Merab
Forum Buddy
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2017
- Messages
- 51,213
- Reaction score
- 71,706
- Points
- 3,425
- Location
- East Riding of Yorksire
Hope all goes well on Thursday
Thanks for that. Losing poor Panda after his stone op made me really wary about the whole thing, then losing Zara too over such a short op... only 20 mins end to end. I don't know what Panda had in terms of anaesthetic though. When we had Casper neutered he was just like Bracken - like nothing had happened. He was really cheerful! But my gentle boy is so old and has actually had a brilliant 4 days of hardly any squeakage (just to make me doubt myself!) But he's louder again this evening. They'll x-ray before they go in just to make sure it's still there (and it's not as big as a melon) so we're just trying to be brave. And eat kale - because he loves it and what the heck.I've had 2 boars have stone surgery, younger (2 & 4) but they have bounced back quickly after gas sedation. Bracken was eating a few hours afterwards and acting as if nothing had happened.
Wow that is some stone! Poor George! Sending lots of healing vibesAnd of course it couldn't last... but he's still pretty OK. One week after his op we heard a few chirps and he started guzzling water again. Then white crustiness appeared around his penis. Monitored for 24 hours - went back to vet. She carefully eased a few crusty white pointy things out of the end of his todger. They could be crumbled with the fingers but felt gritty. On point of doing another x-ray when the machine blew a gasket. Maybe next time. We think at this stage its definitely solid calcium in the form of gritty bits, possibly sludge. Hopefully not the start of another stone yet - hopefully. He did have a sliver of chard in the week, a sliver of greens another day, a sliver of broccoli too. But in truth I can't see how that has tipped the balance. All this happened when he was still on Baytril so we took a deep breath and stopped it... and he didn't get any worse. So we don't think infection - at least not the usual type that grows and grows without the pressure of ABs. He's actually fine most of the time. Very active now he's back with the ladies. Eating well - weight had increased to 955g so he'd put on 40g in the week all by himself clever boy. And I don't want to mess that up. But I suspect that he's trying to pee out some 'solids' and it's hurting him. With the stone he chirped pitifully as he peed. This time he doesn't usually but you do see him squint a bit sometimes. I'm unbunging thrice a day to try and stop any pressure on the urethra.
So, here's the thing. His pee is milky - not unusual in a piggy - but it's really alkaline. Piggy urine as far as I can gather should be about pH 8... maybe a bit above. We're 5 or 6 but we eat meat and stuff. After stalking Flora until she produced I was able to test my new pH strips and indeed she was pH8 (and really confused about what I was doing!) There is also a pH 8.5 and pH9 colour code on these urine test strips. George was immediately off the scale so his pee is minimum pH9. Louise is impossible to test as she's currently too hairy. Will be getting more pH strips for 9+ range but something is telling me that George's pee is precipitating out these solids whereas Flora's isn't. Now maybe it's an unfortunate metabolic side effect of being an old piggy but we can't do much about that. I'm going to look into trying to acidify his urine a little. This might not be possible as the body is generally really good at reacting to changes in conditions and keeping itself the same - homeostasis for anyone who can remember their biology! @PigglePuggle I wonder if you have any bits of info I can look into?
Oh, and finally got the x-rays through. You can see how the stone grew between October and Jan if you compare with a spinal vertebra. These are 3 months apart. Dang, it's a whopper. He's a brave boy x
View attachment 218042 View attachment 218043