Not sure if she’s sick or it’s just stomach/gas pains

[mpeters99]

Hi guys,

Our guinea pig Morty (she’s about 5 years old) suddenly started acting lethargic this afternoon, just sleeping almost all day (this isn’t totally unusual for her). We both had a cold last week but we took all the precautions we normally do to keep her safe. We haven’t noticed any cold symptoms (runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc). We then noticed this afternoon she hadn’t eaten hardly any food and then noticed she hadn’t pooped since my girlfriend cleaned her cage around 1pm. We tried getting her to eat hay but she wouldn’t. My girlfriend listened to her gut and it sounded active (lots of bubbles) and she rubbed her stomach lightly to help her bowels move and she farted numerous times so we don’t think it’s gut stasis. We tried bringing her into the living room to let her run around but she just stayed under a chair mostly (normally she runs around the living room pretty freely). We tried getting her her favorite snack Romain lettuce and she only ate a couple small pieces and didn’t seem overly excited at all (she normally always goes crazy for it). We decided to take her back in the cage to let her rest and put her hay on the floor rather than her basket which she then began eating the most she had all day (around 7pm). She’s been drinking water fine and we gave her a small piece of banana with a tiny amount of olive oil to hopefully smooth up her intestines and she ate that. But it is currently almost 10pm and she has only pooped once (around 7:30pm) and it didn’t come all the way out, it got stuck hanging out of her butthole but it looked normal as far as we could see. She’s now been laying down and sleeping and getting up every 15-30 minutes to eat some hay and drink water. We’ve researched hundreds of questions and topics but we are unsure just how serious it is because she’s still eating (sporadically) and drinking (and peeing), just no pooping. Any help or advice for what to do would be great. Also her diet consists of Full Cheeks pellets, Timothy hay, and Romain lettuce.

Thanks,
Micah

 

[RedLoredAmazon]

Hi! So sorry to hear about your piggy. Most of the members here are based in the UK so they won't be able to respond till much later. I am including a link to the Emergency Resources thread as this has a bunch of great resources to help you out. I personally wouldn't feed your piggy any more olive oil as it isn't something that they eat normally. Hopefully Morty will be feeling better soon.

Emergency Resources and Critical Illness Care - Contents list and subforum link

Do you have an emergency vet that you can take Morty to if needed? Or give a call to your vet, I know they can help advise you over the phone if it is an urgent need or not.

 

[mpeters99]

Hi! So sorry to hear about your piggy. Most of the members here are based in the UK so they won't be able to respond till much later. I am including a link to the Emergency Resources thread as this has a bunch of great resources to help you out. I personally wouldn't feed your piggy any more olive oil as it isn't something that they eat normally. Hopefully Morty will be feeling better soon.

Emergency Resources and Critical Illness Care - Contents list and subforum link

Do you have an emergency vet that you can take Morty to if needed? Or give a call to your vet, I know they can help advise you over the phone if it is an urgent need or not.

Thank you for the help! We’re looking now for a vet that’s on call.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Please have her seen by a vet asap. Lethargy, not eating, not pooping are concerning symptoms and require you to step in.

You need to urgently step in and syringe feed her a recovery feed or if you don’t have any recovery feed, then you can use the emergency measure of mushed up pellets in the syringe to replace the lack of hay intake. The fibre is essential to keep the gut functioning, not fruit or veg . If you use mushed pellets, you will need to cut the tapered end off the syringe to get the slurry to go through the syringe properly.
Hay is the largest proportion of the daily food intake but you cannot tell they are eating enough by eye. Nibbling at it is very deceptive but does not mean they are eating anywhere near enough of it (It’s 80% of the daily food intake). it’s essential to switch from the lifelong routine weekly weight checks and instead weigh a poorly piggy every day (at the same time each day). This enables you to be sure you are getting enough syringe feed to replace the reduced hay intake and keep the weight stable.

