Celias133
New Born Pup
My guinea pig Chase is starting to get quite notorious for his on and off health issues…
About 10 days ago i picked him up and noticed that is weight had dropped. I wasn’t prepared for what i saw on the scale though… He always weighs around 1120 grams, but when i put him on the scale he was only 895
instantly started our critical care feeds, day and night. Very unfortunately my amazing exotic vet was on holiday. I do not really trust him to go to our local vet as they are 3 times more expensive and they often openly admit they do not know much about guinea pigs.
in the weekend of 21/22 september, his health was declining. He was having alot of difficulty peeing and was eating next to nothing anymore (luckily i was already feeding him every 4 hours) he stopped eating hay fully. Everytime i would pick him up he would be so soaked in urine as it was constantly dripping out in small droplets and he was not moving at all. I had to clean him quite regularly. On monday i took my chances and went to my local vet anyways to take some xrays and as i would expect: bladder stones. Ofcourse my local vet suggested to euthanize him (as they always do) but i said i wanted to talk to my exotic vet first as i trust her the most.
Between monday and thursday me and my wife argued alot… she can really not take it anymore. The endless costs, the endless worrying and the struggles we have with our bosses at work (cuz we have to take parts of our shift off to go to the vet) and somewhere i know she is right but i wanted to wait for the verdict on thursday.
When we came in on thursday my exotic vet did say he was pretty skinny but she was quite positive about surgery and wanted to give it a shot. (Chase had surgery multiple times for this) We made the decision to operate.
After that was decided we left him at the vet to pick him up the next day. My vet said it had been quite the adventure to get the stones out. One pretty big stone was fully stuck in his penis. She tried flushing it up to get it out via the bladder. That did not work out and she eventually had to pull it out through the penis. That will obviously be a painful road to recovery.
He ate veggies right after surgery but refuses hay. Its been 3,5 days since surgery and over 10 days in total without hay.. there is nothing i can do to get him to eat it and i am really out of ideas! Hay houses, hay rolls, hiding it in toilet rolls and you name it.. does anybody have tips on how to make him eat hay? He used to be a huge hay muncher but he just doesn’t. He does nag for veggies quite alot and bites at the bars for food.(while he was under, the vet checked for teeth issues but she couldn’t spot any)
Any ideas? Or do i have to be patient and will he eat hay again eventually? Cuz it has me worried quite alot.
Kind regards
Celias
About 10 days ago i picked him up and noticed that is weight had dropped. I wasn’t prepared for what i saw on the scale though… He always weighs around 1120 grams, but when i put him on the scale he was only 895
instantly started our critical care feeds, day and night. Very unfortunately my amazing exotic vet was on holiday. I do not really trust him to go to our local vet as they are 3 times more expensive and they often openly admit they do not know much about guinea pigs. in the weekend of 21/22 september, his health was declining. He was having alot of difficulty peeing and was eating next to nothing anymore (luckily i was already feeding him every 4 hours) he stopped eating hay fully. Everytime i would pick him up he would be so soaked in urine as it was constantly dripping out in small droplets and he was not moving at all. I had to clean him quite regularly. On monday i took my chances and went to my local vet anyways to take some xrays and as i would expect: bladder stones. Ofcourse my local vet suggested to euthanize him (as they always do) but i said i wanted to talk to my exotic vet first as i trust her the most.
Between monday and thursday me and my wife argued alot… she can really not take it anymore. The endless costs, the endless worrying and the struggles we have with our bosses at work (cuz we have to take parts of our shift off to go to the vet) and somewhere i know she is right but i wanted to wait for the verdict on thursday.
When we came in on thursday my exotic vet did say he was pretty skinny but she was quite positive about surgery and wanted to give it a shot. (Chase had surgery multiple times for this) We made the decision to operate.
After that was decided we left him at the vet to pick him up the next day. My vet said it had been quite the adventure to get the stones out. One pretty big stone was fully stuck in his penis. She tried flushing it up to get it out via the bladder. That did not work out and she eventually had to pull it out through the penis. That will obviously be a painful road to recovery.
He ate veggies right after surgery but refuses hay. Its been 3,5 days since surgery and over 10 days in total without hay.. there is nothing i can do to get him to eat it and i am really out of ideas! Hay houses, hay rolls, hiding it in toilet rolls and you name it.. does anybody have tips on how to make him eat hay? He used to be a huge hay muncher but he just doesn’t. He does nag for veggies quite alot and bites at the bars for food.(while he was under, the vet checked for teeth issues but she couldn’t spot any)
Any ideas? Or do i have to be patient and will he eat hay again eventually? Cuz it has me worried quite alot.
Kind regards
Celias
