ratatellie
New Born Pup
Hello everyone!
When I went to give piggies their evening vegetables last night I noticed that Gloria wasn't interested at all. I've been sick myself for around two weeks so have been keeping my distance as much as possible to avoid passing any respiratory illness on to the girls so I'm not 100% sure how long she'd been off for, but in hindsight think she was definitely a bit quieter/lazier than normal yesterday. I weighed her and she was 150g lighter than when I last checked (but this was around a month ago because of me being so ill so I don't know if it was sudden/gradual) so tried to syringe feed her some mushed pellets but she was having none of it. She was so weak and just flopped down in her little cuddle sack with a heat pad, looking miserable and I really thought it was the end. I stayed with her all night and then suddenly after about 6 hours she got up and nibbled about half a lettuce leaf, sniffed the hay, and had a bit of a slow wander around the cage.
First thing this morning I took her to the vet who checked her over and couldn't find any obvious issue. She did comment on how pear-shaped she was and raised the suspicion of ovarian cysts, but she's been that shape ever since I got her and the vet couldn't feel anything when she pressed. Her teeth looked mostly fine but apparently there was a lot of food in her mouth still so she couldn't quite see all of them in detail. She gave her a painkiller injection (I forgot to ask exactly what) and has prescribed metacam and told me to add a vitamin C supplement/extra veg high in vit C. We'll go back on Monday to reassess. I'm happy with this plan but wondered if anybody here had any added advice?
I've ordered some critical care in case I need to try syringe feeding again - how will I know this? I'll weigh her daily from now but at what sort of weight loss would you suggest adding in syringe feeding? If it is a pain issue I assume arthritis is the most likely cause? In that case is it possible to just keep giving her metacam indefinitely if it helps? If there's no improvement what sort of things should I be asking the vet on Monday? I know they want to get a better look at her teeth with hopefully less food in the way, but is there anything else I should ask them to consider? Thank you so much in advance!
When I went to give piggies their evening vegetables last night I noticed that Gloria wasn't interested at all. I've been sick myself for around two weeks so have been keeping my distance as much as possible to avoid passing any respiratory illness on to the girls so I'm not 100% sure how long she'd been off for, but in hindsight think she was definitely a bit quieter/lazier than normal yesterday. I weighed her and she was 150g lighter than when I last checked (but this was around a month ago because of me being so ill so I don't know if it was sudden/gradual) so tried to syringe feed her some mushed pellets but she was having none of it. She was so weak and just flopped down in her little cuddle sack with a heat pad, looking miserable and I really thought it was the end. I stayed with her all night and then suddenly after about 6 hours she got up and nibbled about half a lettuce leaf, sniffed the hay, and had a bit of a slow wander around the cage.
First thing this morning I took her to the vet who checked her over and couldn't find any obvious issue. She did comment on how pear-shaped she was and raised the suspicion of ovarian cysts, but she's been that shape ever since I got her and the vet couldn't feel anything when she pressed. Her teeth looked mostly fine but apparently there was a lot of food in her mouth still so she couldn't quite see all of them in detail. She gave her a painkiller injection (I forgot to ask exactly what) and has prescribed metacam and told me to add a vitamin C supplement/extra veg high in vit C. We'll go back on Monday to reassess. I'm happy with this plan but wondered if anybody here had any added advice?
I've ordered some critical care in case I need to try syringe feeding again - how will I know this? I'll weigh her daily from now but at what sort of weight loss would you suggest adding in syringe feeding? If it is a pain issue I assume arthritis is the most likely cause? In that case is it possible to just keep giving her metacam indefinitely if it helps? If there's no improvement what sort of things should I be asking the vet on Monday? I know they want to get a better look at her teeth with hopefully less food in the way, but is there anything else I should ask them to consider? Thank you so much in advance!
