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Lost my guinea pig today, even the vet didn't know why

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Piggies4Evah

New Born Pup
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Hello all,

I am devastated as I have lost my beautiful, 2 year old albino colored guinea pig today. I am in grief but at the same time, very confused as to how did he pass away.

I had left my 3 guinea pigs home alone for around 24 hours as I was celebrating New Years in another town. Everything was normal when I left, they had 2 water bottles in the cage and lots of hay and the white one was very chirpy and active. When we arrived back home, he was laying in his cage on its side. I first thought he had died, but I noticed some subtle breathing and eye movements. I picked him up and he opened his eye wide and looked at me. He was keeping his mouth opened, and then we noticed a piece of our wooden bedding stuck in inside his throat and picked it out with tweezers. Then he could finally close his mouth, and we went straight to the vets since he couldn't stand on his own, even.

We drove 30 minutes to the vet, and sadly, during the ride he passed away while my boyfriend was cuddling him. I was torn, but glad that he got to cross to the Rainbow Bridge with his owners near him. The vet found up to 8 pieces of wooden bedding inside his throat, and we were shocked. For some reason he had been eating bedding and then in the end presumably choked on them. Our vet had no idea why this would have happened, and had never seen anything like this and couldn't figure out a reason for why a piggie would eat its bedding.

We ended up thinking that maybe he got in a panic mode when he heard fire works outside and perhaps got into shock, which may have made him act weird and eat his bedding, but honestly, I have no idea if this is even possible. I didn't want an autopsy so I will never know for sure, and I really miss him, but his passing was very mysterious. Do any of you have any clue what might have happened to him during the 24 hours alonetime with his cagemates?
 
I am very sorry for your loss 😞 Sadly guinea pigs can die from heart attacks or strokes at any age and I suspect this is what happened to your piggy.

Sadly, without having a post mortem carried out which I know you have already said you’d rather not go down this route which is perfectly understandable as they’re upsetting and expensive, you’ll probably never truly know what happened 😞

Think of all the happy times and good memories x
 
BIG HUGS

Very, very occasionally piggies can eat their bedding and it can cause problems; more commonly with a blockage in the gut which we see perhaps a case of once every 5 years, just to show you how rare it is - we have over thousand health enquiries in a year and have not even had a handful of cases with tens of thousands posts in the over 15 years of our existence. It is the first time I have come across a blockage in the throat.

I am so very sorry; it is one of those really 'out there' things that you can never foresee or brace for, and therefore never prevent. And they have a tendency to happen at the most inconvenient of times. But they always leave you totally shocked and shook up. Please reassure yourself that you haven't done anything wrong as an owner. You have just drawn a short straw in the cosmic lottery of unlikely things to happen. :(

If you struggle with coming to terms with it, then you may find our Owners' Grieving guide helpful to make more sense of what you are experiencing in terms of soul-searching, guilt and other more unexpected strong emotions over the coming days and weeks: Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children

Here is advice of what you can do for a bereaved companion immediately after the passing and in the days and
weeks after: Looking After a Bereaved Guinea Pig

If you feel that it would help you ease your mind and any likely lurking fears of yours in terms of a possible repeat by changing your bedding and maybe have something practical you can do, then you can find alternative options via this link here: Bedding For Guinea Pigs - Overview

We do have a Rainbow Bridge section if you would like to post a special tribute to your piggy at some point (there is no obligation; it is just something that is available for anybody who would like to make use of it at any point during or after their grieving process), then here is the link: Rainbow Bridge Pets
PS: For uploading photos, please make use of the Attach Files button underneath your post when you write. It would like to post a video, then you need to upload it elsewhere on a public service in a media that doesn't require a membership sign-in (youtube is best) and copy it across.

My thoughts are with you.
 
Thank you so so much for your answers, it helps me come to terms with this loss when I try to find out some sort of closure or answer to what might have happened to my dear Esa. Through your answers it seems that this was a case of real bad luck, something that couldn't have been prevented, and I am very broken that this had to happen to my loved piggie. I hope no other pet owner has to have their animal go in such an unexpected way, but unfortunately these rare cases just sometimes happen. Sometimes you get no pre-warning that your animal is about to go the next day, and adapting to the fact that suddenly he will never be in the cage with his mates is heartbreaking. But I just have to cope with it. His mates went to sniff the towel he was laying on during his last trip to the vet yesterday - I think they realize he's gone too.

