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2 Year Old Pig, Losing Weight, Nothing Seeimgly Wrong?

skittlepower

skittlepower

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hiya

Oscar is nearly 2 and has never been a big pig, he maxed out at about 980g but is always eating. We moved house recently so we missed his weekly weigh-in and he'd lost about 400g by the time we got around to it (about 3/4 weeks). We should have noticed or weighed him sooner but he was still eating the same amount of food and drinking and I fully accept I have been a terrible pig mum to him. :(

We took him straight to the vet who said his lungs sounded a little crackly and his nose was snotty so he had Baytril for 10 days along with probiotics in his water and 10ml Recovery Plus twice a day (I think its similar to Critical Care?). During this time he never stopped eating or drinking or pooing. We've been weighing him daily during this time and he's been up and down around the same amount (590g).

His activity is probably the same as it always has been, he's always been pretty lazy but comes to chew on the bars when its feeding time. He always sleeps with his face sideways but his bum up in the air. The only different thing is he now sometimes sits a bit hunched with his face between his front legs, but not for very long or very often (maybe once or twice a day for a few minutes). He is an indoor guinea pig, no indoor plants in the same room, doesn't go in the garden.

He went back again yesterday to see the 'exotic specialist' and he had lost 10g on their scales. There was no more crackling on the lungs, he checked his ears which were all fine (he noticed his head tilt straight away which is just a bit of a character trait of the little guy). Oscar happily did a wee allover the table which he checked and said it was very watery - no protein in it and he used a test stick and everything was normal on that.

He now wants to put him to sleep to take some blood which I'm very wary of because he is so small, it isn't until next week so I'm hoping I can get some more weight on him before that.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of other issues I can ask him to check? Or similar experiences with your own guinea pigs? I'm not sure what else I can do for the little guy.
 
skittlepower said:
Hiya

Oscar is nearly 2 and has never been a big pig, he maxed out at about 980g but is always eating. We moved house recently so we missed his weekly weigh-in and he'd lost about 400g by the time we got around to it (about 3/4 weeks). We should have noticed or weighed him sooner but he was still eating the same amount of food and drinking and I fully accept I have been a terrible pig mum to him. :(

We took him straight to the vet who said his lungs sounded a little crackly and his nose was snotty so he had Baytril for 10 days along with probiotics in his water and 10ml Recovery Plus twice a day (I think its similar to Critical Care?). During this time he never stopped eating or drinking or pooing. We've been weighing him daily during this time and he's been up and down around the same amount (590g).

His activity is probably the same as it always has been, he's always been pretty lazy but comes to chew on the bars when its feeding time. He always sleeps with his face sideways but his bum up in the air. The only different thing is he now sometimes sits a bit hunched with his face between his front legs, but not for very long or very often (maybe once or twice a day for a few minutes). He is an indoor guinea pig, no indoor plants in the same room, doesn't go in the garden.

He went back again yesterday to see the 'exotic specialist' and he had lost 10g on their scales. There was no more crackling on the lungs, he checked his ears which were all fine (he noticed his head tilt straight away which is just a bit of a character trait of the little guy). Oscar happily did a wee allover the table which he checked and said it was very watery - no protein in it and he used a test stick and everything was normal on that.

He now wants to put him to sleep to take some blood which I'm very wary of because he is so small, it isn't until next week so I'm hoping I can get some more weight on him before that.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of other issues I can ask him to check? Or similar experiences with your own guinea pigs? I'm not sure what else I can do for the little guy.
Click to expand...

Please make sure that you syringe feed any guinea pig that is not quite right and especially one that is off its food.

The need to breathe comes before the need to drink and only thirdly the need to eat. This is why respiratory infections usually come with a loss of appetite and weight. Antibiotics are also appetite dampeners (especially baytril) and can in some cases kill off the appetite completely, so there is a double whammy. Please read our syringe feeding guide. Many vets underestimate the amount of support food that a guinea pig needs to keep going grossly.
Please continue to offer top up syringe feed, as much as your boy wants 2-3 times daily to stabilise his weight. You can order it online and use mushed up pellets in the meantime if you are out of recovery formula. Your support care at home can be as important and vital to get a piggy through a rough patch as any medication. It may take a while for the weight to come back after a bad illness, but you can help with giving extra vitamin C for 2-3 weeks to help boost the immune system and also give a course of fibreplex to support and restock the guts with the good bacteria to help boost his battered digestion and appetite on top of the ongoing support feeding.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide

Is your vet considering that the head tilt may be connected to the respiratory infection possibly having gone on into the ear and further as it has obviously not been treated straight away? Has he put your boy back on antibiotics again? 10 days of antibiotic can be too short to fully heal out a URI.

You have to decide whether you'd want to risk a GA for lab tests at this low weight.

@Pound Shilling & Pig @Jaycey @helen105281 @Freela
 
Hi Wiebke

He isn't off his food (if anything I think he is eating & drinking more than ever - I am sat in the room with them today working and every time I turn around he is either eating or drinking) and is being syringe fed in addition despite his protests. He did lose weight despite this (well - staying around about the same now).

The vet has checked his ears and is happy there is no issue, and is also happy that the URI is gone - he thinks we caught it early if there was an issue at all - the vet we saw before could barely hear anything in his lungs, a slight crackle if she HAD to suggest something, the Baytril was more of a precaution, and this time everything sounded perfectly clear and an x-ray showed no fluid build up.

Oscar has had the head tilt since we got him and has had that checked by 3 different vets since, its just one of his little quirks! He goes to Holly House which is the most local recommended vet to us so I'm quite trusting that his ears & lungs are OK.

His losing weight/not gaining is the most concerning thing despite there being no obvious reason for it - if he wasn't eating anything and was relying on being topped up by me then I could understand but he is eating around 30g of his biscuits per day plus having ~20ml of Recovery Plus per day and his veg (about 1 cup per day) & all the hay he can eat and STILL being cheeky and begging for more. Its almost as if he isn't absorbing anything from the food and just pooping it straight back out. Very strange.

Thank you for your help.
 
Loosing weight! Has your vet done a full range poo analysis?
 
@skittlepower I recommend a full range poo analysis like gizzy mentions above.

One of my boars was losing weight a few months ago despite eating normally. We sent away a sample of his poop to be tested. The results weren't particularly detailed but it did highlight a fungal issue.

The vet put him on a months course of Itrafungal. I need to send off another sample soon to see if the results come back differently. But he did stop losing weight around 2 weeks into the course.

He was originally 1025g, went down to 950g when we visited the vet. He continued down to 890g. He then stopped there, and has slowly gone back upto 950g since.

During the whole time he's been acting normally. No breathing issues, and very active as always.

It is very hard for pigs to gain weight again. The vet didn't want us to syringe feed him as it could lead to teeth issues if he ate less himself. The only difference is that we have given him a few more pellets than is advised,
 
@skittlepower Oh I forgot to mention about taking the blood sample. I had a boar with bladder issues and high protein levels in his urine.

We needed to take a blood sample to have it checked for protein. He was in having anaesthetic for an xray to be taken so the vet was going to take a sample then.

He rang me a little while later and said he was able to get a big enough sample from over clipping a toenail.

Apparently the blood can act weirdly from a toenail overclip as it starts to congeal quickly so you have to be quick at getting it onto a slide.. But it's worth a try. Maybe your vet can try that first?
 
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