Any rescues / people experiencinga high mortality rate in their piggies at the moment

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Lisajazz said:
Someone reported on the facebook site / or other forum (I can't remember on which I read it today - lots of reading) of every pig in one rescue dying overnight and the rescue closing down.
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Do you know which rescue this was? the more information on how the pigs were kept, what foods, etc will be useful.
 
Abnoba said:
It might be unrelated, but on the German guinea pig forum I go to, a girl has just had 12 pigs die in January. They are kept inside, the vets are at a loss, and she is currently having a post mortem done on one of the pigs to figure out what on earth is going on. They were indoor pigs.

In that case however the piggies were showing "cold like symptoms" i.e funny breathing and weepy eyes, but they were put on meds and it looked like some were clearing up - and then suddendly died anyway.

There is a question of whether or not it is Coccidia. They were treated with Baycox but does not seem to have an effect?

Just wondering if this is unrelated, or if high numbers of piggy deaths are going to start appearing in other corners of the world too now...

http://www.meerschwein.de/wbb/thread.php?threadid=23451
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none of these have shown any symptoms whatsoever
 
Amanda1801 said:
Just a thought...

Has anyone who DOESN'T breed/show been affected? Rescues? People with large numbers of pet piggies?


Could it be sabotage?

It's not been unheard of in other species showing circles.
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the studs who have been affected are miles away from each other and some of the people have never even met
 
And I think the rescue was near Bristol?! But I could be wrong...I remember reading it and I'm going by mostly who I think it was who posted it, and where they are located
 
Found it - It says that when one breeder went to the vet about it the VET told them of the rescue that it had happened in. UK

Not sure on area
 
this is all very worrying, i hope cause is found out very soon x i cant believe someone lost 90 pigs in 48 hrs, how awful !
 
We lost four piggies in december, two to mange and the other two past away in their sleep- they were fine but did have treatment for mange mites just to be on the safe side. We just assumed the other two died of a broken heart - one on christmas day and the other on boxing day, all kept indoors from september onwards.
 
Just caught up with this thread and I have to say I am in shock! We have had no unexplained fatalities, the only ones we have lost had long term illness/ elderly. I am keen to step back from taking piggies in at the moment but I have some booked to come in at the weekend, do I still take them in? They will be quarantined from the others anyway, but if its a risk, I'd rather not take it.

Also, are rescues still rehoming as I have some reserved to go to their new homes at the weekend also.

What an awful situation, I hope the cause can be found soon.
 
Edit: Was meant to add to mine, they were all treated for mites we assume two died from the mites, and thats what the vet thought although it was unusual as they had gone on leaps and bounds from september. Only one showed it very badly maisie, but was recovering (eating, drinking, putting weight on), dylan had almost recovered his hair was growing back again eating, drinking, putting weight on - and May and Sheila weren't affected but were treated. The pigs ages were: 6,6,5, 3 and a half.

We did put the two affected by mites down to their mites, and Maise with her chest infection and uri - we just assumed that her body couldn't handle any more treatment, and Dilly down to being old and missing Maisie, April and May died a couple of weeks later within a day of each other. Eating and drinking, popcorn the day before. They all died within the early hours of the morning around 4/5.Hope this helps. xx
 
Edit: Was meant to add to mine, they were all treated for mites we assume two died from the mites, and thats what the vet thought although it was unusual as they had gone on leaps and bounds from september. Only one showed it very badly maisie, but was recovering (eating, drinking, putting weight on), dylan had almost recovered his hair was growing back again eating, drinking, putting weight on - and May and Sheila weren't affected but were treated. The pigs ages were: 6,6,5, 3 and a half.

We did put the two affected by mites down to their mites, and Maise with her chest infection and uri - we just assumed that her body couldn't handle any more treatment, and Dilly down to being old and missing Maisie, April and May died a couple of weeks later within a day of each other. Eating and drinking, popcorn the day before. They all died within the early hours of the morning around 4/5.Hope this helps. xx
 
milhaven said:
Just caught up with this thread and I have to say I am in shock! We have had no unexplained fatalities, the only ones we have lost had long term illness/ elderly. I am keen to step back from taking piggies in at the moment but I have some booked to come in at the weekend, do I still take them in? They will be quarantined from the others anyway, but if its a risk, I'd rather not take it.

