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Blackberry Has Diarrhoea..

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Eriathwen

Eriathwen

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Right just double checking I'm on the right track with this really. Gave everyone their veg at about 9pm last night, money had been a bit tight last week so they had less veg. Got paid yesterday so they had a 4 veg meal with spinach, cabbage, celery and red pepper. Its been quite a while since theyve had cabbage so I'm guessing it was that thats done it.

Fast forward to about midnight and I go up to check on my gecko whos having an issue with his eye and notice that there was still a lot of veg left in with Blackberry and Bramble, so I check them out and find Blackberry passing paste like consistency poops. She was bright, alert, not in pain and her bits, legs and hair are clean of fecaes.

I removed all left over veg, cleaned up the poop and gave fresh hay and some extra pellets to make up for the lack of veg, about half an hour after noticing this she began passing formed but still wet poops. I dont know if she realised the veg was the cause but she had stopped eating it luckily so I'm glad its not worse!

Today there is no loose stool, going to skip veg for her tonight, just extra hay and maybe pellets. She is still bright and not in pain, still clean etc. And have seen her drinking. I'll slowly reintroduce veg back into her diet tomorrow onwards.

Is this the correct approach for now? Obviously if she deteriorates at any point she will be off to the vets.
 
Eriathwen said:
Right just double checking I'm on the right track with this really. Gave everyone their veg at about 9pm last night, money had been a bit tight last week so they had less veg. Got paid yesterday so they had a 4 veg meal with spinach, cabbage, celery and red pepper. Its been quite a while since theyve had cabbage so I'm guessing it was that thats done it.

Fast forward to about midnight and I go up to check on my gecko whos having an issue with his eye and notice that there was still a lot of veg left in with Blackberry and Bramble, so I check them out and find Blackberry passing paste like consistency poops. She was bright, alert, not in pain and her bits, legs and hair are clean of fecaes.

I removed all left over veg, cleaned up the poop and gave fresh hay and some extra pellets to make up for the lack of veg, about half an hour after noticing this she began passing formed but still wet poops. I dont know if she realised the veg was the cause but she had stopped eating it luckily so I'm glad its not worse!

Today there is no loose stool, going to skip veg for her tonight, just extra hay and maybe pellets. She is still bright and not in pain, still clean etc. And have seen her drinking. I'll slowly reintroduce veg back into her diet tomorrow onwards.

Is this the correct approach for now? Obviously if she deteriorates at any point she will be off to the vets.
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Please always weigh any piggy with soft/shapeless poos daily and diarrhea and offer some syringed water and feed, whether that is mushed pellets, recovery formula or a mix thereof - what goes in best in an emergency to make sure that the food intake is secured and that you minimise dehydration. In that situation, a piggy is often losing its appetite.

You can also give fibreplex or a pinch of probiotics. Water in which you have soaked fresh poos from a healthy guinea pig can help stabilising the guts too. Guinea pigs often crave very rough, nutritionally poor fibre when their guts are out of balance, so a bit of brown cardboard box or toilet/kitchen roll inners is often welcome.

Wait with carefully re-introducing fresh food slowly at first until the poos have fully firmed up for at least 24 hours, if not 48 hours. See a vet if poos are not firming up again within 24 hours or if the problem recurs.

All the best! Thankfully, it doesn't sound like serious bout of full-blown diarrhea. Don't rush the recovery.
 
Thankyou! I'll weigh her when I get her out to syringe feed. The pellets they get say on the bag that they contain added probiotics, will that be ok for her? Ive an abundance of healthy poops kindly donated by Leonard ready to go. Shes now doing solid poos but theyre quite small and a little tear drop shaped so obviously not enough going in the other end which I will rectify. Luckily she likes eating from the syringe so shouldnt be too difficult to do regularly.
 
Eriathwen said:
Thankyou! I'll weigh her when I get her out to syringe feed. The pellets they get say on the bag that they contain added probiotics, will that be ok for her? Ive an abundance of healthy poops kindly donated by Leonard ready to go. Shes now doing solid poos but theyre quite small and a little tear drop shaped so obviously not enough going in the other end which I will rectify. Luckily she likes eating from the syringe so shouldnt be too difficult to do regularly.
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As you have noticed a lot of not eaten veg yesterday, it is to be expected that the poos are smaller and may take a bit longer to fully re-form. Hence my tip to offer syringe feed additionally, just as much as she will take on her own; also offer as much water as she will take on the syringe. Every 3-5 ml is ideal, so the crud is not getting too dry and can be swallowed more easily. That should help with normalising the poos within the day or so (it can be up to two days if the guts have slowed down a lot) it takes to process today's feed. In your case, I don't think that extra probiotics are necessary if she is eating pellets.
 