Poop output is 1-2 days behind food intake, so isn’t a reliable method of gauging food intake. By the time you notice reduced or no poops, piggy has possibly already not been eating enough for a couple of days.

Please don’t give olive oil. Its not something piggies should be eating and won’t do anything to help.
She needs fibre (hay and/or recovery feed, mushed pellets if you don’t have recovery feed) going through her system to keep it functioning properly and maintain her weight.

These steps above will not replace a vet visit, but they are important to keep her system functioning and literally life saving while you wait to be able to get into a vet.

Please read the green links below

Emergency, Crisis and Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)
Weight - Monitoring and Management

For information, sneezing, runny noses are signs of a viral cold in humans but guinea pigs don’t get colds. They get bacterial respiratory infections and the signs of that can be raspy, clicky breathing, along with other general signs of illness or reduced hay intake etc

Once she is better, it would be wise to look to get more variety in the vegetable portion of her diet (you mention she only has lettuce). If is it literally only lettuce, then it’s a not the highest of nutrient veggies and is low in vitamin c.
Ensure hay is 80% of her daily food intake, veg is one cup (15% of daily food intake) per pig per day. Pellets are just one tablespoon per pig per day (just 5% of the daily food intake) and the least important and disposable part of the diet

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

 

[mpeters99]

Please have her seen by a vet asap. Lethargy, not eating, not pooping are concerning symptoms and require you to step in.

You need to urgently step in and syringe feed her a recovery feed or if you don’t have any recovery feed, then you can use the emergency measure of mushed up pellets in the syringe to replace the lack of hay intake. The fibre is essential to keep the gut functioning, not fruit or veg . If you use mushed pellets, you will need to cut the tapered end off the syringe to get the slurry to go through the syringe properly.
Hay is the largest proportion of the daily food intake but you cannot tell they are eating enough by eye. Nibbling at it is very deceptive but does not mean they are eating anywhere near enough of it (It’s 80% of the daily food intake). it’s essential to switch from the lifelong routine weekly weight checks and instead weigh a poorly piggy every day (at the same time each day). This enables you to be sure you are getting enough syringe feed to replace the reduced hay intake and keep the weight stable.

Poop output is 1-2 days behind food intake, so isn’t a reliable method of gauging food intake. By the time you notice reduced or no poops, piggy has possibly already not been eating enough for a couple of days.

Please don’t give olive oil. Its not something piggies should be eating and won’t do anything to help.
She needs fibre (hay and/or recovery feed, mushed pellets if you don’t have recovery feed) going through her system to keep it functioning properly and maintain her weight.

These steps above will not replace a vet visit, but they are important to keep her system functioning and literally life saving while you wait to be able to get into a vet.

Please read the green links below

Emergency, Crisis and Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)
Weight - Monitoring and Management

For information, sneezing, runny noses are signs of a viral cold in humans but guinea pigs don’t get colds. They get bacterial respiratory infections and the signs of that can be raspy, clicky breathing, along with other general signs of illness or reduced hay intake etc

Once she is better, it would be wise to look to get more variety in the vegetable portion of her diet (you mention she only has lettuce). If is it literally only lettuce, then it’s a not the highest of nutrient veggies and is low in vitamin c.
Ensure hay is 80% of her daily food intake, veg is one cup (15% of daily food intake) per pig per day. Pellets are just one tablespoon per pig per day (just 5% of the daily food intake) and the least important and disposable part of the diet

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

Hello, thank you for the information. I’m not sure if you missed the part where I said she’s still eating consistently, but she isn’t pooping. We’re taking her to the vet in the morning.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Hello, thank you for the information. I’m not sure if you missed the part where I said she’s still eating consistently, but she isn’t pooping. We’re taking her to the vet in the morning.

