ErictheBee
New Born Pup
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2011
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 85
Hi, I am afraid this will require a bit of back story so bare with me. Last Sunday when we were cleaning out our piggies, we found blood in the sawdust. We checked each piggy and found that Merry (one of our oldest at 4 years) was bleeding. We took her to our nice lady Vet who gave her antibiotics. While we were treating her, we noticed that there was a lot of sneezing and coughing (the weather has been awful) so we moved them away from our kitchen further into the living room and did a little internet research. All we read suggested that we take the guineas to the Vet because there was a possibility of a URI. Given that we have a large pack of 7, that live in a massive two tiered cage (think of the biggest cage you can get at Pets at home and put another one on top of it and you have the general idea) we were worried that it would spread quickly and wipe out our little family. As we didn't know exactly who was sneezing, we decided to bring them all in.
This time we saw the other Vet, a rather condescending and brusque individual, who spent the first 10 minutes of the consultation telling us that we needed to understand that he could only do so much and basically we were stupid for having so many in a cage together (our cage is designed to take 10 adult boars and we have 7 small-medium sows). He told us that the difficulty with having such a big herd was that guinea pig diseases were very infectious (we had some of them treated for mites not that long ago) and that if someone had an infection it would wipe them all out (we know this already. Imagine someone talking to you as if you were 3 and you get the general idea of this man's tone).
He checked Merry who'd been bleeding, Gizmo who is a rescue pig and Penny who's left eye bulges a bit. He was very rough with the three of them (Penny cried for ages) before announcing they were OK and their breathing sounded fine. He said he wasn't going to blanket treat them (we didn't ask him to) and told us that he'd said to us before about cage conditions, problems with central heating and needing a humidifier (all of which we have done and I pointed out to him) He told us that sneezing and coughing are not enough of a sign for a URI and we need to look for discharge, lethargy, lack of appetite etc. to be sure (this from a man who told us off for having the piggies treated for mites saying we didn't do enough research. We did on that occasion and on this one and all the advice was to go to the vet!) He then said we needed to split them up because, and I quote 'I'm trying to save you money here. Every time this happens you're going to spend £200 a consult.' He also said it would be better if they were in different rooms so we could watch them and work out who was sneezing and treat them. He also said that they could never spend any time with each other ever again.
Here's our problem: they are a family and they adore each other. Merry and Pippin have been together for 4 years. They were joined by Choji, a rescue pig, when they were a year old and she sadly passed away in 2011. Penny was bought as a house warming gift 18 months ago, when she was 8 weeks old, and was best friends with Choji. When Choji died, Penny got depressed and it was suggested we adopt two more younger piggies to cheer her up but also not to seem as if we were trying to replace Choji. Meg and Mog joined us when they were 6 weeks old. They have never lived away from the older 3. Gizmo and Harley are rescue pigs, who had already been maltreated, and have settled into a loving pack and adore everyone else. They have been with us 8 months. Everyone plays together, hugs together, sleeps together. They lie in a great big fluffy ball when they nap and miss each other like mad when even one is removed for a little while. How on earth do we separate this family?
Our questions are as follows: was the vet right with his description of URIs? And should we separate our piggies from one another? Can we have them live in separate cages and bring them together to play? Has anybody else had this problem? Does anyone else have a big herd like ours? Obviously, we want what's best for our piggies and the vet does have a point and he's trying to save us the heartache of losing 7 babies in one go but our piggies are happy, little fat pies who have lots of friends and are very sociable with each other. As I type, the youngest is kissing all the others. Any help?
This time we saw the other Vet, a rather condescending and brusque individual, who spent the first 10 minutes of the consultation telling us that we needed to understand that he could only do so much and basically we were stupid for having so many in a cage together (our cage is designed to take 10 adult boars and we have 7 small-medium sows). He told us that the difficulty with having such a big herd was that guinea pig diseases were very infectious (we had some of them treated for mites not that long ago) and that if someone had an infection it would wipe them all out (we know this already. Imagine someone talking to you as if you were 3 and you get the general idea of this man's tone).
He checked Merry who'd been bleeding, Gizmo who is a rescue pig and Penny who's left eye bulges a bit. He was very rough with the three of them (Penny cried for ages) before announcing they were OK and their breathing sounded fine. He said he wasn't going to blanket treat them (we didn't ask him to) and told us that he'd said to us before about cage conditions, problems with central heating and needing a humidifier (all of which we have done and I pointed out to him) He told us that sneezing and coughing are not enough of a sign for a URI and we need to look for discharge, lethargy, lack of appetite etc. to be sure (this from a man who told us off for having the piggies treated for mites saying we didn't do enough research. We did on that occasion and on this one and all the advice was to go to the vet!) He then said we needed to split them up because, and I quote 'I'm trying to save you money here. Every time this happens you're going to spend £200 a consult.' He also said it would be better if they were in different rooms so we could watch them and work out who was sneezing and treat them. He also said that they could never spend any time with each other ever again.
Here's our problem: they are a family and they adore each other. Merry and Pippin have been together for 4 years. They were joined by Choji, a rescue pig, when they were a year old and she sadly passed away in 2011. Penny was bought as a house warming gift 18 months ago, when she was 8 weeks old, and was best friends with Choji. When Choji died, Penny got depressed and it was suggested we adopt two more younger piggies to cheer her up but also not to seem as if we were trying to replace Choji. Meg and Mog joined us when they were 6 weeks old. They have never lived away from the older 3. Gizmo and Harley are rescue pigs, who had already been maltreated, and have settled into a loving pack and adore everyone else. They have been with us 8 months. Everyone plays together, hugs together, sleeps together. They lie in a great big fluffy ball when they nap and miss each other like mad when even one is removed for a little while. How on earth do we separate this family?
Our questions are as follows: was the vet right with his description of URIs? And should we separate our piggies from one another? Can we have them live in separate cages and bring them together to play? Has anybody else had this problem? Does anyone else have a big herd like ours? Obviously, we want what's best for our piggies and the vet does have a point and he's trying to save us the heartache of losing 7 babies in one go but our piggies are happy, little fat pies who have lots of friends and are very sociable with each other. As I type, the youngest is kissing all the others. Any help?
x
I've done some maths and looking at getting the grids from here 