Seeking advice - poor gut and some twitching

[guineadad-7156]

Hello everyone,

I have been an avid reader of this forum, making my first post today.

My poor 3 year old guinea pig Bean, who’s been with me for a year now, has been going through several health issues - I’ve done vet visits for URI, and lately hematuria (blood in urine) and small mucous-y poops. I feel I’ve not been getting satisfactory answers sometimes from vets, one time I was told by an emergency vet she was fine as long as she’s eating - I’d brought her in for a poor gut motility issue which was getting worse enough for concern (stringy mucous poops).

I’ve been trying to encourage hay and keeping her surrounded with hay, and giving about 1.5-2 cups of veggies to tackle any dehydration as she’s not great with syringe feeding water and barely drinks water by herself (I’ve tried putting two bottles and a water bowl in the cage). The extra veggies do make her poop soft but I feel like I’m okay to steer there than her gut not getting enough water.

As of now, her poops are sometimes looking While they’re all small (at most 0.8 cm), they’re not all misshapen. I’m also giving her Pro-bac, and while I’d love to give her her roomie Daisy’s poo soup, Daisy herself has traces of this ‘thin film’ mucous in her poops.

Also, this evening I believe I saw muscle spasms around her face and her head also shakes a tad bit possibly from her labored breathing, which has been a thing since I got her. Her ears were also twitching last evening but I don’t have a video of it.

The hematuria has stopped for now as per what I see in this

Any advice is greatly appreciated, this forum has already been a gold mine of resources for me!

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear she is unwell.

Are you weighing her daily so you can keep an eye on her fibre intake? Hay is the most important part and she needs to be eating enough to maintain her weight
Are you syringe feeding her a recovery feed - Oxbow critical care or her normal pellets mushed with water?
Overdoing veg runs the risk of her reducing her hay intake and the reduction in fibre can cause, not only weight loss, but gut issues and soft poops.
When a piggy has soft poops, the advice is to remove veg from the diet to allow the gut to settle again with plenty of fibre from hay and syringe feeding when piggy is losing weight.
Reduced veg intake doesn’t cause weight loss as it is only 10-15% of the daily food intake.

Not Eating, Weight Loss And The Importance Of Syringe Feeding Fibre
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Digestive Disorders: Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement) And Not Eating

Please add pictures directly to this post by pressing ’attach files’ below the message box, so that we do not have to click on third party links.

 

[guineadad-7156]

Here are the attachments:

 

[Piggies&buns]

The poops do look like a gut disturbance.

As I asked above, are you weighing her daily and syringe feeding her a fibre rich recovery feed?

 

[guineadad-7156]

Video of Bean possibly having muscle spasms:

 

[Piggies&buns]

Video of Bean possibly having muscle spasms:

We cannot host video unfortunately. It will need to be uploaded to YouTube first

 

[Piggies&buns]

Was she given antibiotics for URI and/or potential UTI?

 

[guineadad-7156]

Yes I’ve been weighing her pretty much daily, her weight has gone down ~10g on average from last week… she’s 840g now. I remember around last month she was 870g. I do have Oxbow critical care but have not given her that yet.
She was very briefly on enrofloxacin 3-4 weeks ago for a couple days, and I recently also had been giving her meloxicam on seeing the blood in her urine. Potential UTI/URI, the vets can’t get her urine sample for culture as her bladder’s almost always empty as I’ve been told.

Here’s the YouTube link, the spasms around her cheek and breathing sounds worth noting: Bean

Thank you for your reply!

 

[Piggies&buns]

Why was she taken off antibiotics so quickly? A course of antibiotics for a URI/UTI would be 7-10 days to a few weeks long. A couple of days worth wouldnt have cured an illness

So she has lost around 30g from a month ago. That wouldn’t be considered weight loss at this point, but you would want to keep an eye out for it forming a downward trend

 

[guineadad-7156]

I wanted to see her roommate Daisy’s urine culture results before starting a full course.. I was a little hesitant on starting enrofloxacin.

Bean’s symptoms reg blood in urine carried on for some more time until recently. I first saw loose poops a month ago, so I put her on a hay and pellets-only diet and it came back to normal for a couple days.. until I saw the dreaded “poops chained by mucous” thing. I will try giving her a dose of Oxbow critical care right now and report back here… been quite a while I’ve seen her fully healthy but I’m hopeful! Please also do let me know your thoughts on the video I attached, her breathing is also probably worth noting.

I will keep a tab on her weight, it definitely is a downtrend albeit slow.

 

[Wiebke]

I wanted to see her roommate Daisy’s urine culture results before starting a full course.. I was a little hesitant on starting enrofloxacin.

Bean’s symptoms reg blood in urine carried on for some more time until recently. I first saw loose poops a month ago, so I put her on a hay and pellets-only diet and it came back to normal for a couple days.. until I saw the dreaded “poops chained by mucous” thing. I will try giving her a dose of Oxbow critical care right now and report back here… been quite a while I’ve seen her fully healthy but I’m hopeful! Please also do let me know your thoughts on the video I attached, her breathing is also probably worth noting.

I will keep a tab on her weight, it definitely is a downtrend albeit slow.

Hi

Since we are not part of social media and our forum is entirely run by voluntary member donations, we do not support a very expensive video upload facility. Please upload your video elsewhere on a public setting on a service that doesn't require a subscription/membership (like for instance youtube) and then copy across.

Please also make sure that you offer her as much water as she wants but do not force it into her. It will take a day or two before you'll likely see any improvements as the gut is basically like a very long conveyor belt and needs time to process any food that comes in at one end until you see any changes at the other: All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

 

[guineadad-7156]

Hello Wiebke,

Sorry for the confusion, I meant the link I posted to YouTube in a previous comment.

Bean still has small dehydrated poops and refuses water from me and barely drinks it herself (she’d been getting washed veggies until now where she got her water intake from). Thinking of getting purified spring water today to see if that makes a difference. She now has also decided she doesn’t like critical care, makes my job tougher! Her mate Daisy has long good poops but with the mucous(?) “film” on parts where there are holes… she whimpers a bit when eating her own poops. Just putting it all out in case any of these symptoms sound familiar… appreciate all the advice that’s been coming in! Thanks.