Bladder Stones, The Calcium:phosphorus Ratio & The Ratewatchers Diet

[Sally Miles]

One of my guinea pigs (Timmy) had to have surgery a couple of weeks ago to remove a bladder stone and I want to do everything I can to prevent him getting another.

I’ve been doing lots of online research and something I keep coming across is the importance of feeding a diet with the correct Calcium to Phosphorus ratio.

For the last 4 months or so I’d already been trying to reduce his calcium intake and made various changes to his diet, including switching his main feed from ReadiGrass to timothy hay, installing a Brita filter on my kitchen tap, reducing the amount of vegetables I feed, only feeding low calcium vegetables and giving Potassium Citrate every day. He also has an Oxbow Urinary Support tablet every day, but despite all my best efforts he still got a stone.

I know some piggies are genetically prone to them and no preventative measures you take can ever guarantee that stones won’t form, but I do now wonder if taking a closer look at the balance of Calcium and Phosphorus in his diet could help.

The Guinea Lynx website has a calculator where you can enter the amount of vegetables fed per day and then it calculates the ratio for you, and when I entered the vegetables I currently feed it came out at 0:4 something, when it said to aim for 1:33 or higher. I then looked at the Ratewatchers diet, put together a few different meal plans and entered those into the calculator. The ratios then ranged from between 1.67 and 1.86 – presumably much better?

The only thing that concerns me about the Ratewatchers diet is that it would mean feeding certain vegetables that I have specifically been avoiding due to a high calcium content, such as kale, so now I really don’t know what to do for the best!

At the moment I haven’t cut out pellets (he has the Burgess Excel Blackcurrant & Oregano Nuggets) because they contain vitamin D (needed to metabolise calcium) and when he eats them it seems to make him want to drink more, which is important to keep his bladder flushed through. He won’t eat Oxbow Cavy Cuisine (I’ve tried him with it many times) but I have ordered some KMS Hayloft Timothy Choice Pellets from America to try and also some Vet Care Plus Multi-Modal Formula.

If anyone has any useful advice / previous experience with this situation then I’d be really grateful for some input.

Thank you!

 

[DM030819]

On of my previous boars had two bladder stone surgeries, around 6 months apart. After that I decided to do whatever I possibly could to try to stop it happening again.

One thing I had noticed that it's far from an exact science, what might work for me might not for you.

I was afraid of too much calcium so I opted to cut out pellets. It was a tough choice and many other condone it but I think I made the right choice. Later in life he was diagnosed with severe arthritis, we don't know if the lack of calcium in his diet was a contributing factor or not.

I started to filter his water, but wasn't able to get it down to the recommended calcium level so I swapped to low calcium, bottled water (as recommended by the CCT and later on my vet ok'd it).

He had a limited diet veg wise.

He was a poor drinker so I wet all of his veg, gave him a bit more cucumber than recommended, and also added a juice to his water which he loved so he drank more.

He was also on Potassium Citrate supplements (my vet said these are virtually useless but it wouldn't harm) and he was also on Cystease capsules.

He continued to leave white deposits on his bedding and after my vet had a discussion with an exotics specialist who had had very good results in other species, we added in a diuretic to his meds. He was a guinea pig for this med (ba dum tish) as a few people had tried it for a few days and then stopped as calcium deposits were increasing. But we persevered and he did really well.

He lived another 2 years, stone free and very healthy except for his arthritis. In his last xray before he was PTS the vet did find a minute spot in his bladder which he thought could be a stone, but it was so small that he said it wouldn't cause any problem being peed out if it was.

My vet now has another few guinea pigs at their practice on the same med's as him.

It can seem very frustrating especially when other people have such good results and when you try the same thing it doesn't work. But, there'll be some combination that at least slows down the process. There's quite a few members on here than have had bladder stone pigs so feel free to comment and ask questions as often as you want.

@Sally Miles

 

[Sally Miles]

On of my previous boars had two bladder stone surgeries, around 6 months apart. After that I decided to do whatever I possibly could to try to stop it happening again.

One thing I had noticed that it's far from an exact science, what might work for me might not for you.

I was afraid of too much calcium so I opted to cut out pellets. It was a tough choice and many other condone it but I think I made the right choice. Later in life he was diagnosed with severe arthritis, we don't know if the lack of calcium in his diet was a contributing factor or not.

I started to filter his water, but wasn't able to get it down to the recommended calcium level so I swapped to low calcium, bottled water (as recommended by the CCT and later on my vet ok'd it).

He had a limited diet veg wise.

