grass up to 14 hours a day so are fully used to lots of grass in their diet. They only get pellets a few times a week (not daily).

 

[Annie73]

Welcome to our Forum. We are mainly UK based and its the early hours if the morning here. One of our Health Experts will be along later to advise you.

Thank you I am in the Uk , I’ve just been up late researching as I’m so worried. Thanks again

 

[Bill & Ted]

Welcome to the forum
So sorry one if your girls is poorly. As rodents with their teeth constantly growing hay is the main part of their diet which keeps the teeth from over growing and their main source of fibre to keep their guts constantly moving. Guinea pigs can not manage without hay. Serious overgrowth of teeth and tummy problems will happen if you stop hay it is the most important part of their diet at 80% plus
I would seek out another more guinea pig experienced vet if it were me, I can’t understand why someone who knows anything about guinea pigs would suggest that

 

[poggle]

Serious overgrowth of teeth and tummy problems will happen if you stop hay it is the most important part of their diet at 80% plus
I would seek out another more guinea pig experienced vet if it were me, I can’t understand why someone who knows anything about guinea pigs would suggest that

Exactly this! Stopping a guinea pig's hay is basically a slow death sentence, and I can't imagine trusting a vet who didn't know that. I'd be getting a new one.

Fingers crossed for your poorly one, you've had some good advice already and there's plenty of others here managing a sludgy piggy long term.

 

[Annie73]

Thank you all so much. It’s frightening that we can’t trust our vets to give good advice these days GP are such a popular pet.. so calling them exotics I feel nowadays is extreme! Reminds me of my two kids with autism who go to mainstream school but all teachers aren’t yet trained in autism!
When I disagreed with the vet when he told me to totally withdraw hay he said if we don’t do this properly it’s a death sentence!
Again I am grateful for all your advice , X

 

[piggieminder]

Recommended Guinea Pig Vets

There are some really good piggie vets in your area on the recommended list. I am afraid your vet doesn't seem to know much about guinea pigs.

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you I am in the Uk , I’ve just been up late researching as I’m so worried. Thanks again

Hi and welcome

This is never the news we want to hear. But please don't panic and throw your whole bathroom suite at your piggy instead of just the kitchen sink. Keep in mind that our diet is very much a balance act and lots of compromises. It is also not a quick fix and takes several weeks until it filters fully through. All we can say is that our diet recommendations have borne out in long term practice and that we see very few stones cases in our long term members.
Please also keep in mind that the calcium absorption process is very complex. Diet is the only way we can try to intervene but we cannot change a genetic disposition or something suddenly going wrong with the absorption process.

Please do not replace hay with grass; especially not at that time of the air and during frosts. The nutritional value is pretty low and you can you can at the very worst end up with bad diarrhea or a potentially killing bloat like we see a case or two on here every year in spring from people who are putting their piggies out on the lawn unprepared; especially on damp grass.
You need to give the gut microbiome time to adjust slowly. Please rather feed a bit more cucumber and lettuce (no iceberg or rocket please); they are kind of more 'neutral' re. calcium and oxalates but high in water. You cannot force a piggy that is not a big natural drinker to suddenly drink more because not being a greater is not a health issue in itself. They may drink even less on a more watery diet (since their need of fluid is not suddenly higher just because you offer more in another form). With offering more fresh food, you have to brace for softer poos especially until the gut microbiome has caught up, so best do so gradually.

You cannot go completely zero calcium because there is a soft spot in the diet that you want to hit but you want to cut out any veg high in oxalate. I would still recommend to feed a strip of greens once a week (you want some magnesium in the diet) but stay off any root veg, grains, lots of fruit and green veg high in oxalates, like kale, spinach and brassicas.

Make sure that you filter your water and reduce pellets to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day. It is a sobering realisation that even no added calcium pellets still contain more calcium than kale, weight per weight. These are actually the biggest contributors of calcium in a diet, unless you feed veg grossly overladen in calcium. We you cut down the calcium from the water and your pellets instead of just homing in on the veg, you remove your iggest culprits and actually gain a little more leeway with the veg to cover the trace elements that they still need. The good news is that you can go cold turkey on them although your piggies will protest. Use pellets as feeding treats or as enrichment by sprinkling them round the cage; this will also encourage them to eat more hay.

Feeding Grass And Preparing Your Piggies For Lawn Time
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

 

[Annie73]

Recommended Guinea Pig Vets

There are some really good piggie vets in your area on the recommended list. I am afraid your vet doesn't seem to know much about guinea pigs.

Thank you I am new here and can’t seem to find the recommended list in my area? Stroud Gloucestershire x

 

[Annie73]

Hi and welcome

This is never the news we want to hear. But please don't panic and throw your whole bathroom suite at your piggy instead of just the kitchen sink. Keep in mind that our diet is very much a balance act and lots of compromises. It is also not a quick fix and takes several weeks until it filters fully through. All we can say is that our diet recommendations have borne out in long term practice and that we see very few stones cases in our long term members.
Please also keep in mind that the calcium absorption process is very complex. Diet is the only way we can try to intervene but we cannot change a genetic disposition or something suddenly going wrong with the absorption process.

