Worried about my guinea pig herd

[Mtrac117]

Hello! I would like to talk about the situation that I had to go through last night. I am heartbroken and would like peer advice, since I have no financial support for a necropsy as it is over 2K USD in my area.



Last night, two of my guinea pigs out of my ten had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last night. One was a baby that had joined us in the past few months and another was a year old adult. They were perfectly happy, alert, and active during the day. We had left the house for an hour and the baby had passed away with our older one barely clinging on. He perked up when we warmed him up and took sugar water by syringe.
We tried to get him to the ER Clinic but he passed away while driving there.

the rest of our guinea pigs are acting the same as they always do, there has been no severe diet changes, tempurature changes, or environmental changes. We cannot recall any vegetables or fruits that we fed them outside our normal routines. I am worried that there is something wrong that will hurt the rest of our herd, since the age difference between the two that had passed was so big but it seems like they died in very similar ways.

I would really appreciate advice or guesses to what had happened last night. We are cleaning the enclosure today to see if there's anything out of the ordinary in there

 

[Siikibam]

I’m so sorry for your loss. Unfortunately no one except a vet would be able to tell you what happened. The thing with piggies is they’re prey animals and have got hiding illnesses down to a fine art.

Do take care of yourself and take time to grieve your two rainbow piggies.

 

[Free Ranger]

If your poor baby had brought an infection in I'd be thinking you'd have seen something before now to be honest. If a young one had been battling a serious infection for a few months I would have expected to see signs such as not putting weight on as expected or your older one losing a little weight. Because piggies are so good at hiding illnesses the only way I can think of to spot something creeping along under the radar is the weekly weighing that the forum recommends for routine care. If they are indoor piggies they wouldn't have even been exposed to any other wildlife - it's baffling and upsetting for you. Personally I can't think of any obvious or well-known bug that guinea people have to watch out for. But there, I'm not a vet.

There are other conditions like bloat which can be triggered by diet sometimes. My girl had transient bloat in the spring when she gorged on some rich grass. We've never seen it before so it took me a while to make the link between her sitting in a different place to usual, looking a bit squinty eyed (because it's not comfortable), and then suddenly realising I'd not seen her eat anything at all for much of the day. When I picked her up she felt like a barrel but it wasn't something you could just see because she's very fluffy. Massage and meds and syringe food pushed the gas through and within a few days she was back to normal but the truth is that if I'd just left her to it there was a decent chance that she wouldn't have started eating again and gone into gut stasis - after that the end comes unexpectedly quickly. But my other two - on the same diet because they all live together and eat together - were absolutely fine.

Post mortem might or might not give you a clue but it won't happen overnight, it'll take them a little time so even if it finds something that prompts you to have all your remaining piggies checked you are still going to have an anxious wait. I don't know if my approach would be the right one, but I think I'd personally take the immediate approach of carefully checking over my surviving pigs to see that they are eating, have dry noses etc, and they don't feel blown up, and then I'd start a weight chart - probably daily at first (you can go up or down about 30g which is normal for something like a full/empty bladder) and then weekly if everyone was staying stable. And I'd think that 2K USD would serve better towards vet fees in case one of the others suddenly starts to deteriorate and needed emergency treatment. There's nothing you can do for your lost pigs at this point and it might just have been a really unfortunate coincidence. There's no guarantee that necropsy could help. But over the next few days the money might be able to save another pig if one goes downhill.

I'm so sorry for your losses x

 

[Claire W]

I am so very sorry for your losses Guinea pigs can die from heart attacks or strokes from any age at anytime but sadly, only a post mortem carried out by your vet will tell you how they died but as you have found, these are very expensive.

Guinea pigs hide their illnesses very well since they are prey animals and often once we discover there’s something wrong, it’s too late.

Try take heart that they have both had a lovely life with you and concentrate on your remaining piggies.

Take good care of yourself as you grieve x