Right she is 750g, which isnt much off her usual weight of 780-800g. Does that sound ok? She took about 5ml of food and a little water although she was annoyed it wasnt food and was reluctant to take more than 1ml..
Shes been eating the pellets and ive made her some hideys and tunnels out of some cardboard boxes I had laying around which she was chewing on. Ive left her tucking into a little pile of readigrass.
 
Eriathwen said:
Right she is 750g, which isnt much off her usual weight of 780-800g. Does that sound ok? She took about 5ml of food and a little water although she was annoyed it wasnt food and was reluctant to take more than 1ml..
Shes been eating the pellets and ive made her some hideys and tunnels out of some cardboard boxes I had laying around which she was chewing on. Ive left her tucking into a little pile of readigrass.
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That sounds fine in view that she is eating both pellets and hay - the weigh-in is there to tell you how much hay she is eating, as you cannot control that and watching a piggy chew on crud or a stalk of hay can be very deceptive. With only a very small loss of weight it means that she is eating enough hay. It is often the first food group that is dropped when a piggy is in pain.

I am sure that she is going to be back on deck by tomorrow. Just wait with introducing veg until her tummy has fully settled and her poos are fine. ideally you start with a bit of fresh herb and then phase the full veg portion in over the course of the following day.
 
Lovely, thankyou! I'll hold fire with the veg for a couple of days then. I'll have to feed Bramble her veg in their run or there will be rioting haha! I got them a nice big bunch of parsley so i'll start with that in a couple of days, that always goes down well.
 
Weighed her again and shes lost 10g but the scales are very basic and can be a bit off.. found a tiny bit of dry loose poop this morning but lots and lots of normal poos during the day, I'm not sure if the loose was some I missed yesterday as Bramble has a habit of digging up the shavings where I found it (in their pigloo) Blackberry is refusing to eat from the syringe today but still eating by herself and drinking. Ive got her out for a run just to see if any of the normal poops are from her, I cant imagine Bramble produced that amount by herself but doesnt hurt to make sure, if Blackberrys not pooing at all now then id be rather concerned...
 
She will be going to the vet first thing in the morning. It has become apparent in the last hour that it is likely a dental issue, she is just picking pellets up now and putting them back down or biting them into smaller and smaller bits, making odd mouth movements and grinding her teeth. She is refusing both soaked pellets and syringe feeding although still drinking. I cant find any poops that look like they are from her, when in the run they were still loose, which I can only assume means she is no longer prroducing feces. I am assuming she has not been eating enough hay and has now stopped altogether even though she is again, picking bits up and putting them down, same with the cardboard. She seems to be in a lot of discomfort when handled. And hunches with eyes closed when placed on my lap (she is quite perky in her cage however)

Inspite of this she is ravenous and I caved in with the veg and made her a carrot and parsley paste which she is wolfing down. I figured the runs for an extra day is better than gut stasis and a potentially lethargic/passed away piggley in the morning. I hope it was the right course of action...everything always seems to happen at night, i'll try to make a second lot of paste with pellets mixed in now I know she will take it.
 
Eriathwen said:
She will be going to the vet first thing in the morning. It has become apparent in the last hour that it is likely a dental issue, she is just picking pellets up now and putting them back down or biting them into smaller and smaller bits, making odd mouth movements and grinding her teeth. She is refusing both soaked pellets and syringe feeding although still drinking. I cant find any poops that look like they are from her, when in the run they were still loose, which I can only assume means she is no longer prroducing feces. I am assuming she has not been eating enough hay and has now stopped altogether even though she is again, picking bits up and putting them down, same with the cardboard. She seems to be in a lot of discomfort when handled. And hunches with eyes closed when placed on my lap (she is quite perky in her cage however)

Inspite of this she is ravenous and I caved in with the veg and made her a carrot and parsley paste which she is wolfing down. I figured the runs for an extra day is better than gut stasis and a potentially lethargic/passed away piggley in the morning. I hope it was the right course of action...everything always seems to happen at night, i'll try to make a second lot of paste with pellets mixed in now I know she will take it.
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if it is dental, you are best off with the Cat&Rabbit Clinic in Northampton; one of the best and certainly the most practised guinea pig dentals vet is there. He sees guinea pigs with dental issues from all over the country on a near daily basis and looks after the piggies at TEAS sanctuary, which specialises in guinea pigs with chronic dental issues.
It can well be that the syringe feeding has contributed to the issue, but if it is not bad, Simon Maddock should be able to easily correct it without a full GA and operation. You will be in the safest of hands with them, even if it is a treck. As he is general vet, he also doesn't fetch sky high prices.
PS: He has certainly saved my Hywel's life and bought him another year. Hywel passed away three weeks ago shortly before his 7th birthday from an unrelated issue. My local vets were unable to cope.
The Cat and Rabbit Care Clinic

