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Guinea pig not manually eating for 7 days

M

Milos

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Mar 13, 2026
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Netherlands zuid-holland
Hello everyone we normally dont really do forums posts but we are in quite a difficult position.
We have a guinea pig who is a little more than 8 months old and since 7 days ago she wont eat anything herself and she has a wet chin. We went to the vet the first day and they thought she had a gut problem so they gave metacam and cisaral drops. but that turned out to not be the case, because she still wouldn't eat so we went back a second time so they took a look at her teath while she was sedated. they saw that she had a bite out of het tounge so they gave us metacam for the pain. after 2 days she still wouldn't eat so we got refferd to a special rodent dentist in utrecht. They also took a look while she was sedated and made a full report. I can give the full report i dont know how but it is in dutch. Theyre conclusion is that they gave us antibiotics for the wound on her tounge and they couldnt find anything wrong with he teeth they made xray-s and photos of her teeth. that i can also show. but her teeth where all looking normal. the only thing they noticed is that her jaw looked a little locked up so they refferd us to a chiropractor. we went there and they did say that it felt like her joints were locked up but she said she unlocked it and that she was more flexible afterwards. But now being home she still wont eat herself and force feeding is becomming less and less effective. 7 days ago she was 800 grams and now she is 730 so she is still losing weight. We just wanna ask here if someone still knows anything we could do to help her or that the best thing to do is to put her to sleep... if we can we wanna help her but we also dont wanna make her suffer the whole time for nothing. I'm sorry if this thread isnt written well we are a little stressed. Thank you for reading and i hope someone can help.
 
Milos said:
Hello everyone we normally dont really do forums posts but we are in quite a difficult position.
We have a guinea pig who is a little more than 8 months old and since 7 days ago she wont eat anything herself and she has a wet chin. We went to the vet the first day and they thought she had a gut problem so they gave metacam and cisaral drops. but that turned out to not be the case, because she still wouldn't eat so we went back a second time so they took a look at her teath while she was sedated. they saw that she had a bite out of het tounge so they gave us metacam for the pain. after 2 days she still wouldn't eat so we got refferd to a special rodent dentist in utrecht. They also took a look while she was sedated and made a full report. I can give the full report i dont know how but it is in dutch. Theyre conclusion is that they gave us antibiotics for the wound on her tounge and they couldnt find anything wrong with he teeth they made xray-s and photos of her teeth. that i can also show. but her teeth where all looking normal. the only thing they noticed is that her jaw looked a little locked up so they refferd us to a chiropractor. we went there and they did say that it felt like her joints were locked up but she said she unlocked it and that she was more flexible afterwards. But now being home she still wont eat herself and force feeding is becomming less and less effective. 7 days ago she was 800 grams and now she is 730 so she is still losing weight. We just wanna ask here if someone still knows anything we could do to help her or that the best thing to do is to put her to sleep... if we can we wanna help her but we also dont wanna make her suffer the whole time for nothing. I'm sorry if this thread isnt written well we are a little stressed. Thank you for reading and i hope someone can help.
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Hi

I am very sorry for your upset.

Has your vet checked the the mouth and the crucial back teeth for either overgrowth or have they checked the mouth for potential oral thrush (fungal mouth infection)?

Please step in with syringe feeding asap and switch from weighing once weekly to weighing daily on your kitchen scales first thing in the morning for best day to day comparison and to plan the level of feeding support for the coming 24 hours. Please be aware that hay makes over three quarters of what a piggy eats in a day, which you cannot control by eye, so your little one likely lost a lot more weight than expected.

You will find the links below very helpful since explain it all step by step:
Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support Levels

How to Improvise Feeding Support in an Emergency
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

Emergency and Crisis Care as well as Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment

I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed. Please have your piggy seen as an emergency tomorrow. The wet chin indicates swallowing problems, whether that is dental spurs trapping the tongue or mouth sores making swallowing and eating very painful.
 
Thank you for your quick response Wiebke.
To clarify we weight her the first day at 800 grams and 3 days ago 776gram yesterday 764 and today 731 we are weiging daily now and the vet has checked her teeth for overgrowth etc but doesnt find anything wrong with the teeth. this is a special dentist vet specifficaly for rodents. we have been giving syringe feeding since the day it started because she just tries to eat something and then drops it out of her mouth. so we do it every 2 hours to keep her fed. I just dont know what i can do. i think ill call the dental vet again tommorow to know if she should be eating again on her own. but i feel like they would know to look for sores etc because they are a rodent dentist. Thanks for your awnser again and let me know if i can provide any information
 
Milos said:
Thank you for your quick response Wiebke.
To clarify we weight her the first day at 800 grams and 3 days ago 776gram yesterday 764 and today 731 we are weiging daily now and the vet has checked her teeth for overgrowth etc but doesnt find anything wrong with the teeth. this is a special dentist vet specifficaly for rodents. we have been giving syringe feeding since the day it started because she just tries to eat something and then drops it out of her mouth. so we do it every 2 hours to keep her fed. I just dont know what i can do. i think ill call the dental vet again tommorow to know if she should be eating again on her own. but i feel like they would know to look for sores etc because they are a rodent dentist. Thanks for your awnser again and let me know if i can provide any information
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Please call the vet; dropping food out of the mouth means that she is unable to swallow. Your piggy could also have a swelling at the back of the mouth (not showing on the outside) or an infection in her esophagus that swells shut (both of which were more unusual things but happened to guinea pigs of mine; the throat infection was only found in the post mortem). It happened over a weekend before we had out-of-hours/weekend vet cover here in the UK.
I also had to put one of my piggies to sleep because she simply could no longer swallow for some reason we didn't get to the bottom of.
Make sure that the vet also checks the jawline for potential abscess swellings.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum. I’m sorry your piggy is poorly.

