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Can I give my iron supplements to my guinea pig?

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Elsa

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since he has had all that trouble eating I checked his lower eyelids inside it looks very pale unlike my other guinea pig with has a healthy vivid pink-red colour, so can I give a few drops of my iron supplements to treat my guinea pigs anaemia or do they need a special iron supplement for guinea pigs?
 
Isn't spinach leaves poisonous for guinea pigs? from this page I quote "Acute renal failure is deemed an infrequent, but usually fatal, disease of guinea pigs. Suggested causes include oxalic acid poisoning following ingestion of oxalate-containing plants, such as beetroot, spinach, and rhubarb."

I'll see if I can find Vitabiotic's feroglobin at the pharmacy.
 
I would personally go and see a vet rather than self diagnosing something like this
 
Elsa said:
Isn't spinach leaves poisonous for guinea pigs? from this page I quote "Acute renal failure is deemed an infrequent, but usually fatal, disease of guinea pigs. Suggested causes include oxalic acid poisoning following ingestion of oxalate-containing plants, such as beetroot, spinach, and rhubarb."

I'll see if I can find Vitabiotic's feroglobin at the pharmacy.
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Spinach is okay in very very very small amounts and rarely fed - I dont feed it to my pigs
 
Doeylicious said:
I would personally go and see a vet rather than self diagnosing something like this
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The vet has seen him many, many times,most recently last Friday and I'm taking him again this week, the vet didn't noticed about the very pale colour under the eyes but then again they didn't seem to think much about his progressive weight loss, from being "too fat" according to them to weighing 600gr as he does now, they didn't seem too alarmed by this and just kept prescribing antibiotics for the recurrent eye infection which seems now to have been caused by an abscess on the area which has been already lanced and seems to be healing fine. Did I live somewhere other than in a small Island I could probably find a specialist but for what I have seen so far, vets here are good with dogs, cats and large farm animals so I trust I can make a good research myself for simple things as anaemia and ask the vet for his opinion too, but not go by it 100%.
 
I recommend getting in touch with Laura Humphreys via her website guineapighelpline. (can't remember the bit at the end eg.com etc, but if you google it you should find her!) Laura is very knowledgeable and has given me good advice
 
Where do I start on such a misguided thread......

a) Firstly: pink/white conjuctiva is healthy - NOT anaemeic..
...so one reason why you should go to your vet before you self-medicate ( I DO know it's difficult where you are but I have also ponted you in the right direction of good vet on the vet thread))
b) spinach is NOT toxic...it has a bad reputation based upon previous vets erroneous understanding of what causes kidney stones.......(calcium oxalate)....this is now wrong owing to a long term study in the US on piggie stones which, contrary to popular belief, proved to consist of mainly carbonate instead of oxalate. (Meaning lettuce and spinach were no longer the bad guys previously thought). For what it's worth..I feed my guineas their favourite foods (Lettuce and spinach) twice a wheek
c) As for getting an iron supplement....excuse me...WHAT!....I repeat.. a piggieis conjunctiva should be white and NOT red...if it is red you have inflammation and problem.....sounds like you had a problem and now it's sorted

I appreciate in view of your location/circumstances that you feel isolated and without support. I have posted elsewhere for you on finding a good vet. I also appreciate you are trying to do the best for your piggie...but this thread has gone way out of kilter and needs putting back on track. I know that a number of members have posted on here with the best interests of your piggie...but I feel that this thread has not had enough really experienced posters contribute...and perhaps some of the advice here has been (at best) misguided as well as misinformed.

Bottom line....I do not think in view of your observations that your piggie has anaemia and needs feroglobulin....please get a vets diagnosis before you self medicate

HTH
x
 
P.S.

At one time it was thought piggies kidney/bladder stones were calcium oxalate...hence the spinach/rhubarb etc edict as they contained oxalic acid and hence why it was considered harmful at one time (long ago)

It has since been proved that most piggie stones are calcium carbonate. Spinach and lettuce are therefore off the hook (for "toxic"oxalic acid)...but still high calcium hence feed in moderation. Rhubarb/beetrooot has other stuff that is not good for piggies per se.

HTH
x
 
Can I also add to this that iron supplementation isn't something that you should do even in humans without a need. Excess iron isn't excreted out of the body in urine etc, so can build up and cause problems. I would assume it is the same for guinea pigs.
 
pelicano said:
Can I also add to this that iron supplementation isn't something that you should do even in humans without a need. Excess iron isn't excreted out of the body in urine etc, so can build up and cause problems. I would assume it is the same for guinea pigs.
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And as anyone who has been on iron tablets will tell you, it, er, 'clogs you up' quite badly...NOT a good idea for a guinea pig that needs to keep its gut moving.
 
