• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

4 year old pigs with no bladder problems, if you have one open this thread! :)

Status
Not open for further replies.
flintstones

flintstones

Senior Guinea Pig
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
15,077
Reaction score
2,532
Points
1,345
Location
Never never land
I'm looking for people who have had there pigs for at least 2 years and they are estimated at 4 plus, if you haven't had any bladder problems at all in this time can you please tell me the diet you feed your pigs?

Again, if your following the ratewatcher diet because of Sludge problems are you finding it successful?

Anything you've found that works, please share. Everyone has many different diet's for there pigs no one is right or wrong. I would be interested to know.

Thank you!
 
I feed my pigs a mixture of Beaphar Care+, Burgress Excel, Burgress Excel blackcurrent and oregon (sp?). I've had Dennis and Donna for a little over two years now, and both of them just passed the age of four (four years and two months to be exact).

My mixture: mix 8 cups of Burgress Excel with 4 cups of Beaphar Care+ and 2 cups of burgress excell blackcurrent and oregon. I use a teaglass to measure this, by the way.

They however get only little portions of pellets, a bottom in a hamster-sized foodbowl. Next to that they get vetgies 4times a day and plenty of hay.
 
My Eleanor is approximately four at the beginning of April. We had her April 2009. The pigs have a bowl of pets at home nuggets and a bowl of wagg crunch daily between the four of them. They have veggies twice a day which includes carrot, broccoli, all variety of pepper, tomatoes, cucumber, all variety of lettuce, parsley, coriander and celery throughout the week. They have unlimited hay and their water is always either filtered or bottled. Since Connie in 2008 and Eliza in 2009 *touch wood* we haven't had any problems.
 
Flintstones, i cant contribute as sadly my pepper was only three when i lost him to stones, but i just wanted to say i really admire your dedication to this problem, and will be subscribing to this thread for future use.

Sending a healing hug for Patrick.

;)
 
Thank you everyone so far - can you also advise the vegetables they get is it a case what's on offer or do you put thought into the calcium;ratio.

Sadly I have another pig who appears to have developed sludge in there urine not as bad as Patrick by no means but they do also have blood in there urine, we are going to the vet with both of them but it leads me to think diet is the problem.
 
flintstones said:
Thank you everyone so far - can you also advise the vegetables they get is it a case what's on offer or do you put thought into the calcium;ratio.

Sadly I have another pig who appears to have developed sludge in there urine not as bad as Patrick by no means but they do also have blood in there urine, we are going to the vet with both of them but it leads me to think diet is the problem.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to hear that you have another unwell pig :(

Since we sadly lost Connie and with Eliza's early problems, I have tried to feed the girls a low calcium diet. They only have carrot, broccoli and parsley a few times a week. They no longer have kale and hardly eat cabbage. I tend to feed more salady type foods rather than green leafy veg. I may get slated for the diet I choose to feed my girls but it has been working for us.
 
This thread isn't about slating anyone and I will be very upset if anyone decided to say what's right and what's wrong we don"t know this is the problem. I have in the past followed the cal:phosporous diet but I can't honestly say if it worked or not.

Clearly my diet isn't working, so I want to know what works for others.

My pigs get a bad of salad - this varies
Red, yellow and green peppers.
Cucumber
broccoli

In addition they get coriander, dill, parsley, tomato or blueberries.

Pellets are non existant they get a handful every 3 days or so if they are lucky and I feed GR grainless or Burgess.

Unlimited hay.

Filtered water and vitamin C.
 
flintstones said:
Can you also advise if they are big water drinkers.
Click to expand...
Mine aren't big drinkers, I think they get enough out of their vetgies and fruits. I feed everything by the way,fruit and vetgies wise that they are allowed to have. carrot, andive, and cabbage are their favourites though.
 
I worry about this too - my pigs are coming up 3 mainly - I do have Gypsy who I estimate to be about 5 now and she's been here for 3 years this year and she's go no stones or sludge or anything. Infact she looks great, better than some of the young un's.

I know this is going to be controversial - but I wonder if it's our veggies. i worry about this for mine too as i feed veg every day and try and feed a little bit of lots of different things rather than concentrating on 1 or 2 items.

I do wonder if we didn't give any veg and only did pellets and hay would they get the sludge?

I asked about the hay because some people say don't feed exclusively green hay for this reason but that's what seems most natural for them - and you'd think it was better.

there are so many conflicting stories aren't there - it's so hard to know what to do for the best.
 
Lisajazz said:
which hay?
Click to expand...

When P's problem's first started he was on Oxbow hay and Cavy Cuisine.

