Can Guinea Pigs Get Caterax?

[Katiedid]

I swear to god my little black slinky boy has either learnt 'I can't find it' tricks from his teenage human brother or sometimes struggles to see - but not all the time.

At first I thought it was just 'under his nose' stuff but I'm not sure. Small furry boy watches shadows on the wall - he can be fascinated by them and stare for ages.

Then this week I put grass down and he sniffed and sniffed but didn't find it despite it being inches away eventually I had to hold some up and however at other times he has absolutely no issues at all seeing things and making a beeline for them from quite a distance.

In some lights there is a very slight white sheen deep in his eye that his brother didn't have. As I said it seems variable, he is a bear of little brain at times so it could just be his own stupidity and its not causing issues just yet.

 

[Freela]

Yes, guinea pigs can get cataracts- I had one who went totally blind from them in old age and I actually have recent come to suspect that my 3-year-old girl, Hadley, is developing them too, as I see her having some issues with depth perception that I remember from Sundae's earlier cataract progress. Luckily guinea pigs tend not to rely on vision as much as their other senses so they adapt quite well with time. Like I said, the first things I noticed was a lack of depth perception and a hesitancy to do things that involved depth perception (like jumping in and out of the cage.) In young pigs, early cataract formation can be associated with diabetes, but it can also just be random or age-related as well.

 

[Katiedid]

Thank you - he isn't young he is somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5 so it would be age related. He is still jumping about but just a bit different.

 

[Freela]

Thank you - he isn't young he is somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5 so it would be age related. He is still jumping about but just a bit different.

Sundae got hers around 4-1/2 or 5 as well. We noticed difficulty with depth perception first. Her eyes looked normal to us at that point, but the vet could see the cataract using a scope with a bright light. As they progressed, we could eventually see that the lens of the eye was thickened/cloudy in bright light. She had red eyes, I think it would have been harder to see in darker eyes. She lived to be just under 7 and really, besides being a bit skittish and nervous when she was first loosing her eyesight, it didn't affect her quality of life at all. Hope this helps a bit!