Also, are rescues still rehoming as I have some reserved to go to their new homes at the weekend also.

What an awful situation, I hope the cause can be found soon.
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I'm still going to re-home but I'm suspending them for 4 weeks to be safe...
i'm only taking in complete emergencies and quarantining them for a minimum 6 weeks maybe longer and keeping them away from my house at my parents and foster homes that have no animals...
x
 
claremw92 said:
I'm still going to re-home but I'm suspending them for 4 weeks to be safe...
i'm only taking in complete emergencies and quarantining them for a minimum 6 weeks maybe longer and keeping them away from my house at my parents and foster homes that have no animals...
x
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Hmmm, I think I'll postpone all but the absolute emergency cases coming in. I'll have to have a serious think about what to do with the ones reserved to go...:{
 
This is worrying. Where was this first heard about? I am struggling to find more info on this. Does the facebook group have the anymore info when you join?
 
Rosierum said:
This is worrying. Where was this first heard about? I am struggling to find more info on this. Does the facebook group have the anymore info when you join?
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Not much just:

"This is a group for Cavy people who wants to find out where in the UK and outside of the UK to help us put together information with regards to their caviary illnesses and deaths.

This group is not intended to point any fingers at anyone but to help find out the causes of the deaths.

We would need to know the numbers of pigs you lost, what they ...were fed on, bed on, types of hay, also were there any events happening close to your home - ie fireworks, loud parties etc, do you think someone has broken into your garden/sheds etc Was any post mortems done - what was the results?

Any information you can think of would help us to collaborate exactly what is happening. "

I'm not quite sure whats going on, just feeding loving my pigs as normal. No need to panic just yet :)
 
AudioHeart said:
Not much just:

"This is a group for Cavy people who wants to find out where in the UK and outside of the UK to help us put together information with regards to their caviary illnesses and deaths.

This group is not intended to point any fingers at anyone but to help find out the causes of the deaths.

We would need to know the numbers of pigs you lost, what they ...were fed on, bed on, types of hay, also were there any events happening close to your home - ie fireworks, loud parties etc, do you think someone has broken into your garden/sheds etc Was any post mortems done - what was the results?

Any information you can think of would help us to collaborate exactly what is happening. "

I'm not quite sure whats going on, just feeding loving my pigs as normal. No need to panic just yet :)
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well there are posts and comments as well, and a few docs with some general information gathering in them
 
I really hope from the bottom of my heart that everbodies furries are safe from this horror 8...
Rescues are stretched enough as it is without the added worry of an unexplained 'epidemic' :Ayociexp113:
Stay vigilant and I'm thinking of those who have lost :(
 
AndreaJane said:
Has anyone compared regular preventative treatments used? ( such as Ivermectin ) just wondering if there could be a dodgy dose of something out there, bearing in mind that younger animals are more sensitive to medicines etc than older animals. Also, as someone has already mentioned there could be a common factor in dry food if all the cases have used different dry foods, has any one looked to see if there's a common ingredient in ALL of the dry foods and who supplies the petfood manufacturers and if so the pet food manufacturers should be made aware of this.
I don't know if all this has been covered on the "other" forum because I don't have a clue what forum that is so apologies if I'm just repeating what someone else has said. This is very worrying, is it worth everyone letting their vets know so that they are more clued up about patterns to be on the lookout for?
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I used beaphar anti-parasite spot on to treat my guinea pig, Lottie, in September, later that night I found her close to death, she died in my arms. I thought at the time she died from old age as she was 6 1/2. Could be connected?
 
Squidge said:
This is being done for those who have internet access and have come forward about it.

So far there is no correlation whatsoever...the only commonest factor is readigrass, but even then not everyone uses it.
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I got a free sample of readigrass today and fed some to my girls. I've removed as much as possible but they have already eaten some. Now i'm really worried!
 
milhaven said:
Just caught up with this thread and I have to say I am in shock! We have had no unexplained fatalities, the only ones we have lost had long term illness/ elderly. I am keen to step back from taking piggies in at the moment but I have some booked to come in at the weekend, do I still take them in? They will be quarantined from the others anyway, but if its a risk, I'd rather not take it.