Pebble said:
Where do I start on such a misguided thread......

a) Firstly: pink/white conjuctiva is healthy - NOT anaemeic..
...so one reason why you should go to your vet before you self-medicate ( I DO know it's difficult where you are but I have also ponted you in the right direction of good vet on the vet thread))
b) spinach is NOT toxic...it has a bad reputation based upon previous vets erroneous understanding of what causes kidney stones.......(calcium oxalate)....this is now wrong owing to a long term study in the US on piggie stones which, contrary to popular belief, proved to consist of mainly carbonate instead of oxalate. (Meaning lettuce and spinach were no longer the bad guys previously thought). For what it's worth..I feed my guineas their favourite foods (Lettuce and spinach) twice a wheek
c) As for getting an iron supplement....excuse me...WHAT!....I repeat.. a piggieis conjunctiva should be white and NOT red...if it is red you have inflammation and problem.....sounds like you had a problem and now it's sorted

I appreciate in view of your location/circumstances that you feel isolated and without support. I have posted elsewhere for you on finding a good vet. I also appreciate you are trying to do the best for your piggie...but this thread has gone way out of kilter and needs putting back on track. I know that a number of members have posted on here with the best interests of your piggie...but I feel that this thread has not had enough really experienced posters contribute...and perhaps some of the advice here has been (at best) misguided as well as misinformed.

Bottom line....I do not think in view of your observations that your piggie has anaemia and needs feroglobulin....please get a vets diagnosis before you self medicate

HTH
x
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It's not the conjunctiva of the eye that is white it's the skin underneath the eye, as I explained in my original post, it's the skin inside the eyelid.
I don't think iron supplements are self medicating either, unless I was planning on giving him more iron of the amount needed (which I would have to research first obviously)
At the moment I live in Tenerife, there is no vets listed anywhere in this site by any user that can be of any help to me, I have checked.
 
Hi so how's your little one doing?
Sending some loving wheeeeeeeeks his way XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tenerife as in the Canary Islands? ahhhhh seen photo's beautiful x)

I do hope your vet can help you, and if they're unsure if you get together some info (which sounds like youre' doing -c) your vet could always chat to another vet :)
 
Glynis said:
Hi so how's your little one doing?
Sending some loving wheeeeeeeeks his way XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Tenerife as in the Canary Islands? ahhhhh seen photo's beautiful x)

I do hope your vet can help you, and if they're unsure if you get together some info (which sounds like youre' doing -c) your vet could always chat to another vet :)
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Hi Glynis!
He is not doing well at all, the last vet I've taken him to claims he either has a bone infection or a tumour in his jaw bone and that he doesn't have much more time left, but... I'm not sure If I trust this diagnosis It's very confusing since the x-ray doesn't show much detail at all and I'm starting to think you were all right before, maybe he has been having teeth problem since the beginning and the main problem has been that both vets I have been had been too inexperienced with guinea pigs or maybe didn't have the proper tools so they refused to diagnose him with molar problems so that they wouldn't have to admit they can't deal with the treatment themselves, I don´t know.

Tenerife is in the Canary Islands yes! I don't like it that much to live in but I can understand why it is a popular tourist resort, unfortunately I don't seem to find good vets in the island, I'm starting to think vets here see their job more as some sort of business thing, like a retail business and don't realize that a pet guinea pig is as important as an expensive full breed dog.

Only this morning I rang 10 vet places to enquiry about molar trimming most of them didn't treat guinies, another one literally told me "No, molar trimming should never be done because the mouth of a guinea pig is too small and also the tools needed are very special and no one has them, you would have to get them borrowed from a dentist" seriously!. Then in another place they told me they can do it but only under anaesthetic and in another place they were strangely optimistic and they told me straight away they could do it with or without anaesthetic so now I'm trying to find out more info about the procedure in the guinea lynx forum to decide for one of these two places so we can get a third opinion and probably a molar trimming.

At the moment we have nothing to lose as Rens just keep loosing weigh and he stopped eating and is refusing syringe feeding all together since 2 days ago, he will slap the syringe with his hand (with amazing determination) and the very few times I get him to eat a little bit he starts coughing like he couldn't swallow properly, that's another thing that makes me think perhaps he´s got entrapped tongue or something molar related.

So we are almost hoping for a miracle at this stage, he is all a character and very smart so we are going to be devastated if he doesn't make it.
 
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