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Bladder Issues

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furryfriends (TEAS)

furryfriends (TEAS)

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Is it more common in guinea pigs kept exclusively or mainly indoors?

This is something I am very interested in, as I have never had a piggy with bladder issues. The guinea pigs at TEAS spend a lot of time outdoors, all year round. On a mild and sunny winter day, they will go out in the runs for very short periods and during the summer months they are out every day. I have had a few piggies come into my care who have had bladder problems on and off throughout their lives and yet once they have been here a while the problem seems to resolve.

I don't know if I have just been very lucky or whether it is to do with the TEAS piggies getting a lot of natural daylight and sun. It may be to do with diet I feed too. Apart from the piggies who I am needing to offer supportive care for, the rest have nuggets on alternate days, plenty of hay (enough to fill the whole cage or hutch) and a small amount of veg. I feed mainly mixed salad leaves, spinach, curly kale, parsley, cucumber, peppers, carrot and celery. I don't ensure everyone has a certain amount of each veg. All food is put into a washing up bowl, mixed around and then handfuls (depending on how many residents in each hutch) are thrown in. I scatter the veg all around the hutch/cage. In the summer months they eat a mainly grass based diet.

I would really welcome everyone's thoughts and experiences! xx
 
It is certainly not down to the fleece bedding, as I had actually more cases of plain UTI before I switched to fleece.

Most often, acute UTI cases with my piggies have been caused when they were left a bit too long on a cooling lawn in spring because I had a phone call or was otherwise distracted. Indoors guinea pigs are more prone to have problems with that unless they are going up pretty much daily and are hardenend off. Although my Minx and Mischief had their UTIs, too, even though they were free roaming the garden pretty much all year round, if only to make pigsonally sure that snow was not fun for all of two minutes (and no, they didn't fall ill from that).

A large number of bladder stone cases seems mainly diet based/influenced although you can never completely exclude other factors, of course.

What we are seeing a lot more are issues we now lump under IC - bladder problems that generally don't react to antibiotics. This seems to have been continually on the rise in the last 10 years; my old vet was complaining about seeing a lot more piggies with resistence issues 10 years ago. Not sure whether that is more due to the development of resistent strains or lifestyle changes?

It would be great if there was some research into what is causing/contributing to IC.
 
Mine all live indoors on fleece and we (touch wood) haven't had many bladder issues at all. Connie had one when she first arrived 2 years ago and none of the others has had one. Old lady Fudge had a bladder flush as part of the treatment where wee investigating why she was wet but there was no uti - just shocking arthritis stopping her moving around.
 
VickiA said:
Mine all live indoors on fleece and we (touch wood) haven't had many bladder issues at all. Connie had one when she first arrived 2 years ago and none of the others has had one. Old lady Fudge had a bladder flush as part of the treatment where wee investigating why she was wet but there was no uti - just shocking arthritis stopping her moving around.
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Do they go outside in the summer?
 
I have just lost a boar (my beautiful Max) after surgery for a bladder stone. My Guinea pigs are kept in a shed which is heated in the winter. The only time my guineas have been housed inside is when we had that heatwave last year ( fortunately, OH was away when it got really hot !). My guinea pigs get grass time in the summer .

I would imagine that some guinea pigs are just at higher risk of getting stones but feel that diet is the other major contributory factor . I used to give mine celery leaves virtually every day - but now realise this is too much for them.
 
My boys lived outside for their first summer and they could easily spend 12 hours on the grass. I then moved them indoors at the beginning of that first winter and they have not been back out other than occasional trips to the lawn but they seem to stop enjoying themselves after about an hour, go into a hidey and don't go back out. They get a lot more exercise in the house because they like zooming around the coffee table and moving from one hay box to the next. They are bedded on fleece and hay in their hutch. Neither of them had had any UTI's (touching a hell of a lot of wood right now) so I don't think it is to do with lack of grass. However, a vet did tell me once that the piggies who are the most active will have less issues with bladder sludge.
 
Our pigs have only ever been inside as we have no outside space. Amy has IC and Phoebe did too, though that was only one of Phoebe's many issues due to her being so badly bred. Amy's is definitely triggered by some veg so we make sure she doesn't have those. I think a lot of the time quantity of veg etc is a factor as I know we all sometimes feed way too much so maybe you have the right balance with your portion sizes too Debbie. As for bladder stones, we have had 2 with them - Johnny and Maddie and both were subjected to the appalling diet and bowls over flowing with pellets we used to feed before we knew better. I do think genetics can play a part too but with Amy at least we know some foods are a trigger for her - Readigrass and carrots for example.
 
OF the 7 pigs I have had (now 5) Truffles who is my eldest at just over 6 has never had a UTI, her sister who died at 51/2 had 1 - Bea who is nearly 6 had 1 - Reg who is 5 has never had any and Bumble my only Abyssinian has had UTi's bladder stones and still has on going problems - he came from a hobby breeder so I think with him it's partly to do with his genetic make up - everyone is bedded on a mix of fleece,vet bed and lots of hay - the cages are cleaned out every day as they live in the lounge - they don't go outside very often in the summer due to the noise and the dust (we are on a new estate) in the past they have gone out on odd occasions but can't wait to get back indoors.
 
l done remember the last UTI, , l feed mine no grass, and very little green veg, prefaring to give then peppers . there treet is Thimathy Hay , they wheek like crazy , they lovve the seed heads in particular .
and eat it as readily as they eat veg . l dont use fleese only vet bed and snuggle tubes
 
this seems to be the one illness that plagues my piggies. and interestingly, the two things i want to improve on are more grass and more time outside. i think they go a long way towards overall health.
 
All mine are indoors and go out in grass Spring and Summer for a few hrs when weather is nice and grass has dried. A big portion of their outdoors lawn is in shade in morning which means it takes ages to completely dry.

About 2 yrs ago Bitsy had a stone, it seems to have been a one off and she never had any problems again.
Edith is on my alert radar as she has complained when weeing in the past and even though vet didn't find anything conclusive she had a course of antibiotics. She still occasionally complains when weeing but vet thinks it might be a learned behaviour by now as a few visits to vets when this happened found nothing.
I have a foster boy who seems to be have a bit of a history but he was living free range in garden before he came to me.

Like others I think it's probably a variety of issues but probably diet plays an important part. I try and limit nuggets. All the above pigs LOVE nuggets so I'm inclined to think that is a contributor. Thinking of changing to grass nuggets for Edith. They get varied veg (little brassicas as have 2 pigs prone to bloat with them) and all have a big tub with varied hay to sleep under, pee and eat it.

I feed ready grass very occasionally as notice white wee deposits shoot up after I feed it.
 
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