Am I doing something wrong caring for my guinea pigs? What do I do when my guinea pig is all alone after her two cage mates have passed?

[guineapiglover6]

My Guinea pig Bambi had a cage mate Acorn who passed at 2 and 1/2 years old in April: I had gotten her at 6 months. She was sick for 15 days and ultimately wouldn’t eat or drink, was lethargic and shedding excessively. She had vitamin C deficiency, an ear infection, and strep throat. My two other guinea pigs at the time were checked out and were fine. Since then I have gotten 4 New Guinea pigs for a total of 6 as of yesterday. Today I have 5. On Saturday I noticed something was off with my Peanut so I took her to the vet and they thought she might have strep throat. All we both could agree on was that there was something very wrong with her breathing. She was breathing hard and shallow. This morning I got the call she passed. Ultimately she stopped eating and drinking, was lethargic, lost weight, was excessively shedding and had major problems breathing. Acorns main problem was that she had the ear infection and the strep throat that was causing her to have trouble breathing also. Peanuts breathing was the problem from the beginning though Acorn did not have major problems with that until the last couple hours of her life. I now have 5 guinea pigs but my main question is: Am I doing something wrong? Guinea pigs are suppose to last 5-8 years and mine aren’t even making half of it. I let my older guinea pigs (Bambi and Peanut) run around my room/house 12+ hours a day and I just started with my 9 month old Giunea pigs Popcorn and Ginger. I hold them all for at least 10 minutes every day. I feed them a good amount of vegetables, they get dry food, they’re on towels with paper bedding on top of that and they’re in stable appropriate temperatures. I give them love and attention and vet visits once a year and so much more and yet I’m petrified I’m doing something wrong. Am I? On top of that Bambi is now alone and my heart aches for her and I don’t want her to be alone. I have two 9 month old guinea pigs and two new two month olds. I’ve been trying to let the 9 month olds mingle with her but one of the 9 month olds (Popcorn) is pretty much harrassing Bambi. Bambi is a very gentle soul and has not been defending herself much against Popcorn but I’m worried because if Popcorn keeps picking on Bambi, Bambi could hurt her, but Bambi needs a cage mate. She’s three and I don’t think finding a three year old girl would work out well nor world getting her a male companion. I don’t want to take any chances where I adopt a New Guinea pig for Bambi and he/she does not get along and then creates another problem for me.

So my questions are: What do I do for finding a cage mate for Bambi? Should I continue to do little intervals of her socializing with Popcorn and Ginger even though they’re fighting?

And is there something I could be doing wrong that two of my guimea pigs have gotten sick with pretty much the same problem? Is there something I can be doing differently?

 

[Wiebke]

Hi and welcome

Could you please add your country to your account details (via clicking on your username on the top bar), so we can help you better. We have enquiries from all over the world, from very different climates, backgrounds, vet access and with different medical brand names which can all play into our answers and recommendations. Do you keep your piggies outdoors and indoors?

Did your vet test for streptococcus and how piggy savvy are they? Guinea pigs can pick it up from humans suffering from acute strep throat when in close contact, but it is RARE.
The most common problem is a bacterial respiratory tract infection (URI). Occasionally they can pick up a pneumococcus, which causes out of blue air pneumonia and they can pick up bordetellosis (kennel cough, most often transmitted by coughing dogs rather than other species like rabbits), which is a fatal chest infection for guinea pigs.
Guinea Lynx :: URI
Dogs, Kennel Cough And Guinea Pigs - An Important Consideration.

Unfortunately, the only way to get the answers you crave is a usually fairly expensive post-mortem examination and lab tests. All we can do is speculate on the very limited basis of your information which we have no possibility to check against, so our guesses can only be that and no more.

The symptoms of the last death point towards either pneumonia or a bug affecting the lungs or to heart failure/the chest cavity filling up with fluid instead of the lungs. Please always see a vet as an emergency as quickly as possible under the circumstances. I know that this is pretty much the worst time of the year for emergencies and have lost piggies due to lack of access myself.
Ask for a diuretic to drain the fluid on top of any other medication your vet thinks suitable - heaving/laboured breathing is one of the big life and death emergency symptoms.
List Of Life And Death Out-of-hours Emergencies
Not Eating, Weight Loss And The Importance Of Syringe Feeding Fibre

What I would recommend is to deep clean your piggy quarters with a vet grade disinfectant like F10 or zirkon in case there is an infectious and transmittable nasty involved.
Please conduct a quarantine with Bambi to prevent any further transmission unless you have already mixed your guinea pigs, in which case you need to keep an eye on them all. Not every piggy will necessarily come down with a bug or die, but they can still pass it on - especially when you do not know what is in play. If she has already met your other piggies or they are in the same room/in close proximity with her, the quarantine will extend to them, too.
Importance Of Quarantine

Please also be aware that guinea pigs don't do playtime - every meeting is a full-on bonding session with the whole dominance behaviour.
You can either keep Bambi in an adjoining cage with interaction through the bars for round the clock stimulation or you have to do a full formal bonding and sit it out until they have either bonded or the bonding has failed (in your case, the second is more likely if Bambi is on the dominant side and the other top girl too). Please do this only after the end of the quarantine unless they have already met. Also be aware that most guinea pigs that are not acutely pining still need time to grieve and are not necessarily open for a new relationship yet. That takes a few days.
Looking After A Bereaved Guinea Pig
Bonding: Illustrated Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics
Sow Behaviour

If you have a good rescue within your reach, you can in a few weeks arrange whether Bambi can come for a bonding visit to meet rescue piggies and ideally find one she clicks with and gets on with; this can be a sow or neutered boar of any age. but as your vet has thrown one of the potential real nasties into the ring, you need to wait at least a month or longer before it is safe doing that as you do not want Bambi to pass anything on. This advice again depends on which country you are in, so we can give you the appropriate list of recommended rescues.

Here is our new owners' guide collection. You may find it helpful to check through in order to help your feelings of failure, which are very characteristic for the onset of the grieving process in any caring owner, so you can assure yourself that you are a good owner or in which areas you would like to make improvements. This will hopefully help you to deal with your losses in a constructive way as it gives you either reassurance or something positive to do. You will hopefully find it both helpful and interesting!
Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides

 

[guineapiglover6]

I’m from the Untied States, more specifically RI, so I will go update my profile now!