Feeding A Heart Pig

[ghostbusterbunny]

Hi all,

Back again with another heart failure piggy after losing my gorgeous little Muffin to the horrible disease last year. Little Cola has it now, and at only three years old it does seem quite cruel, bless her.

Even though I've put this in Health (just in case I need advice on any future issues with her), this is more of a nutrition question to see if there's anything I can be giving Cola to help keep her weight up as she's lost a lot of weight - she's now down to about 720g. She was never a very big pig, about 900g at her heaviest, but she does look very scrawny these days.

Vet is confident that her heart is the only problem and she is currently on exactly the same treatment as Muffin - 0.625mg of Fortekor and 0.1ml/day Frusol to help shift the fluid (I have the option to go to 0.2ml if she has a bad day, we've not had to go higher yet). Thankfully she isn't showing signs of being dehydrated, I've got a bit better with recognising a bad day with the Frusol use and generally speaking she is only on a maintainence dose now.

Cola now lives with the OAPiggies who are doing a great job of looking after her and has 24/7 access to pellets and hay, and they get oats every day too for those that like them. Also get the usual selection of leafy greens/celery/pepper etc. Is there anything supplemental/higher calorie that I could be giving her to get her weight up a bit?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Wiebke]

Hi all,

Back again with another heart failure piggy after losing my gorgeous little Muffin to the horrible disease last year. Little Cola has it now, and at only three years old it does seem quite cruel, bless her.

Even though I've put this in Health (just in case I need advice on any future issues with her), this is more of a nutrition question to see if there's anything I can be giving Cola to help keep her weight up as she's lost a lot of weight - she's now down to about 720g. She was never a very big pig, about 900g at her heaviest, but she does look very scrawny these days.

Vet is confident that her heart is the only problem and she is currently on exactly the same treatment as Muffin - 0.625mg of Fortekor and 0.1ml/day Frusol to help shift the fluid (I have the option to go to 0.2ml if she has a bad day, we've not had to go higher yet). Thankfully she isn't showing signs of being dehydrated, I've got a bit better with recognising a bad day with the Frusol use and generally speaking she is only on a maintainence dose now.

Cola now lives with the OAPiggies who are doing a great job of looking after her and has 24/7 access to pellets and hay, and they get oats every day too for those that like them. Also get the usual selection of leafy greens/celery/pepper etc. Is there anything supplemental/higher calorie that I could be giving her to get her weight up a bit?

Thanks for any help!

In my own experience, a heart piggy will regain its weight once it is stabilised, but there is very little you can do before that; it will just not stick. You can top up with syringe feed.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide

@helen105281

 

[Poppy'sMum]

I lost my heart piggy on Wednesday, I had to keep her topped up with 1-2 syringe feeds a day, I also used to leave softened pellets in with them because my other piggy is a dental pig, but my heart piggy would scoff most of them herself which helped maintain her weight.

 

[helen105281]

With Nigel we also used to keep him topped up on syringe feed but other than that he ate nothing different to the other pigs. The Fortekor dose seems more like an introductory dose to me. Is that once a day?

 

[helen105281]

I think Emeraid is higher calorie than other recovery foods, but I may be wrong. You can get it on Hyperdrug.