Monty the Grey
New Born Pup
Hi,
my girlfriend and I are rather desperate with our 2.5-year-old Monty, who's been feeling unwell for the past 2-3 months.
Right now he's only eating very little (having lost almost 100g in the past week), we have to force-feed him instant hay (RodiCare) and hand-feed him vegetables and fruit - he rarely eats anything we leave him in the cage. Today he even has trouble to eat anything at all, he only bites the food and leaves it be.
In the past couple of weeks he had diarrhea, which might have improved in the last few days but he's still not pooping proper poops. He also makes weird clicking sounds when swallowing, he drools and food falls out of his mouth, but malocclusion has been ruled out by a vet (see the history below).
He's still active occasionally - walking around the flat as before, but he's become more tired and his moods are very down in general (he used to be very wild but he no longer runs away from us, he's comfortable lying for 20 minutes rather than 2 as before etc.).
The last vet we visited said she had no idea what he might be suffering from, but she suggested she could perform an endoscopy if we wanted. However, we're not sure if we want to put him through all that. We don't want him to suffer, but it's hard to say if he's suffering already or not, because occasionally he still looks happy even if he's not his old self in general.
Recent history (extra data for those interested):
The troubles started with an enlarged nipple. We took him to a local vet, who gave him antibiotics to see if they would help. He also gave us some general pet probiotics (not guinea pig- or rodent-specific). Monty was taking the antibiotics for 2 weeks but since his nipple didn't change too much, we decided to take him off the meds and only continued with the probiotics.
At this point he'd already stopped eating hay and in general he ate less than before. He also started drinking water - despite having refused to drink all his life, getting water only from cucumbers and other vegetables. But since he'd stopped eating, he started drinking water directly. And he started having diarrhea.
Because of the loss of appetite and weight-loss we took him to a vet at my girlfriend's home town, whom she'd known from the past. She agreed with our conclusion that Monty might be suffering from coccidiosis and she gave him some anti-coccidiosis meds and had his poop tested (turned out positive as a medium stage coccidiosis).
We took him back home and after a few days of taking the meds he stopped eating altogether. We took him to another local vet, who deals with dental problems - we assumed his teeth might have overgrown from not eating properly for the past month and a half. She put him to sleep and examined his mouth and took an x-ray but said that his teeth are fine, except for having grey spots caused by digesting problems and limited diet. For another 4 day she was giving him meds to boost the digestive system.
After he finished the digesting meds, we started giving him special rodent probiotics (Bio-Lapis). We had his poop analyzed again and yesterday it came out negative for coccidiosis and other parasites. That said, Monty is still unwell, eating very little and we have no idea what to do with him at this point
my girlfriend and I are rather desperate with our 2.5-year-old Monty, who's been feeling unwell for the past 2-3 months.
Right now he's only eating very little (having lost almost 100g in the past week), we have to force-feed him instant hay (RodiCare) and hand-feed him vegetables and fruit - he rarely eats anything we leave him in the cage. Today he even has trouble to eat anything at all, he only bites the food and leaves it be.
In the past couple of weeks he had diarrhea, which might have improved in the last few days but he's still not pooping proper poops. He also makes weird clicking sounds when swallowing, he drools and food falls out of his mouth, but malocclusion has been ruled out by a vet (see the history below).
He's still active occasionally - walking around the flat as before, but he's become more tired and his moods are very down in general (he used to be very wild but he no longer runs away from us, he's comfortable lying for 20 minutes rather than 2 as before etc.).
The last vet we visited said she had no idea what he might be suffering from, but she suggested she could perform an endoscopy if we wanted. However, we're not sure if we want to put him through all that. We don't want him to suffer, but it's hard to say if he's suffering already or not, because occasionally he still looks happy even if he's not his old self in general.
Recent history (extra data for those interested):
The troubles started with an enlarged nipple. We took him to a local vet, who gave him antibiotics to see if they would help. He also gave us some general pet probiotics (not guinea pig- or rodent-specific). Monty was taking the antibiotics for 2 weeks but since his nipple didn't change too much, we decided to take him off the meds and only continued with the probiotics.
At this point he'd already stopped eating hay and in general he ate less than before. He also started drinking water - despite having refused to drink all his life, getting water only from cucumbers and other vegetables. But since he'd stopped eating, he started drinking water directly. And he started having diarrhea.
Because of the loss of appetite and weight-loss we took him to a vet at my girlfriend's home town, whom she'd known from the past. She agreed with our conclusion that Monty might be suffering from coccidiosis and she gave him some anti-coccidiosis meds and had his poop tested (turned out positive as a medium stage coccidiosis).
We took him back home and after a few days of taking the meds he stopped eating altogether. We took him to another local vet, who deals with dental problems - we assumed his teeth might have overgrown from not eating properly for the past month and a half. She put him to sleep and examined his mouth and took an x-ray but said that his teeth are fine, except for having grey spots caused by digesting problems and limited diet. For another 4 day she was giving him meds to boost the digestive system.
After he finished the digesting meds, we started giving him special rodent probiotics (Bio-Lapis). We had his poop analyzed again and yesterday it came out negative for coccidiosis and other parasites. That said, Monty is still unwell, eating very little and we have no idea what to do with him at this point
