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Scampy has the runs

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Marty,

Are your piggies brothers,or related in any way?

The diet you are giving is fine,I can see no problem there.Herbs such as parsley are actually good for the piggies if given 2 to 3 times a week and not everday.My pigs love parsley, they like the flat leaf variety best.I also give them dill,basil and coriander.Corn cobs with leaves and silk,aand cauli stems are also liked.Cucumber,chicoryand kale can also be given.Try and give as much variety as you can.

What dry mix do you use?.
 
Julie and Marty I have only just caught up with this thread and wanted to send my love and best wishes to you both at this very difficult time. It sounds like you did everything you possibly could for your little guy, run free at Rainbow Bridge Scampy 0:)
 
Hi Mary

Scampy was Blaze's son, the other two are not related in any way.

We try to give them a good mixture of food, Scampy was on Tesco's Guinea Pig mix along with Blaze and Dylan, Pepe has WAG crunch.

Caviesgalore - thank you, we're finding it quite hard to take at the moment but life has to go on, we have three other piggies to take care of :)
 
I suppose it is possible that there is some genetic fault in Blaze and Scampy Does Wagg or Tesco mix have colourants?,.,the artificial colourants in some gp feeds have been inplicated in renal problems.

What bedding do you use,and where aare the cages/pens situated?

Sorry about the inquisition!,but it does seem too much of a coincidence that 3 pigs have or have had soft pellets and diarrheoa.Unless the problem is genetic,it can only be something in the food/envirement.Please,do not take this as a critisicm,because it certainly is not.It could be some simple thing in the envirement that no one would have thought of..

When I first started keeping piggies a long time ago,there was no internet to turn to and very little in the way of reliable literature on gps.I had to learn the hard way about the things that were good or bad for the little ones.Even common household cleaning products and such,can cause allergic reactions in some piggies.They are not easy animals to keep,but they sure are worth the trouble.
 
It's Ok Mary, we've been analysing and over-analysing if we've done anything, even accidently, wrong since it happened.

The Tesco food's ingredients are:

Wheatfood, Peas, Lucerne, Wheat, Oats, Oatfeed, Grass, Carrot Disc (Minimum 4% carrot), Sunflower Ext, Soya, Vegetable Oil, Maize, Vitamins & Minerals, Carob Meal, Linseed & contains EC permitted antioxidants. It aslo says that the product may contain traces of nutes, as it has been made in a factory that uses nut ingredients.

The Wagg food's ingredients are:

Peas, Wheat, Oats, Wheatfeed, Oatfeed, Toasted Soya, Maize, Grass, Sunflower EXt, Vegetable Oil, Syrup, Carob Meal, Linseed, Vitmains & Minerals, Yeast & contains EX permitted antioxidants. It aslo ahs the same warning about nuts.

They are normally bedded on Megazorb but we had to get some aubiose the last time as the shop that sells the megazorb had run out. They have had aubiose before but I took them off of it the first time as I thought it was too sharp and it kept getting lodged in their anal sacs (especially Blaze). We actually moved their cages about a month ago from the end of the room with the sunlight to the darker end as we were worried about them getting too hot in the summer, we were going to move them back to the lighter end once the summer was over. Although Blaze and Scampy were loacted on the floor their pen has got quite high sides, and the vet checked Scampy's lungs yesterday and said they were ok so I don't think it's a URI.

We rang Vedra at the CCT earlier and she asked if he'd either been in contact with buttercups (which we're certain he hadn't - he hadn't been out on the grass for over a week because of the bad weather) or whether there was any chance that mice could have someone got in to food or bedding which we checked this afternoon and could find no trace of. I'm not sure why she asked us that.

All three of the other boys do seem to have slightly soft poos still, especially Blaze and Pepe, even though none of them had any veggies yesterday so we are getting somewhat concerned. Pepe has always had slightly soft poos anyway, we found out today whilst talking to Vedra that the sample of wee we sent her for Pepe showed signs of interstitial cystitis (spelling?) so we have to get him some medicine.

We're really at a loss as to what could have caused him to leave us so suddenly. The one thing that I keep thinking about is that, ever since we've had him ,he's never drunk a lot of water (unlike the other three) and that somehow that could been the long term reason why he left us.

Just so you know, we also normally give them filtered water, but have had to switch to plain tap water for the last few days as we mistakenly ran out of filters for the Brita filter, although when we first had them they used to only have tap water anyway.
 
Tescos food and Wagg are fine re colourings. Wagg is a bit short on fibre but they get that from their hay.
 
The one in the Tesco bag is only sold in Tesco as far as I know :) But lets not hpignap Marty's thread :)
 
Marty,

There does not seem to be any problems there.Wagg and Tesco mix ingredients are o.k.,and Karen has o.k"d them and I trust her judgement.

Afraid this is turning out to be what I call " GP Mystery Syndrome"!.

I have had many pigs that have been ill,or expired and even a pm has not shown the cause.

We are on a very steep learning curve with gp health and have a long way to go.

The immediate worry now is of course the health of the other pigs.It may be a good idea to give them extra water by syringe to keep the kidneys flushed through.

Given Vedras diagnosis of cystitis,it would seem as though the problem is renal.

Where did you get the pigs from,did they come from the same breeder do you know?.
 
Hi Mary, thanks for all your help so far.

No, all four boys are rescue piggies. Blaze and Scampy came from GBH Rescue in Beckenham, Dylan from our local RSPCA office in Medway and Pepe came from Kate at Cornflower cavies, via this site :)

All three of the remaining piggies, especially Pepe, drink quite a lot. Like I said before, Scampy was the exception as he drunk far less than the others. I will try and syringe feed them some water this evening anyway, Dylan won't be a problem, he's very passive but I'm not so sure about the other two. I'll let you know how I got on.

We have also e-mailed Vedra with some more details regarding Scampy's sudden death, I'm hoping she may be able to throw some light on it although I'm not holding out too much hope, like you say, it could just be "GP Mystery Syndrome" :-\
 
Mary

Just to let you know we have syringe fed each of them 3 ml of pro-biotic mixed with water. As suspected Dylan was extremely well behaved and took it without any problem. Blaze wasn't too bad but Pepe was a nightmare! >:D

We are putting some more in some water bowls (they usually drink from bottles) to try and get more in to them as well.
 
Pepe sounds like my Roland and Harry,they are stroppy little whatsits as well.

Try and give the probiotic little and often,and you may find that Pepe will get used to it.

I do not advocate putting any meds or supplements in water bowls or bottles because it is too hit and miss.,you have no idea how much each pig is drinking.
 
That's why I put it in the bowl rather than the bottle. They're sturdy enough not to tip over (unless they really try) so I should be able to gauge how much they have. Blaze is actually quite fond of drinking from a bowl, as was Scampy (they used to have them for playtime only). In hindsight I wonder if having a bowl in his cage would have meant he would have drunk more.
 
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