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Respiratory problems

J

Juniper83

Junior Guinea Pig
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My 7 month old guinea pig Albert has snuffly breathing and sneezes quite a bit. He came from Pets at Home Adoption for Pets and they told me he was healthy, but as soon as he got home he was breathing in a snuffly way. I took him to the vet the day after and we got him on baytril for a week. He seemed to improve a little but not get better. The vet said she didn't want to do a longer course of antibiotics just yet and I should try looking for allergies. I tried a hypoallergenic alternative to wood shavings, but he seemed to get a bit worse, so we got him back on the baytril for another 3 weeks. After that he still wasn't better, so we increased the dose and continued for a further 2 weeks. For the last week I also brought his hutch indoors in case the increased warmth would help him to recover, but I don't think it has. We're just coming to the end of that two weeks now, and I'm going to book him another vets appointment tomorrow.

It doesn't seem to be a very serious problem, he is lively, eating well, and growing. When the vet listens to his lungs, she says they sound clear (though he does tend to squeak a lot in complaint so it's not that easy to tell...). The antibiotics don't seem to have caused any digestive issues and he's fairly good about taking them. But I do wish he would just get better. Really I want to get him neutered so he can move in with my other guinea pig, May, but I can't very well put him in for an operation when he's not healthy to begin with.

He sometimes has some dried snot on his nose, but nothing the vet could use to test which kind of bacteria are present.

Has anyone had any similar experiences, or any ideas of things I could ask the vet when he has his appointment?
 
will wait for a health and illness guru to answer your thread .

Are Albert's problems anything like the problems described in this thread ?

Hooting
 
Juniper83 said:
My 7 month old guinea pig Albert has snuffly breathing and sneezes quite a bit. He came from Pets at Home Adoption for Pets and they told me he was healthy, but as soon as he got home he was breathing in a snuffly way. I took him to the vet the day after and we got him on baytril for a week. He seemed to improve a little but not get better. The vet said she didn't want to do a longer course of antibiotics just yet and I should try looking for allergies. I tried a hypoallergenic alternative to wood shavings, but he seemed to get a bit worse, so we got him back on the baytril for another 3 weeks. After that he still wasn't better, so we increased the dose and continued for a further 2 weeks. For the last week I also brought his hutch indoors in case the increased warmth would help him to recover, but I don't think it has. We're just coming to the end of that two weeks now, and I'm going to book him another vets appointment tomorrow.

It doesn't seem to be a very serious problem, he is lively, eating well, and growing. When the vet listens to his lungs, she says they sound clear (though he does tend to squeak a lot in complaint so it's not that easy to tell...). The antibiotics don't seem to have caused any digestive issues and he's fairly good about taking them. But I do wish he would just get better. Really I want to get him neutered so he can move in with my other guinea pig, May, but I can't very well put him in for an operation when he's not healthy to begin with.

He sometimes has some dried snot on his nose, but nothing the vet could use to test which kind of bacteria are present.

Has anyone had any similar experiences, or any ideas of things I could ask the vet when he has his appointment?
Click to expand...

Hi!

You and your vet have done the right thing in excluding a potential lethal or permanently damaging respiratory infection (URI).

Guinea pigs can be very sensitive to hay dust/pollen, loose bedding, dry radiator indoors air/air conditioning, air fresheners/scent sticks/smoking. They should not be kept as unprotected outdoors pets during winter or heat waves anyway.

I would strongly recommend to investigate those areas (try different dust extracted hay brands; not all are the same quality), research possible changes you can make to the bedding; see whether a bowl of steaming water next to the cage can alleviate symptoms (in which case a humidifier may help) etc. Finding the trigger for the sniffles is unfortunately a rather tedious process of looking at all possible angles.
Bedding For Guinea Pigs - Overview