They now get Hay for Pets - timothy, Ing's and Meadow, P's problems started well before we changed hay supplier I think his problems started in May roughly and we changed Hay suppliers in September. I had been using oxbow previously.
 
Neither Dizzy nor Llewelyn have had problems apart from the odd UTI connected with lawn time in spring or autumn; they were on a normal diet and passed away from other issues.

I have 6 sows over 3 years old now. The only sow amongst them with a chronic UTI problem has come down with it aged 1 year old and has been on cystease for over 1 1/2 years. None of the others have any issues in that direction.

I generally stay off high calcium foods like spinach or kale and feed parsley only occasionally.
 
Mine get German Mountain Hay, which indeed is green hay but also has very long pieces which is great for their dentalwork.
 
flintstones said:
When P's problem's first started he was on Oxbow hay and Cavy Cuisine.

They now get Hay for Pets - timothy, Ing's and Meadow, P's problems started well before we changed hay supplier I think his problems started in May roughly and we changed Hay suppliers in September. I had been using oxbow previously.
Click to expand...

all green hays. I just read this on a an 'understanding hay' website

"The green colour indicates higher levels of chlorophyll, vitamin C and vitamin A. More golden hay has more vitamin D. Leafy hay tends to be higher in protein, lower in fibre and higher in calcium than stalky hay.

Green, soft, leafy hay is used as an alternative to replace hard feed (pellets or mix) (for example if you are already feeding vegetables as part of the diet); coarser hay is used to complement or balance the hard feed fed.

If you feed good hay ad-lib, and especially if you feed green, leafy hay such as 2nd cut Timothy, you will inevitably find that your animals show less of an interest in their pellets or mix"

I am using ings now and it's full of leaves - does that count? I don't really know if this is relevant - just thinking outloud really.
 
Oh I just wanted to add about the golden hay having more vitamin D - interesting - there was a chat about this last week wasn't there?
 
Very complicated - thank you to everyone who has answered my thread.

I think I need to make some dietary changes but with P, the damage is done I think and if or not it is diet related I doubt I will ever know.
 
If I'm honest I don't put too much through into their diet. They get burgess excel pellets and then a combination of spinach, cabbages, celery, peppers, cucumber, carrot, apples, various herbs, broccoli, kale etc. When we just had two guineas it was approx 1 cup pellets, 2 cups veg each day. Now we have five/it's winter I'm a lost less precise and pretty much free feed (mainly as Peaches who is 4/5 is starting to decrease in size just to old age and I want to fatten her up!).

Unlimited bog standard farm hay for them to play in and eat. Water wise it's hard to say as between five of them. They have 2 600ml bottles and probably drink just over a bottle and a third a day approx.
 
I had Piggy Wiggin and Treacle for four years and they passed away at about 5 1/2. Neither had bladder problems.

I will have had Sweetie for four years in April and she has had bladder sludge Since July 2010. I even had her x-rayed for stones in Sept 2010 and she was found to have a calcified bladder.

I can only assume that it is a genetic predisposition. Interesting about the green hay, though. I had a 22kg box of orchard grass in 2010 but now feed a meadow hay of the same quality as hay for pets meadow hay.
 
I had Piggy Wiggin and Treacle for four years and they passed away at about 5 1/2. Neither had bladder problems.

I will have had Sweetie for four years in April and she has had bladder sludge Since July 2010. I even had her x-rayed for stones in Sept 2010 and she was found to have a calcified bladder.

I can only assume that it is a genetic predisposition. Interesting about the green hay, though. I had a 22kg box of orchard grass in 2010 but now feed a meadow hay of the same quality as hay for pets meadow hay.
 
I have a 5 1/2 year old boar - and he nor his brother (who i lost to heart illness) had UTI's/sludge or other water issues. I must admit i am quite 'oldscool' with how i still keep my piggies. They have - majority hay (both, green,leafy & gold) all purchased from variying farm shops. And fresh grass supplied daily. Rather than veg every day i try and do the majority of the week on fresh picked leaves, raspberry, srawberry, blackcurrant blackberry and apple leaf tends to make the staple, along with wild geranium as a treat when it's growing. Avoiding dandelion as it is a calcium rich plant, so i've read. Veg wise still on leafy greens like letuces and bell pepper. I try to only feed carrot,kale & spinache once every few weeks. Pickwick (and late Pirate) is a big drinker, not excessaive, but he certainly seems to drink more than the others.

Dry food i will admit i rotate, i've never seemed to find one that they will eat happily for an extended period so i wean them on and off different foods, these may be pellets or muesli/mix. Currently they ar eon P@H muesli which is heavily pellet based anyway. They were on science select before that, and burgess oregano and blackcurrant before that. Only a tiny hand full a day per pig.