His ashes are coming in a beautiful, white urn (just like his fur color) to our home in a few weeks, and we will build a small memorial for him with a framed photo of him. I would also like to write a tribute to him on the Rainbow Bridge section when I feel ready, because it helps me think he can hear my thoughts and how much I miss him. But for now, I am just sobbing, looking at photos and videos of him and still trying to call out for him - even if there is no wheek as an answer.
 
Piggies4Evah said:
Thank you so so much for your answers, it helps me come to terms with this loss when I try to find out some sort of closure or answer to what might have happened to my dear Esa. Through your answers it seems that this was a case of real bad luck, something that couldn't have been prevented, and I am very broken that this had to happen to my loved piggie. I hope no other pet owner has to have their animal go in such an unexpected way, but unfortunately these rare cases just sometimes happen. Sometimes you get no pre-warning that your animal is about to go the next day, and adapting to the fact that suddenly he will never be in the cage with his mates is heartbreaking. But I just have to cope with it. His mates went to sniff the towel he was laying on during his last trip to the vet yesterday - I think they realize he's gone too.

His ashes are coming in a beautiful, white urn (just like his fur color) to our home in a few weeks, and we will build a small memorial for him with a framed photo of him. I would also like to write a tribute to him on the Rainbow Bridge section when I feel ready, because it helps me think he can hear my thoughts and how much I miss him. But for now, I am just sobbing, looking at photos and videos of him and still trying to call out for him - even if there is no wheek as an answer.
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Be kind with yourself; there is nothing you could have done more and you haven't done anything wrong. It is likely that the first piece caught in the throat and blocked it. It was just your bad luck that you were away at the time.
Freak accidents like yours do happen and circumstances can conspire to prevent a piggy from getting to the vets in time. Esa was already in the last stages of the dying process when you found him, unfortunately - even if you had reached the vet, it would have been too late to save him, sadly. :(
Unless you have come up against something similar before, you can usually not prevent these very circumstantial events. We see all sorts of them; sadly, some of them are fatal.

You have to learn to accept that sometimes things simply don't pan out. The wrong thing happening at entirely the wrong time - but crucially for you, in circumstances beyond your own control so you are not at fault. You cannot be at home all the time and even then death can sometimes happen right out of the blue within seconds and even while you are in the room, like with a heart attack, a stroke or a bad fall. I've been there myself.

It will take a bit of time for it to sink in and it is a painful process for you to retrain yourself to a daily routine that no longer includes Esa in the coming weeks; specially all the little things you do routinely without thinking about them. Do you have a charity that offers help after a pet loss in Finland? If not, things like writing a diary about your feelings may help you. Talking is the very best you can do; if that is not an option (it is often difficult to find people who understand that you can have just a strong bond with such a personable little animal like a guinea pig as you can with a dog or a person), then writing about your emotions and what occupies your mind is the second best thing.
You can find more helpful practical tips for yourself in our Grieving guide link: Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children

Please leave the rag in the cage for Esa's companion to have something he finds solace with in the coming days while he is doing his own grieving. Guinea pigs don't feel any less deeply but their immediate survival instinct is much stronger and they tend to pick up life again - if without their usual sparkle - after a few days.
He certainly knows that Esa was dying and has gone now. Piggies are very astute and have much finer senses; it is often the companions' behaviour that is alerting me to something suddenly not right. A sudden, unexpected death can throw them as much it is does you. Please give him the space to do his own grieving first as long as he keeps eating and drinking; this will also help you to hopefully get after the initial stage of being unconsolable.

We have got more advice of what you can do for bereaved companions in this link here, which you will hopfully find very helpful right now and in the coming days:
- Looking After a Bereaved Guinea Pig
- Single Guinea Pigs - Challenges and Responsibilities (contains a chapter about specific challenges with bereaved guinea pigs and how to spot when they start transferring their own social species needs onto you)
- Enrichment Ideas for Guinea Pigs (once Esa's companion is picking up life again in a few days; not right now while he is not in the mood)

Please take the time to read the links; they will hopefully help you to make more sense of what you are experiencing, feel less overwhelmed and alone, and to know what you can positively do.

HUGS
 
I am so sorry to read your tragic post, sending hugs to you x

Sleep tight little man 🌈
 
I'm so sorry for your loss, what a rotten way to start the new year. :( Unfortunately it's so hard to pinpoint exactly what happened. He may have choked on the bedding he was eating... he may have been eating the bedding because he felt unwell for another reason (one of my pigs would try to eat non-nutritive items like the rug and the walls whenever her gut felt unwell... she did it on antibiotics, and it was really the only clue that she was feeling off the day that she passed, although I didn't connect the dots until it was too late.) Please don't blame yourself, pigs can go downhill really quickly with no obvious reason. ((HUGS)) to you.
 
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