Is your boy a single piggy? If yes, you may want to consider find him a companion by rescue dating if one of our recommended rescues is within your reach; that way your boy can decide who he wants to get on with and you come home with a healthy/fully quarantined and properly sexed companion only after acceptance has happened.
He sounds like a fallen-out dominant teenager that has already been failed once by the pet shop for being sold as a not personality matched baby and then again by being labelled as an 'unbondable' boar because the shop hasn't got neither the resources, the knowledge or any interest in the welfare or species needs of any group animals they are selling or the quality of homes they are selling returned piggies to (I know they call it adoption, but rescue adoption includes so much more service and care and respects minimal welfare recommendations).
Now that the potential infection risk has been eliminated, you are free to look further ahead and plan for the long term. ;)
Companionship
Recommended Guinea Pig Rescues

Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides
 
My Edward started snuffling and hooting. We took him to the vets who ruled out a uri.

As we use wood shavings, we thought it could be them so we tried Easibed but I didn’t like it as it felt too hard.

It turned out to be the bag of hay I was using at the time. I’m now back to using woodshavings and we’ve had no problems since :)
 
Thanks all.

I wouldn't describe it as hooting, it's mostly a snuffling/grunting sort of sound. It was interesting to hear of a pig who was permanently a bit wheezy though. My Mum was visiting last weekend and said he was just like the rest of the family, we all tend to be a bit snuffly even when nothing's wrong. I've never heard of a guinea pig being like that though.


I got Albert as a companion for May after her sister died. I was hoping I'd be able to get him neutered within a week or so of moving in so and they could start getting to know each other once he'd healed up from that. But giving him anaesthetic when his breathing's not right seems like a bad idea and so that hasn't happened. So far they've met each other on my lap, and May sometimes comes over to Albert's hutch and looks in through the bars, but they haven't been able to interact properly without close supervision because I don't want May pregnant. I'm holding out hope that we will be able to find a solution to this and get them living together, I don't really want both hutches full long term.

The person I talked to at the shop didn't seem to know anything about his history, I think she was guessing a bit at his age too. Most of my pigs have been from proper rescues, but none of the local shelters had any guineas in when I was looking this time, and given that there was a lonely pig in need of adoption not 10 minutes from my house, I thought I'd give Pets at Home adoption a try. Maybe not something to try a second time though.

There's no air conditioning, air fresheners, scent sticks, or smoking here. I don't think the air is very dry what with cooking, laundry etc indoors and rain outdoors. I will investigate other kinds of bedding though. When I was at my parents' house we used aubiose for a few years and that was pretty good, but there was more storage space there than here. I really hope the hay isn't the problem, it's hard enough to find good hay even when you're not worried about allergies. There is more scope to investigate that at the moment though as he doesn't need it for warmth as much when he's in the house, so I should get on with that.

We live in quite a sheltered area so it doesn't really get that cold outside. The guinea pigs have heat pads in Winter and lots of good long hay to snuggle into so they are normally fine out, and just come in when it's very cold. They have free access to the garden outside and don't have to listen to weird human noises, so they do generally prefer it there.
 
One of my boars wheezes for a little while at some point most days, he occasionally also has a slightly runny nose. In his previous home he was on baytril and metacam for a month as the vet diagnosed a URI, this did not help. The vet then suggested an allergy, he had been living on wooodshavings in his previous home. When he came to me he went on to vetbed/fleece which has helped a lot. I buy dust extracted hay which I then decant into new bags in the garden giving it a good shake in case there's any remaining dust. He is very bright, popcorns all the time and is the most active energetic piggy out of my six. Whatever is affecting his breathing does not seem to bother him, if a wheezing session goes on for some time or sounds worse than usual I do have a nebuliser I can pop him in for 20 mins which does sseem to clear his airway. It would be worth asking your vet if she thinks a nebuliser could help him.
 
A nebuliser for guinea pigs! I had no idea such a thing existed. Thanks for telling me about that, Piggieminder. What does he have in the nebuliser, is it a human ventolin inhaler or something specific for guinea pigs?

The latest visit to the vet was pretty much a waste of time, not really any advice that hasn't been said on here. But she did say we could have a referral to a specialist if necessary. I might take her up on that later.