I have no idea if that has proven remotely use full to you or not, but you asked. So i delivered :)
 
I had 2 piggies, both fed the same, one had bladder problems and the other didn't - the one that didn't lived till nearly 5, and the other one sadly died recently (don't know the cause, but I believe he gave up after his friend died)

I fed them P@H nuggets for a long time, then switched to Wagg optimum pellets. Unlimited meadow hay and mainly carrots, broccoli and peppers sometimes, this was all they would eat in terms of veg and turned their noses up at anything else.

Graham, who had the bladder issues was only around 11 months old when he first had blood in his urine. Sludge was detected by the vet and we were advised to feed only timothy hay (not meadow).

Well, graham being graham didn't like timothy hay! rolleyes so I fed them meadow hay instead.

Strangely, my other half started getting bad (huge) kidney stones at that address. He had 4 in 3 years (!) I did wonder after we moved a year and 4 months ago if there was a problem with the water there, and if this started off graham's problems, he seemed far too young to have issues like that.

Forgot to add the piggy with bladder problems was constantly at the water bottle all the time, even when he was recovered - most of it ended up on the floor of the cage, but he would drink a lot.
 
Last edited:
I've never had any bladder problems with my pigs. I currently have 3 girls the oldest of which will be 3 in April. They are fed a couple of handfuls of burgess excel in the morning and again in the evening, constant supply of hay. As for the veggies they get them twice a day or once if they've been out on the grass when its summer. I try and get different things every time I shop for them, usual veg include peppers, cucumber, tomato, carrots, lettuce, celery and i've just tried them with mellon which they love. I also try to only give the very high in calcium veg such as spinach and kale as a rare treat. I hope this helps.
Just to add I have had a piggy live to 5 years old on this diet and she never had bladder problems.
 
Last edited:
an interesting thread!

I have Big Dave and Boxy who are 3 and a half to 4 years old, and Jeff who is about 3 (possibly a bit younger).

Never had any kind of bladder problems with any of these boys. They all eat the same foods, and their diet is something like...

Burgess excel nuggets (original and black currant ones) generally fed freely
Unlimited hay - main bulk is farm hay (meadow) with things like oxbow orchard grass, timothy and oat hay added for variety.

Veg-wise they have a variety based on the following frequencies -
Daily: Red/yellow/orange bell pepper with either lettuce or cucumber
with...
Less frequently (1-2 times a week max): Spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower leaves, tomato, apple leaves, celery, carrots, celeriac
Once a week or less - fruit (apple, strawberry, grapes, melon), herbs (parsley, coriander, dill), dandelions and grass (I don't have a garden!).

They all have their water filtered through a brita jug. Boxy drinks LOADS (he's been tested for diabetes 8 times in the last 3 years!) - He will get through 500ml on a normal day. Jeff drinks from the bottle when he eats pellets - he will eat a pellet, drink a bit of water, eat a pellet, drink a bit of water. Big Dave... I've NEVER seen him drink from the bottle (and they're in my bedroom so I'm with them all the time!).

The only pig of these three that I've ever had xrayed is Big Dave (the non-drinking piggy) as there was *something* not right, so he had full body xrays, and he has no sign of any bladder stones or anything.
 
Interesting debate!

My eldest boar is nearly 3 and him and his cage mate (and my other two boars but they're much younger) have never had any bladder issues and they get:

Burgess excel nuggets daily
unlimited hay- meadow hay
small handfull of veg morning and evening- generally a mixture of cucumber, stuff from salad bags, so a mixture of cabbage, lettuce varieties, corriander and spinich (which i limit due to the high calcium content) and sometimes green beans.

Fuzzy is the eldest and he's a very big water drinker!

I also give them all about 3 slices of beetroot each once a fortnight as the acidicness in this balances out the calcium or neutralises it, i forget the exact terminalogy. I started doing this with my current 4 after helen at the potteries rescue advised me it can help prevent stones combined with keeping the calcium down and I have seen less calcium deposits on the fleece since doing so and luckily they all like it too.

One of my previous pigs, Dibbs, was 4 when I lost him to a stone, back in 2009. I consider myself quite an experienced owner but had never come across stones until I was too late. When Dibbs started squeaking I thought he was having trouble pooing. I monitored it for a couple of days, came home from work 2 days later and he was all floppy and unresponsive so I rushed him to the emergency vet and they confirmed that it was a stone. He went for surgery the next day and sadly didn't make it. It definately hadn't gone un noticed as at the time the pigs were in the living room next to the sofa so he literally developed it quite quickly and rapidly took over.
They had a diet of mainly veg back then as the pair I had at the time were so picky with pellet and musili mixes.
I used to feed a lot of broccoli but have since been advised that the stalk of broccoli is quite high in calcium, which was they part they loved.

