Unusual poo and loosing hair advice please

[Kidge]

I was hoping someone might have some advice on what could be wrong with my four year old female guinea pig. I noticed some of her poos have been a bit sticky and have a point at the end. They are still formed but not as hard as usual. She has also lost a lot of weight (I weighed her today and she is down to 1,088g she was 1,178g 2 weeks ago). She’s also shedding a lot. Apart from that she seems her usual happy self and eating all the usual things. I’ve booked a vets appointment this afternoon but there aren’t any exotic vets around here and I don’t know how much experience they have with guinea pigs. I was wondering if anyone else has come across these symptoms before or has any advice.

Additional info: she does have a lump but I had it checked last year and it wasn’t anything like cancer. I have limited veggies as well but I don’t want to stop them completely in case she is dehydrated (she gets most of her water intake from veggies). She’s also done unusual poos before but it usually resolves itself in a few days.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I'm glad you’ve got the vet appointment.

As she has lost so much weight it means she is in fact not eating as usual - her hay intake has dramatically reduced which will mean her fibre intake is reduced so she is likely to have an unbalanced gut.
Whether this is the problem or a symptom of the problem is for the vet to determine.
Hay is 75% of their daily food intake so any drop in intake has a huge effect on their weight very quickly. 50g of loss is the point at which you go on alert and step in.

You must urgently step in with syringe feeding either a fibre rich recovery feed such as critical care or use mushed pellets in the absence of critical care. Mushed pellets contains less fibre but it’s the emergency measure. Try to get some critical care when you can.
Please ensure you weigh her every morning so you can monitor that she is being syringe fed enough. You are aiming to feed as much as is necessary to stop the weight loss.

Please do stop the veggies temporarily. She needs an increase in fibre intake to rebalance her gut. Adding veg won’t help her at present.
She can be given a probiotic or poop soup made from the soaked poops of a healthy companion. This can help rebalance the gut bacteria.

I hope she is ok

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[Kidge]

Thank you for the advice. I do have critical care so will get some into her. Her poos do look pretty much back to normal today but obviously the weight loss is really worrying me

 

[Kidge]

The other reason why I’m worried about stopping her veg is she is a cage biter and will do it to the stage of breaking teeth if I ignore her. She only bar bites when she knows she’s about to get veggies and is very aggressive if the food doesn’t arrive fast enough. She has broken teeth in the past when I tried ignoring her.

 

[Kidge]

Just been to the vet and they think it’s her teeth. The vet had a listen to her stomach (which sounded normal) and did an X-ray which didn’t show anything like excess gas or a cyst. They recommended critical care top ups and if her weight doesn’t improve then they will file down her teeth. One side was going slightly to the side which they thought could be slowing her food intake.