Please do not replace hay with grass; especially not at that time of the air and during frosts. The nutritional value is pretty low and you can you can at the very worst end up with bad diarrhea or a potentially killing bloat like we see a case or two on here every year in spring from people who are putting their piggies out on the lawn unprepared; especially on damp grass.
You need to give the gut microbiome time to adjust slowly. Please rather feed a bit more cucumber and lettuce (no iceberg or rocket please); they are kind of more 'neutral' re. calcium and oxalates but high in water. You cannot force a piggy that is not a big natural drinker to suddenly drink more because not being a greater is not a health issue in itself. They may drink even less on a more watery diet (since their need of fluid is not suddenly higher just because you offer more in another form). With offering more fresh food, you have to brace for softer poos especially until the gut microbiome has caught up, so best do so gradually.

You cannot go completely zero calcium because there is a soft spot in the diet that you want to hit but you want to cut out any veg high in oxalate. I would still recommend to feed a strip of greens once a week (you want some magnesium in the diet) but stay off any root veg, grains, lots of fruit and green veg high in oxalates, like kale, spinach and brassicas.

Make sure that you filter your water and reduce pellets to 1 tablespoon per piggy per day. It is a sobering realisation that even no added calcium pellets still contain more calcium than kale, weight per weight. These are actually the biggest contributors of calcium in a diet, unless you feed veg grossly overladen in calcium. We you cut down the calcium from the water and your pellets instead of just homing in on the veg, you remove your iggest culprits and actually gain a little more leeway with the veg to cover the trace elements that they still need. The good news is that you can go cold turkey on them although your piggies will protest. Use pellets as feeding treats or as enrichment by sprinkling them round the cage; this will also encourage them to eat more hay.

Feeding Grass And Preparing Your Piggies For Lawn Time
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

Gosh thank you so much for this advice I’m so glad I found this forum!

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you I am new here and can’t seem to find the recommended list in my area? Stroud Gloucestershire x

Hi

Click on our Vet List on the top bar (use icon with three horizontal lines to expand if needed)
Here is the direct link: Recommended Guinea Pig Vets
Look under South West for recommended vets in the wider Gloucestershire area.
South West

Vale Vet Referals
Rachael Mowbury
The Animal Hospital
Dursley
Gloucestershire
GL11 6AJ
01453547934

Kiri Brown and Hannah McNichols
Drove Veterinary Hospital
252 Croft Road,
Swindon
SN1 4RW
Tel: 01793 522483

Website: drove vets.co.uk
Highcroft Veterinary Group
Jemma, Polly or Vim or Richard Saunders
615 Wells Road
Bristol
BS14 9BE
01275 832410


PS: Please accept that there are several thousand registered vet clinic and hospital services with often a high mobility of vets in the UK.

Since we are all doing this for free in our own free time on a forum that is entirely run by voluntary member donations, we do not have the resources to go round, assess and check everybody twice a year.
Our recommended vet list relies on member feedback and is there for by necessity patchy. But it is still a help to hopefully find a vet with guinea pig experience in your wider area not having to do your own experimental research from scratch. In order to see an exotics vet you may have to travel for 60-90 minutes, depending on the area.
Tips For Vet Visits
Travelling with guinea pigs

 

[Swissgreys]

Thank you I am new here and can’t seem to find the recommended list in my area? Stroud Gloucestershire x

Click on the link below to se the list of all recommended vets:
Recommended Guinea Pig Vets

 

[Annie73]

Hi

Click on our Vet List on the top bar (use icon with three horizontal lines to expand if needed)
Here is the direct link: Recommended Guinea Pig Vets
Look under South West for recommended vets in the wider Gloucestershire area.
South West

Vale Vet Referals
Rachael Mowbury
The Animal Hospital
Dursley
Gloucestershire
GL11 6AJ
01453547934

Kiri Brown and Hannah McNichols
Drove Veterinary Hospital
252 Croft Road,
Swindon
SN1 4RW
Tel: 01793 522483

Website: drove vets.co.uk
Highcroft Veterinary Group
Jemma, Polly or Vim or Richard Saunders
615 Wells Road
Bristol
BS14 9BE
01275 832410


PS: Please accept that there are several thousand registered vet clinic and hospital services with often a high mobility of vets in the UK.

Since we are all doing this for free in our own free time on a forum that is entirely run by voluntary member donations, we do not have the resources to go round, assess and check everybody twice a year.
Our recommended vet list relies on member feedback and is there for by necessity patchy. But it is still a help to hopefully find a vet with guinea pig experience in your wider area not having to do your own experimental research from scratch. In order to see an exotics vet you may have to travel for 60-90 minutes, depending on the area.
Tips For Vet Visits
Travelling with guinea pigs

Thank you so much really appreciate your help