Try to mix veg with syringe feed, so she gets more fibre. There is likely a pain issue if she drops hay/fibre.
We have got a section on dental guinea pigs in our syringe feeding guide.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide
 
Thankyou again! :)
She had a really good look in her mouth without aneasthetic and says her teeth look perfect which is a relief..but still none the wiser as to whats actually causing it. She had a good feel of her abdomen with nothing wrong, just lots of protest from Blackberry! She was very surprised that she was as fiesty and full of beans as she was though, considering the mess of her scales and table she had made (she has definately started pooing again!)... apparently normally they are far more lethargic when they see them with this problem?

We've got fibreplex and a sachet of liquid feed to give her, mixed with some veg with the instruction to return tomorrow if no improvement.
 
Would she be ok to have a quick bum bath? Her back end is now rather messy and she will not let me snip or wipe the poo out of her hair and its drying.. with it pulling on her hair its making her even more uncomfortable and grumpy :(
 
Yes you can quickly wash her bum but make sure u dry her best you can.

You need to persevere with the syringe feeding- its very important. Syringing water is also vital if she is having diarrohea to prevent dehydration. Keep weighing her daily too.

I think you need to stop the veg as it wont be helping, and just follow the syringe feeding guide, feeding more often if u can only get a little in at a time.

Fibreplex is good for firming up poos, but as her guts are clearly off balance you may want to add another probiotic in 3x a day such as pro-c or avipro plus.

Keep an eye on her for signs of dehydration- lethargy, dry mouth and smaller dry eyes. If she becomes dehydrated she will need subcut fluids from the vet, these can really help a piggy with diarrohea to feel so much better.

If it doesnt clear up in a few days then id suggest sending off a poo sample via the vets to see if she has an infection or parasite burden.

I do think staying off veg is key at this point to see if things do firm up or wether there is a health issue here. Keeping her on veg may potentially prolong the diarrohea, make her dehydrated, feel rubbish and not want to eat... Keeping a viscious cycle. No veg wont harm her as long as you keep syringe feeding.

If you are convinced theres a dental
Issue id second The cat and rabbit clinic like wiebke mentioned, as your vet may have misdiagnosed.

All the best x
 
Thankyou! I gave her bum a dunk which she enjoyed tremendously and passed some almost formed poos, she had a couple of stalks of corriander while I dried her which she ate by herself but I will make that the last of the veg until we know more of whats going on. I'm mixing up the liquid feed I was given and managed to get her to (eventually) take the 1ml of fibreplex. She is currently back in her cage following Bramble about and eating her poos off the floor. I can pick her up without whimpering now so hopefully she doesnt have a sore bum anymore.

I need to get them all a new bag of pellets tomorrow so I will see what probiotics I can find
 
Managed to get 12ml of the liquid food down her and 3ml water. I probably lost the same amount in blood for my trouble, bless her! It doesnt seem to matter how I wrap her in the towel, she can get out of it. Should have called her Houdini....
 
We've gained 20g or so today, poops are a little more formed but small. The ones I found this morning looked like mouse poops! She's got the right 'ump bless her xD but I suppose thats a good sign, whatever it is shes fighting it and doing quite well, although she hates the fibreplex.
 
Potentially found the culprit? I'm mid clean and on lifting the hay layer I find this piece of shavings which is very sharp, it has what looks like blood on it, I'm wondering if maybe shes chewed on it and cut inside her mouth somewhere? It would explain why her teeth and tummy are fine but her mouth is bothering her?
20161016_222610.webp
 
Bit if an update, shes back up to 775g, I'm syringe feeding her about 20ml every 3 hours and 5-10ml of water depending on how thirsty she is. To say I'm tired is an understatement, but theyre always worth it, arent they? Her poos are now firm and normal thickness but about half the length. Shes eaten a little hay here and there, tiny bits of veg once a day before turning her nose up again. Today however I got her some lambs lettuce I think its called? Which she dove into and demolished very fast. No diarrhoea from that. The fibreplex is apparently the most disgusting thing in the world, she hates it xD but we've managed to get most of it into her. Shes looking much better but still making an awful grinding noise so I'm taking her for a second opinion about her teeth and for a really good look in her mouth for splinters.
 