Are they on a good amount of pain medication? It might just be pain that is stopping them from eating.

If they are still losing weight then you will have to feed them more. I have had a piggy that stopped eating completely and I was having to feed him 100ml a day just to keep his weight stable.

Good luck at the vets I hope they can find out what the problem is.
 
Wiebke said:
Please call the vet; dropping food out of the mouth means that she is unable to swallow. Your piggy could also have a swelling at the back of the mouth (not showing on the outside) or an infection in her esophagus that swells shut (both of which were more unusual things but happened to guinea pigs of mine; the throat infection was only found in the post mortem). It happened over a weekend before we had out-of-hours/weekend vet cover here in the UK.
I also had to put one of my piggies to sleep because she simply could no longer swallow for some reason we didn't get to the bottom of.
Make sure that the vet also checks the jawline for potential abscess swellings.
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We will try to call a vet tommorow, But we are looking online now and can see that the vets weve been to are all closed... so i hope we can find somewhere where its open. she is on antibiotics now so i hope that if its a infection it will help with that. but still i am not sure what it could be but i feel like a specialized dentist vet would look for these kinda issues right? But it sadly doesnt sound good for our piggy
 
weepweeps said:
Hello and welcome to the forum. I’m sorry your piggy is poorly.

Are they on a good amount of pain medication? It might just be pain that is stopping them from eating.

If they are still losing weight then you will have to feed them more. I have had a piggy that stopped eating completely and I was having to feed him 100ml a day just to keep his weight stable.

Good luck at the vets I hope they can find out what the problem is.
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The vet has described 1.5mg/ml of dog metacam 0.25ml twice a day

And we are giving 15ml every 2 hours so about 80-90 ml a day but it takes about a hour to give the full amount.
 
I’ve had a piggy recently that had his tongue trapped by his overgrown teeth. He had a dental and it took him ages to start to eat for himself. He had to have paracetamol as well as metacam for the pain. They also gave him cisapride to keep his stomach moving.

As your piggy is also on antibiotics it would be a good idea to give them probiotics. I think it’s 30 minutes after the antibiotics. I usually put a probiotic powder into the syringe feed.

I have also had to completely syringe feed a piggy for 8 weeks before. He had a tooth abscess. But he did recover his appetite.

Keep feeding them until you see the vet again. Good luck. It’s hard work caring for a sick piggy.
 
Are there front teeth (incisors) nice and straight?
 
“Give a probiotic such as pro-c or fibreplex: 1-2 hours before or after an antibiotic dose.”
 
weepweeps said:
I’ve had a piggy recently that had his tongue trapped by his overgrown teeth. He had a dental and it took him ages to start to eat for himself. He had to have paracetamol as well as metacam for the pain. They also gave him cisapride to keep his stomach moving.

As your piggy is also on antibiotics it would be a good idea to give them probiotics. I think it’s 30 minutes after the antibiotics. I usually put a probiotic powder into the syringe feed.

I have also had to completely syringe feed a piggy for 8 weeks before. He had a tooth abscess. But he did recover his appetite.

Keep feeding them until you see the vet again. Good luck. It’s hard work caring for a sick piggy.
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Did that piggy also lose weight when feeding him and did was he very slow/not moving as much at that point?
Our vet also said that it could take 1,5 to 2 weeks for a piggy to start eating again and they wanted to see her again in 3 weeks. so i guess i should follow that
 
Milos said:
. we have been giving syringe feeding since the day it started because she just tries to eat something and then drops it out of her mouth. so we do it every 2 hours to keep her fed. I just dont know what i can do.
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Milos said:
Did that piggy also lose weight when feeding him and did was he very slow/not moving as much at that point?
Our vet also said that it could take 1,5 to 2 weeks for a piggy to start eating again and they wanted to see her again in 3 weeks. so i guess i should follow that
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I’m sorry to hear this
As Wiebke has said, the fact she is dropping food means she is not swallowing so it’s more than just a case of it taking time before she eats again. Definitely get her back to the vet as soon as you can, even if you do have to wait until tomorrow but do see if you can find a vet over the weekend

I hope she is ok
 
As a update, Our vet said that it could take 1 two 1.5 weeks before she would start to eat again. But yesterday she was at 730 gram and today she is 759 grams so she gained quite some weight and her chin isnt wet anymore. she also tries to eat a little bit but she still doesnt really kep it in her mouth.
 
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