Also, are rescues still rehoming as I have some reserved to go to their new homes at the weekend also.

What an awful situation, I hope the cause can be found soon.
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The rehoming is a tricky one - I think if they have been in the rescue for at least 6 weeks and are going to a home with no other pigs then the risk is very small.

HTH

Suzy x
 
I think the best we all can do is not panic over this. Remain vigilant and report any suspicious deaths (if they occur) within our community on here, so they can be recorded and passed on to the 'other site' who are collating the data.

There is no point in jumping to assumptions as it will cause mass fear and panic. Hope the cause of this will be found soon.
 
Seren & Lola said:
I got a free sample of readigrass today and fed some to my girls. I've removed as much as possible but they have already eaten some. Now i'm really worried!
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I just want to reiterate...

It is NOT known whether this has anything to do with Readigrass, it's just that more people use this than use anything else. There are still lots of other people who have used it and suffered no ill effects.

It is solely up to yourself whether you want to use it or not.
 
I started a thread in the hope of sharing information and would hope not to start a big panic but to try and find out if anyone has been experiencing this problem.

There have not yet been any definate common factors in any of these cases to my knowledge in what I have read anywhere, no definate cause has been found so changing anything in the way you actually care for your cavies is not going to be of use with what information is out there. I feed just grass/dust free hay/ veg and mix and will be continuing to do so.

Lots of very experienced people are very much on the case of trying to identify the source of the problem and the information being collated by a cavy experienced vet. ( Just to point out I am not part of this process I was simply a person with access to the forums trying to help but asking other rescues if they have had any occurances to try and get additional information for those who are colllating it)

The face book group link that was put on here by squidge is an important place for information to be collated and the issues discussed. It is great so many people want to help but I am not a member of it as I feel there are more experienced people than I tackling the problem.

Sady at this point there are no definate answers or things to do to prevent this happening all we can do is openly share information on occurances and stay calm and factual about it all so imprtant information can be shared easily.

Keep Calm and Cavy on people I personally am just minimising my contact with other people who keep cavies and rabbits and nothing is coming in or going out the rest is feed, cuddle lots and cavy as usual. I have 23 piggies here and two bunnies who are as safe as I can make them and I just feel for those who have lost pigs and hope an answer can be found.
 
Squidge said:
none of these have shown any symptoms whatsoever
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That said, I just read the woman's threads in the rainbow bridge section (2 more have passed away yesterday) and she says those two did not show any symptoms whatsoever; they appeared fine, all of a sudden had what she described as "a cramp" and died. :(

I am going to forward this thread to her.
 
Just wanted to make people aware that reading my latest veterinary times (national vet news paper) that a new virus called Schmallenberg virus has made its way into the UK this last month from Europe. At the moment its affecting cattle, sheep and goats and is passed on through mosquetos and other parasites outside. I'm going to look in the virus further to see if it affectss any other species etc, but something to keep an eye out for.

x.
 
The 'Schmallenberg virus' appears to affect ruminant species, e.g. cattle, goats, sheep! Furthermore, I understand that the virus has only been discovered on a small number of farms in the UK (I believe that the virus has been discovered on a small number of farms in the East, and South East)!

Therefore, personally, I do not believe that this virus is responsible for the large number of guinea pig deaths in the UK! However, naturally, one should take precautions, and remain vigilant! However, if this virus is responsible for the large number of guinea pig deaths in the UK, I would imagine that other countries that have a higher incidence of this virus, e.g. Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, would have a higher number of guinea pig deaths!
 
I feed redigrass to mine - its still the original large bale I brought in the summer. The way that redigrass is produced I would say it is safer than any of the other products we would feed to our piggies. All piggies would have been given hay as well, just different "makes" of hay so unless there has been a big unknown bug on our grass which would also be effecting cattle, sheep and goats I think that hay and redigrass on the whole can be ruled out as the source. Its the way it would be stored that would make the difference if and only if this can be found to be a factor.