You cannot judge hay intake by eye so you can’t know she is eating enough hay (even if she is still eating some hay - nibbling at it can be very deceptive) without switching from weekly to the daily weight checks. Seeing her eat veg and pellets doesn’t count as it’s jointly only 20% of the daily food intake so without eating enough hay, anything up to 80% of the food intake could be lost. If she has lost 50g or more since your last weight check (assuming she is weighed weekly as routine), then you need to support feed her to stabilise her. Not pooping can be linked to not having eaten enough 1-2 days ago. Equally, any food she eats today won’t be seen in poop output for another 1-2 days time.
I'm glad you’ve got an appointment for her

 

[Free Ranger]

There's something they can get called bloat which isn't always scary and fatal but it can be. Gas blows up the guts and stops them moving along as usual and it can lead to gut stasis if you can't get them moving again. Piggy feels a bit like a barrel. When you said you were massaging her and she was passing gas that doesn't actually sound like a normal thing but it does sound like a bit of bloat. It can be triggered by diet: in April one of mine bloated up on rich grass and we had a hairy few days of massage to try and move things along (the other 2 were completely unaffected). The vet gave us a gut stimulant and painkiller as you could tell she was unhappy and really uncomfortable. I sat massaging her sides with an electric toothbrush.

Bloat can be a thing in itself but it can also be a symptom of other illness and your lady is getting on a bit so it is important to see a vet to confirm what it is, get her moving again and check there is nothing underlying which can cause it to recur. Good luck little girl x

 

[mpeters99]

Hi guys,

Our guinea pig Morty (she’s about 5 years old) suddenly started acting lethargic this afternoon, just sleeping almost all day (this isn’t totally unusual for her). We both had a cold last week but we took all the precautions we normally do to keep her safe. We haven’t noticed any cold symptoms (runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc). We then noticed this afternoon she hadn’t eaten hardly any food and then noticed she hadn’t pooped since my girlfriend cleaned her cage around 1pm. We tried getting her to eat hay but she wouldn’t. My girlfriend listened to her gut and it sounded active (lots of bubbles) and she rubbed her stomach lightly to help her bowels move and she farted numerous times so we don’t think it’s gut stasis. We tried bringing her into the living room to let her run around but she just stayed under a chair mostly (normally she runs around the living room pretty freely). We tried getting her her favorite snack Romain lettuce and she only ate a couple small pieces and didn’t seem overly excited at all (she normally always goes crazy for it). We decided to take her back in the cage to let her rest and put her hay on the floor rather than her basket which she then began eating the most she had all day (around 7pm). She’s been drinking water fine and we gave her a small piece of banana with a tiny amount of olive oil to hopefully smooth up her intestines and she ate that. But it is currently almost 10pm and she has only pooped once (around 7:30pm) and it didn’t come all the way out, it got stuck hanging out of her butthole but it looked normal as far as we could see. She’s now been laying down and sleeping and getting up every 15-30 minutes to eat some hay and drink water. We’ve researched hundreds of questions and topics but we are unsure just how serious it is because she’s still eating (sporadically) and drinking (and peeing), just no pooping. Any help or advice for what to do would be great. Also her diet consists of Full Cheeks pellets, Timothy hay, and Romain lettuce.

Thanks,
Micah

Hey y’all. Thanks for your help. Last night Morty began pooping regularly again and she now seems perfectly normal. I think she must’ve just been constipated. So happy!

 

[Piggies&buns]

That's great that she is pooping again, but please do continue with the daily weight checks for a little while longer and be prepared to step in. Bloat can come in waves so it doesnt necessarily mean the issue is completely over. Also to add, guinea pigs dont actually get constipation - there is always a cause for reduced poops such as bloat or lack of food intake.
Was she checked by a vet? If not, it would still be prudent to do so

 

[Free Ranger]

...thanks for the update! Great Morty is feeling better - as mentioned above it's best to keep an eye on her for a bit with the weighing etc just to make sure

 

[PoptartShop]

Glad she is feeling better, but definitely continue to monitor in case it comes back. Definitely make sure you have some CriticalCare on hand for syringe-feeding.