He was a poor drinker so I wet all of his veg, gave him a bit more cucumber than recommended, and also added a juice to his water which he loved so he drank more.

He was also on Potassium Citrate supplements (my vet said these are virtually useless but it wouldn't harm) and he was also on Cystease capsules.

He continued to leave white deposits on his bedding and after my vet had a discussion with an exotics specialist who had had very good results in other species, we added in a diuretic to his meds. He was a guinea pig for this med (ba dum tish) as a few people had tried it for a few days and then stopped as calcium deposits were increasing. But we persevered and he did really well.

He lived another 2 years, stone free and very healthy except for his arthritis. In his last xray before he was PTS the vet did find a minute spot in his bladder which he thought could be a stone, but it was so small that he said it wouldn't cause any problem being peed out if it was.

My vet now has another few guinea pigs at their practice on the same med's as him.

It can seem very frustrating especially when other people have such good results and when you try the same thing it doesn't work. But, there'll be some combination that at least slows down the process. There's quite a few members on here than have had bladder stone pigs so feel free to comment and ask questions as often as you want.

@Sally Miles

Thanks very much for your response, Jaycey. It's really helpful to know what other people have tried and what result they had :-)

 

[Claire W]

I haven't had a problem with bladder stones (touch wood) but I have had a problem with sludge in previous guinea pigs and I now have two with IC so their diet consists of
Cucumber, peppers, coriander, lettuce (as a treat) as well as limited nuggets, filtered water, unlimited meadow hay and my two IC piggies are taking half a capsule of cystease daily.

 

[eileen]

On of my previous boars had two bladder stone surgeries, around 6 months apart. After that I decided to do whatever I possibly could to try to stop it happening again.

One thing I had noticed that it's far from an exact science, what might work for me might not for you.

I was afraid of too much calcium so I opted to cut out pellets. It was a tough choice and many other condone it but I think I made the right choice. Later in life he was diagnosed with severe arthritis, we don't know if the lack of calcium in his diet was a contributing factor or not.

I started to filter his water, but wasn't able to get it down to the recommended calcium level so I swapped to low calcium, bottled water (as recommended by the CCT and later on my vet ok'd it).

He had a limited diet veg wise.

He was a poor drinker so I wet all of his veg, gave him a bit more cucumber than recommended, and also added a juice to his water which he loved so he drank more.

He was also on Potassium Citrate supplements (my vet said these are virtually useless but it wouldn't harm) and he was also on Cystease capsules.

He continued to leave white deposits on his bedding and after my vet had a discussion with an exotics specialist who had had very good results in other species, we added in a diuretic to his meds. He was a guinea pig for this med (ba dum tish) as a few people had tried it for a few days and then stopped as calcium deposits were increasing. But we persevered and he did really well.

He lived another 2 years, stone free and very healthy except for his arthritis. In his last xray before he was PTS the vet did find a minute spot in his bladder which he thought could be a stone, but it was so small that he said it wouldn't cause any problem being peed out if it was.

My vet now has another few guinea pigs at their practice on the same med's as him.

It can seem very frustrating especially when other people have such good results and when you try the same thing it doesn't work. But, there'll be some combination that at least slows down the process. There's quite a few members on here than have had bladder stone pigs so feel free to comment and ask questions as often as you want.

@Sally Miles

@Jaycey please can i ask what diuretic you used,ive just found out one of my boars has a stone .

 

[DM030819]

@eileen It's Bendroflumethiazide. Or as Kim and Simon from Cat and Rabbit, and I like to call it Bendrofluawotsit.

That's where Anselmo got his from so they'll know all about it if you ask them.

I did ask a couple of Leicester vets about it but they were very hesitant as it's not really used in pigs. But Simon had a good chat with the exotics specialist and decided it was worth a try.

 

[eileen]

@eileen It's Bendroflumethiazide. Or as Kim and Simon from Cat and Rabbit, and I like to call it Bendrofluawotsit.

That's where Anselmo got his from so they'll know all about it if you ask them.

I did ask a couple of Leicester vets about it but they were very hesitant as it's not really used in pigs. But Simon had a good chat with the exotics specialist and decided it was worth a try.

Thanks Jaycey i will ask when i take Lewis again,I'm familiar with it as used alot in human medicine !

 

[DM030819]

Thanks Jaycey i will ask when i take Lewis again,I'm familiar with it as used alot in human medicine !

Last time I was talking to Kim about it she said that they had other pigs on their books that they were using it on now, so they must have been happy with Anselmo's time on it. Which is great, it's a good feeling knowing that he may be helping other pigs by being the first in the practice to try it