Now I feed more pellets and hay and as I said, small handfull of veg morning and evening.
 
Since 2006/7 I made quite a change to the way I keep and feed the pigs in the rescue I haven't had bladder issues, apart from one show of blood (not visual, it showed on urine dip test) that was treated with ABs and did not develop into obvious cystitis (squeaky wees).

I've had a few with cystitis in the past (prior to 2006 ) - I put one recurrent male's problem down to his neutering op complications. The cystitis in the 15 strong female herd stopped when I removed the neutered boar (he had a couple of girlfriends with him), but this also coincided with ceasing to feed Gerty. 3 related pigs have gone on to develop bladder stones recently, 2-3 years after rehoming.

Now I feed very little veg, no leafy greens, celery, lettuce or spinach. Basically I feed carrot, broccoli florets and occasionally cauliflower leaves. I generally use coarse farm hay with a treat hay every couple of days (timothy plus green oat hay). I have used Orchard Grass and the pigs loved it but I found that their teeth were not worn down as much as with the coarser farm hay.

I feed Spillers Guinea Pig Muesli with Excel nuggets. The dry feed mix does change depending on what other feeds get donated and mixed in but the foundation is the Spillers and Excel. The water in my area is very soft, ie not calcium deposits in the kettle.

I have had many pigs live past 4 years with no bladder problems, oldest pigs were Jenny (9) and LilyPig (7)- currently Lucy and DaddyPig have been here for 3.5 years and were approx 6-12 months when they arrived.

Suzy x
 
Last edited:
This is brilliant Jo, exactly what Ive been looking for and info I wanted to try and gather together. Although I have issues with all 3 of mine :( so no use whatsoever but to add to the thread ....they have filtered water, usually a mixture of 1 or 2 veg only as I dont like giving a lot from pepper, tomato, carrot, apple, corridander occasionally other veg once a day, 2 small handfuls of burgess excel pellets once a day, unlimited hay of course fresh every day in 2 large trays, what they get depends on what the bales are from the farm but as I know my grasses a bit I can tell if its timothy or meadow hay etc (but never dusty and always sweet smelling better than any posh hay Ive bought on the internet they love it)... think thats it. Pipkin 1 full capsule of cystaid a day, any less and he starts squeaking.....Also one vit C tablet each every 2 or 3 days x
 
In the past five years I have only had one piggie with a bladder problem, and that was Archie's wife, Pickle, who had a UTI that cleared up with Septrin.

My piggies are fed a selection of guinea pig foods - Wagg Optimum, Burgess Blackcurrant and Oregano and occasionally a museli type food. These foods are only given in very small amounts. I also feed rolled oats.

With regard to veg, I feed spring greens and carrots regularly, plus whatever I can get that has been reduced each evening in Tesco. This can be mixed salad leaves, various herbs, kale, spinach, corn, apples etc.

The biggest part of their diet by far is hay and grasses. I completely fill their cages with hay each evening and by morning most of it is gone. I don't feed hay from a hayrack, I just throw it all over the cage so they can play in it as well as eat it. They eat a lot of grass during the summer months as they spend all day out in the run.
 
Jo this is a really brilliant thread and i think we need to do more of this type of thread to include other piggie conditions so we can start to help inform vets and owners. We actually have a huge database here on the forum of info (that we need to extract properly with the owners' permissions) that woud make most vets jealous!

I want to give you exact details on my bladder piggies (male and female) so will pass tonight and post my info later this weekend.

in the mean time can I please ask anyone posting about their[*] boars[/*] on this thread to

a) indicate if they are fed filtered or tap water...and the geographic location by first half of postcode only (I can check for hardness of tap water levels from this)
ALSO
b )indicate if and when they were neutered....as this could be VERY important for certain types of boar condition associated with urinary issues.
c) please be accurate about the veggies...I have some pigs who are denied veggies because of thier urinary condition...the most important thing here is accuracy so we can be comfortable that the info we have is valid......

Thank you everyone - I'm convinced your informaton will help "change" the (somewhat niggardly) approach to piggie urinary medicine by vets in the years to come.

x
 
Very interesting thread :)

I dont know the ages of 3 of my pigs and the others are younger than 4 years old but will keep an eye on this thread as I am interested in finding out more about hay, food, filtering water etc

x
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top