Hello I need help! My guinea pig, sigil, has been gagging hard and ending up puking in her mouth and I had to suck it up with a rubber ear flusher. She also wabbles when she walks now and I think she might also be constipated. This all very recently started happening, as in the last three hours. She woke me up with her gagging and I'm afraid to think of how long she was gagging before I woke up! PLEASE HELP! (I'm 15, she's almost 5)
Please contact an out-of-hours vet asap; you should be able to get the contacts via your regular vets' answering machine message.
Guinea pigs can't vomit, but they can die when something gets stuck in the esophagus or windpipe; the gagging is mostly from saliva. Good that you have been able to free the mouth. It is a major strain on the heart and breathing; hence the wobbling.
Please keep her comfy, quiet and warm (but not hot) to recover from her ordeal. You can offer her to drink water from a syringe, but let her drink from it or only syringe 1.0 - 0.2 ml at a time, i.e. very little, to make sure that she is not gagging again and to give her plenty of time to swallow. It is very likely that she is struggling or even unable to swallow.
Only later on, you can start syringe feeding. Again, be careful to syringe only small quantities, but also try to keep the guts going, so unless her appetite is picking up, do so little but often around the clock. What you call constipation reflects the fact that she has likely not had any food in her for some time and that her guts may be going into stasis. But you need to make sure with a vet that it is safe to do so.
Here is our illustrated step-by-step syringe feeding guide; it also contains tips on what you can do with what you have got to hand in an emergency.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide
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