At present I've done up Albert's hutch so it's entirely hypoallergenic (and largely dependent on the paper recycling industry). He has a paper pellet based thing called Back-2-Nature in place of the shavings and a shredded paper based bedding in his bedroom. It feels a lot softer than you'd expect shredded paper to be so that's good. I've put some hay in a wooden toy just outside the hutch so he can go and get some to eat if he wants, but he's not surrounded by it. This hasn't helped of course.

Perhaps he is just a snuffly pig. It's been interesting to hear about others on here. It's not something I've encountered before despite having had piggies since I was 11. It's reassuring that this might be something that continues to not bother him.

I'm going to keep a close eye on him for the next week and see if he gets better or worse with the hypoallergenic hutch and no antibiotics, then decide where to go from there. No change so far.
 
@Juniper83 I've found this thread which I think explains quite well about nebulising, it's really worth talking it over with a piggy savvy vet. Anyone heard of this? I used back 2 nature in Caspy's hay box but found it dusty and started his wheezing off again. I now just line his box with a thick layer of newspaper and change it every day, I bed him on fleece and vetbed.
 
I am just having this issue with one of my girls! she is 5 or 6 and I haven't noticed it before. they are currently bedded on shavings but have been on aubiose. however it's only since I moved them into a new room I have occasionally noticed a chesty sounding noise from one of them. I work from home in the same room so I could hear this notice so I put her in the nebulizer for 20 min or so and that helped massively. she was at the vet a couple of months ago for this very issue and the vet said nothing wrong with her lungs. I only occasionally hear the noise so I am thinking possible allergy. at the moment I am considering changing bedding back to aubiose or even trying fleece, and / or a humidifier. I will probably start with going back to aubiose as I liked that bedding and it's very clean. following with interest as id like to see what others think!
 
The vet Caspy saw before I had him thought he had an allergy to the wood shavings he was bedded on, apparently it's very common. He is a lot better although not completely cured since he's been with me on fleece. Unfortunately I think this is going to be a life long problem for him and a case of me keeping on top of any triggers, the main one now I think being hay.
 
I see, those nebulisers are pretty different to what I expected. I had a nebuliser for a little while when I was 6 or so but it was just a couple of plastic cones that went between my inhaler and my mouth so I could use the inhaler without having the proper technique. These look like some complicated machinery but still with a human face mask or mouthpiece rather than a box you could put a guinea in. Presumably you need to modify the nebuliser to add a box. It must be pretty difficult to add the right number of ventilation holes so that you do have airflow but you're not just immediately losing all the medicine vapour out of the holes. Is that something the vet would be able to give advice on? Or can you just buy a properly designed box? I think I will be asking the vet about this next time I go, but I'd like to find out some more about it first so I know what I'm talking about when I'm there.

I wasn't too impressed with the Back-2-nature stuff, mostly because it doesn't stay put on the stairs and tends to go everywhere when Albert kicks it, even more than shavings. It also makes the hutch look very dismal and grey, though I've no idea if Albert percieves it that way. Perhaps he cares more about smells than looks. I didn't notice it being particularly dusty, but I could certainly try with a thick newspaper layer next time the hutch needs cleaning. If this does turn out to be a factor I should try and get some aubiose for the longer term, though it seems they only do 20kg bags which is massively inconvenient for where I live now.

I really hope the hay is not the problem. It will be hard to keep him warm outside without lots of hay for him to snuggle into, and having the hutch indoors means a lot of awkward limboing to use anything in the kitchen, it wasn't intended as a permanent solution. The shredded paper stuff is OK but not as good as proper hay.
 
how's your piggies breathing @Juniper83 ?

I have just changed my piggies bedding to fitch paper bedding to see if that helps. I haven't put any hay on the floor yet though, just in their large hay feeder, and I wondered if this is the best thing to do? they have a couple of fleecy beds. I haven't really heard her chesty breathing much over the last week or so, it definitely wasn't as bad, but we haven't had the heating on as much. but we go away in 5 days time so I want everything to be as 'safe' as possible and if that means no hay on the floor then that's what I'll do! they will have unlimited hay in their feeder.
 
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