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Bloat

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kerrie
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Kerrie

We've just adopted four sows, we were told that two have bloat. After one of them eating veg this morning they seem fairly bloated, is there anything that we can do to help them? What should we do and not do?

I already have four boars who don't really have that problem.
 
Hi there

Are they both pooing?
 
I would have your sows vet checked in any case. Please take any piggies with gassing issues off fresh veg.
 
Cut back to hay and pellets and give gripe water or infacol while waiting to get them checked over. My cavy savvy vet recommends 1ml infacol twice daily. You can get it almost anywhere (but if you go to chemist don't say it's for piggies as from experience they may be difficult about selling it to you - tesco don't ask questions it's just on the shelf). Hope they do ok.
 
Please rather use gripe water than infacol! You can get both in the baby section of any supermarket.
 
I agree with Wiebke, use gripe water & not infacol as this can cause a large build up of bubbles in a piggy. I just use Boots Baby Gripewater. The one I have at present is peppermint flavour. I give 1ml every 2 hours combined with massage to the tummy area with an electric toothbrush. See my post from last December:- http://theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/total-trust.109261/
 
As Stewybus says, the reason a lot of vets won't recommend Infacol is because it makes the gas form one big bubble and can lead to a gut torsion especially if the pig is dehydrated. Gripe water on the other hand gently disperses the gas.
 
The best thing you can do is to take them to a qualified cavy savvy vet and not rely INSTEAD on helpful suggestions made on the internet.

If they have bloat...there is a reason for it....and a vet needs to establish the reason (with input from yourself on previous diet and meds) in order to give you the RIGHT drugs to deal with the issue and the right instructions on how to prevent it happening in the future.

The cavy savvy vet approach to bloat is
a) remove all veg and syringe feed mushed pellets if food intake is reduced..keep up as much fibre (hay) as you can
b) give gut motility meds (ranitidine/zantac and/or metoclopromide/emeprid, but most importantly Cisapride....i.e. NOT Infacol of gripewater)
c) find the cause - could be pain and therefore reduced eating from all manner of conditions but most likely pain from underlying mites/urinary/infection/dental/arthriitic issues

On NO account give infacol.
Gripewater at best is short-term PALLIATIVE so should be viewed as such and NOT A CURE.

HTH
x
 
P.S. Apologies to those above who've posted as I know you all did so with the best of intentions.

However the thead was starting to go in the wrong direction and it needed to be brought back into focus in terms of getting this piggie the very necessary (and informed) vet help required.

x
 
Sorry I'm only just replying.

This is what I've found out from the rescue that I adopted the girls from.

The previous owner was giving the girls all types of rubbish, sweets, too many treats etc. so when the woman at the rescue got them they obviously didn't do that, so the bloat started to go down on all the girls (four sows), she said that Badger was always the worst out of the four and that she did go down however the old owner had them back for whatever reason and then they went back to the rescue, they came back bloated yet again, so of course the woman was feeding them crap again, the other girls aren't as bad, it's just Badger, we do have some gripe water for her and we'll do as others have said above, we will also try and get her into the vets, I asked the ladies from the rescue if they noticed her poo, she said she's pretty sure she poo'ed. I'll trying tapping her tummy in a bit and see if it sound hollow. My son gave her tummy a bit of a massage and thought she let wind.

Oh and she is drinking and eating perfectly.

Thanks for all the advice :D
 
She looks a little less bloated today, not tried the gripe water yet, will do so in a bit and I think I'm going to take her out of the cage for a bit and see if I can see her pooing for myself. Kept her off the veg, she's having Science Selective, hay and water. I wonder if she's a bit overweight as well.
 
The important thing here is to see the vet for a proper diagnosis. Bloat can cause serious problems, so keep off the veg, try a bit of gripe water, but get to the vet as a top priority.
 
Ok, I think they are closed today so I'll call them in the morning. As I said, I'm not giving her veg.
 
Took her to the vets, it's not bloat, she's the correct shape, well she was when my son took her, she said to not give her gassy veg which we wouldn't and to keep giving her gripe water.
 
Don't piggies always get miraculously well when they are seeing a vet? But it is good that you have her checked out to make sure that there is not another issue lurking.

Hopefully, their guts will steady eventually if you persist with a fibre/hay rich diet.
 
Lol yeah, I think she's overweight from all the rubbish her previous owner gave to her, I've given her some veg today, if she is overweight then she should lose it fine because I tend not to give treats to the guinea pigs and our mice have the odd meal worm, my dogs has treats but is limited, I think personally if you want to give a treat then a bit of veg is best (that's just my opinion though), lol my dog's even started to eat veg since we adopted the first two guinea pigs, I don't think he likes to feel left out lol.
 
Kerrie said:
Lol yeah, I think she's overweight from all the rubbish her previous owner gave to her, I've given her some veg today, if she is overweight then she should lose it fine because I tend not to give treats to the guinea pigs and our mice have the odd meal worm, my dogs has treats but is limited, I think personally if you want to give a treat then a bit of veg is best (that's just my opinion though), lol my dog's even started to eat veg since we adopted the first two guinea pigs, I don't think he likes to feel left out lol.
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Just limit the amount of pellets she gets to half a handful per day (ca. 10g); that should hopefully get rid of the worst over a period of time. You don't want to starve her or shock the system.
 
Hello,

I know this is an old post but it's a post I originally made and I wanted to make people aware of what happened to Badger who I was asking about in the post.

After we took her to the vets all SEEMED fine, however we started to find diluted blood in the cage, we couldn't tell who it was from because there were four of them, so we split them up, we put two in one cage and two in another, nothing, no blood... so we put them back in together and a few weeks later we noticed it again, my son did mention this when he took the other girls in for a nail clipping (I think that's when it was) and they said if we could figure who it was that was doing it to take them in, we couldn't because it wasn't constant, it was now and then. We moved home in Febuary this year and I noticed that Badger started to get snippy with the other girls, a week later she had gotten worse to the point where she was freezing, lethargic and not eating much. My son took her in and the vet didn't know what was wrong, asked if she could have gotten poison (Yeah I feed my piggies poison all of the time don't you know, I suffer with anxiety and my guinea pigs aren't near thing that could harm them, I'm paranoid with their food never mind anything else), in the end we were told it was better to have her put to sleep. I now wish that I had listened to my gut instincts and took Badger to a different vet for a second opinion, she might still be with us now.

So if any of you ever have any doubt about what the vet has said please make sure you get a second opinion, trust your gut instincts

I'm actually annoyed with her previous owner and the rescue that took her in, the rescue should have taken her to the vets, they knew she was bloated it was them that told me before we took her although it was after I'd agreed to adopt, rescues shouldn't take animals in unless they have the money for vet treatment if needed, yes I know they have limited money but they could ask for donations or ask the person adopting if they'd be willing to pay something towards the cost, they manage to do it with their rabbits. Sorry but Badger suffered when they could have helped her, they had her for long enough.

PS
We just took one of our boars to the vets, for impaction but the vets thinks he may have a block/constipation and gave him some meds for it, this was a DIFFERENT vet, not the one who saw Badger, I refuse to take my pets back to them.
 
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