I will tell you all this, it might seem irrelevant but shows how the simplist things or unexpected issues can cause a problem. A year before I gave up farming our 450 milking goat herd suffered a few unexpected deaths, the goat would give birth, 3 days later show a subtle symptom and as it ended up if the goat wasnt treated with antibiotics within 6 hours of showing this symptom, the goat dies within 12 hours - yes it was that quick. The cause was a clostridial disease, there was only 4 diseases that we vaccinated against but in error, during their goatling stage we missed the 6 month booster believing it was fine to wait for the year before they needed a boost, then as they came through the parlour we were able to 6 month boost. I am telling you this as goats like piggies are not well known about by all vets, my boss happened to know more than most vets but together we managed to track the cause down to clostridial, we never found which one but it was because of the lapse in the vaccine which we then changed our practice to make sure all goats were done at no more than 6 months.

This effected 80% of the milking herd, we lost only 30% because I became adept at spotting the one and only symptom (which I cant remember :red ) but we did loose 70% of the milk yield because the nanny would become very poorly for 3 days, survive but not recover a full milk yield for the stage of lactation, it was a very scarey time and only through months of testing and trying to find the source did we get to the bottom of this and we all know more about the effectiveness and husbandry of the vaccine.

I am thinking that because piggies like goats are not as well studied there is much more vets and the health/welfare sector dont know so it will take time to discover why things are going wrong. There is no need to panic as I understood this thread was started to discover any common factors and purely to corolate information to help get to the bottom of this, I have every faith that it will.
 
A Veterinary opinion...

This is just my understanding of the facts so far (albeit as a vet) and some interpretations that are floating around. I am not aware of all the details as understandably there are some people who would rather not have their losses discussed on facebook/forums.

If you look back over time, it is not unusual for people to loose large numbers of animals in a short period. Usually this is due to a virus/bacteria entering a herd that they have not met before. In the vast majority of cases symptoms are obvious and deaths occur over a more prolonged period. This is where the current situation seems to differ.

Over the last month 3 people have lost large numbers of guinea pigs over a period of less than 48hrs and without symptoms. Remaining animals have (touch wood) shown no sign of illness (some seem to have died with food still in their mouths). The recent cases involve bristol, derbyshire and hertfordshire and involve approaching 200 deaths in total.

There are yet more people who have lost large numbers since the summer of last year. Some of these have displayed brief symptoms including neuro signs/ GI signs shorlty before death.

Pms have been conducted by GP vets, without sending samples for histo/bacteriology/virology and have been inconclusive. Some have sent samples of feed/forgae for analysis with no results.

The husbandry of these animals is spot on. There are no heaters or sources of noxious gasses. The only link seems to be that most are fed on at least some mix and a dried grass product.

To me the main reasons for such sudden deaths would be:
-poor husbandry such as water deprivation (I know this not to be the case)
-poisoning
-toxins (eg aflatoxin/mycotoxin contamination of a component of feeds)
-a very virulent virus/bacteria (I would expect to see some degree of clinical signs)

As yet there is no diagnosis and any ideas are pure speculation.

In the case of further mass deaths i would recommend sending 3 cavies to Mark Stidworthy at the IVZG, a pathologist and exotics specialist. The cost for this is £260 (+ VAT). He will conduct gross pms on all 3 and take samples from the best for further testing (histo and bacteriology). If virology/toxicoloy is needed then this will be additional.

Samples should be kept in an airtight container in the fridge (or equivalent eg coolbox and icepacks, or outside if cold but NOT frozen) and reach the pathologist within 48hrs. Any submissions can be made through your vet who will have a same day courier service but may make a small charge for postage/packaging.

In addition keep samples of food/forage for analysis. I would notify the companies involved with the relevant batch numbers and it should also be possible to arrange this testing through the FSA and trading standards. Usually you need some idea of what to test for.

There is currently no indication of an infectious cause so no reason for the main cavy bodies (NCC/SCC) to cancel all shows. For now it remains up to the individual. In order to minimise any risk to animals at home it would seem sensible to, at the very least, quarantine any show animals/ bought in animals in a seperate airspace. Feed these last each day and disinfect with virkon (or similar) between attending to the main shed and those in quarantine. Others may choose to not show, but in animals or allow any visitors
until the situation is clearer.
 
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