Any food they digest can take up to 24-48 hours to affect their guts so any upset tummy from the veg won't show until tomorrow at the earliest. Teeth grinding can be a symptom of pain, is she on any pain medication? There could be an underlying issue going on, if she is having problems with her teeth & not eating properly it is possibly a pain response, so you need to get to the cause of the pain.
 
True, the spinach she had yesterday didnt affect anything or the grated carrot the day before, but we will wait and see, it was only 1 piece so I wouldnt think it would do much if the spinach didnt..but time will tell! It was nice to see her eat something for herself though, ive been having to hand feed her pretty much everything else.

I'm still about 80% certain its a mouth issue which is why shes going back for a second opinion. Its been almost like she physically cant eat or pick anything up in her mouth and she opens it from time to time like shes trying to spit something out although shes eaten voluntarily very small amounts increasing as the days go by. She often tries to spit out the fibreplex and its the same action. The grinding noise is literally only when she is eating now. Any other time shes her normal self. Even when shes sat doing that chewing on nothing thing they do, at least, I cant hear it anyway :/

Do you think its worth asking for an xray? Just because her teeth look fine externally doesnt mean theres nothing going on with the roots or jaw right?

Oh forgot to say no, she wasnt given any pain meds but thats another thing i'll be bringing up with the vets when we go.
 
Maybe an x ray, if they can do a conscious one even better, but I think Simon at the Cat & Rabbit clinic has already been recommended by forum members; he really is the best vet for dealing with this sort of thing, if I were you I would travel to see him, book an appointment as soon as you can. It is a false economy to try another vet first in my opinion, you would be better going straight to see him. She definitely need pain meds I would say, that will help with her eating if it is uncomfortable.
 
Ive been saying that for a few days now and the lack of sleep has kicked in. It caused quite an argument but I think I can get her down to him. I'll get an appointment booked asap. It seems stupid to waste money on vets poking and pondering over whats wrong, when we could just go somewhere that can help her!
 
Exactly! You will end up paying out twice, which nobody wants to do. Simon is a fantastic vet, we've seen him too in the past & he's operated on a couple of mine. He is lovely & probably the best piggy vet around :)
 
Thats reassuring to hear :) I just want her to get better.. the money wouldnt even be a problem if I were actually getting answers from the vet that made sense, or something to ease her discomfort. She was very obviously in pain at the vets but we werent given anything for it. Just knowing he will actually know what hes talking about already makes me feel better. 'Try that and see what happens' is kind of disheartening when youre worried she wont be there in the morning.
Sorry for rambling xD no one here really 'gets it' because shes not a cat or dog.
 
Wow that is bad :( No you certainly won't get that from Simon :) I really do trust him, as does everyone on here that has seen him & he really loves piggies, it's obvious by how he acts with them. I am sure he will soon find out what is wrong & at the very least you can put your mind at rest you have done the best possible thing for your girl :)
 
At least I can be pretty sure her bladder is fine.... 5th time this week that familiar, warm spread has happened while feeding her!
She is very uncomfortable and whimpering again, I will make an appointment tomorrow, she cant carry on like this, its not fair to her. Ive been reading the lovely reviews on their facebook page, it seems the best place for her.
 
Awww wimpering in pain. Hope you get some good answers at the vet.
 
Eriathwen said:
At least I can be pretty sure her bladder is fine.... 5th time this week that familiar, warm spread has happened while feeding her!
She is very uncomfortable and whimpering again, I will make an appointment tomorrow, she cant carry on like this, its not fair to her. Ive been reading the lovely reviews on their facebook page, it seems the best place for her.
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Hope you can get some answers from simon soon xx
 
I had to compromise on the trip to Northampton as Mums partner was having trouble with his heart, so she didnt want to be too far away, just in case...which is why I got my head bitten off for asking.

The good news however is I agreed to give our vets one last chance and if nothing came of it we would go to n'hampton. We saw a different vet this time who seemed to be far more cavy savvy, her teeth and jaw are fine, no abcesses or spurs, no blockages, no uti etc. What he did give us though was a lovely minty antacid as he said the reason for her diarhoea every time we try to increase veg could be the ceacum being too acidic..which i'll admit I was sceptical about. But we tried it and shes a different pig! No wimpering at all, no pain of discomfort, no teeth grinding.. instead of fighting to syringe feed her, I had to fight her to give the syringe back so I could refill it. Her poops were loose this morning but now theyre almost normal, unless you look closely you cant tell the difference between hers and Brambles :) I cant believe it was something so simple. I'm so relieved, hopefully it continues.
 
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