Wizzy
Junior Guinea Pig
At the end of April we noticed my 5.5 year old Pig Pepper had lost weight, gone from 1170g to 1100, and then down to 1070g the next week. We treated her for mites at first as she had quite a bit of dandruff, and her weight stayed at about 1090g for about 2 weeks or so. And then in the last week or two of may her weight went down to 1055g and she wasn’t really eating hay. After a week of giving her grass we took her to the vet. She was anywhere from 1060-1120g at this point, depending on how much grass she took. Vet was very knowledgeable (it’s our local vets but there’s a new vet who seems to be very good with our guinea pig and very caring), had a long look at the back of her mouth and found nothing wrong with her teeth, looked for mites, a blockage, any lumps or bladder stones, and found nothing at all. He gave us metacam 0.4ml daily and said to come back within a few days if nothing changed. Over the past week Pepper has gotten worse, her weight went down to 1038g on wednesday and with syringe feeding is stable around 1075g.
I have noticed during this week she eats completely fine, just won’t really eat! she does eat hay normally a few times during the day, just not nearly as much as she should. Eats veggies and grass just fine and has pellets (although she sometimes eats them slowly). She’s not fond of the critical care and sometimes spits it out, but i try to get 40ml into her every few hours, and last thing before i go to bed and first thing in the morning.
So we took her back to the vet yesterday, who said her stomach did sound gassy (from the lack of hay?) and it was clear she was not eating enough although her weight loss wasn’t massive from last week. He gave us Baytril 0.2ml twice a day to try, and said to give it 48 hours and if no improvement to come back for an x-ray. He also gave her an injection to help her gut along and new syringe food.
Going off topic slightly, the vet was so empathetic towards pepper and answered all the questions i had. His response was “yes i currently can’t find anything but we do need to get pepper better!”
Currently, Pepper is about the same as she was. Eats all her veggies no problem, but is a little less active and is not really eating hay. So it looks like we’ll have to go back on monday to see what is going on. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with a situation similar to Peppers and what could possibly be going on?
I should mention she still wheeks for when i come into the room and is bright-eyed. When she does decide to eat a bit of hay you wouldn’t think anything is wrong, but clearly she isn’t eating enough.
Apologies about how long this is!
I have noticed during this week she eats completely fine, just won’t really eat! she does eat hay normally a few times during the day, just not nearly as much as she should. Eats veggies and grass just fine and has pellets (although she sometimes eats them slowly). She’s not fond of the critical care and sometimes spits it out, but i try to get 40ml into her every few hours, and last thing before i go to bed and first thing in the morning.
So we took her back to the vet yesterday, who said her stomach did sound gassy (from the lack of hay?) and it was clear she was not eating enough although her weight loss wasn’t massive from last week. He gave us Baytril 0.2ml twice a day to try, and said to give it 48 hours and if no improvement to come back for an x-ray. He also gave her an injection to help her gut along and new syringe food.
Going off topic slightly, the vet was so empathetic towards pepper and answered all the questions i had. His response was “yes i currently can’t find anything but we do need to get pepper better!”
Currently, Pepper is about the same as she was. Eats all her veggies no problem, but is a little less active and is not really eating hay. So it looks like we’ll have to go back on monday to see what is going on. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with a situation similar to Peppers and what could possibly be going on?
I should mention she still wheeks for when i come into the room and is bright-eyed. When she does decide to eat a bit of hay you wouldn’t think anything is wrong, but clearly she isn’t eating enough.
Apologies about how long this is!
