Guinea pig overweight - fatty liver

[mims11]

Does anyone know anything about this? I am trying to find info on that, but I can't. The vet told me that my piggy needs to lose weight and that he has fatty liver. He is about 1080 6 months old. The vet did an X-ray, checked his teeth. Said that he needs to be put on diet-to eat more hay, but he doesn't. That's why i went to the vet. He gave him Lactulose to keep his guts moving. I asked if i should give him cc since he is not eating enough hay and he said yes but just a little bit.

 

[mims11]

The vet said that his cecum is full. It took me a while to find the spelling of that word . That's why he is kinda swollen on one side.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m not sure if I’m reading the post right - why did you take him to the vet? What health concern did you have about him?

So your vet has said he has a fatty liver and needs to eat more hay and is overweight?

Did the vet check his heft or did he just look at the number on the scale and say it was too big? If the vet went purely by the number on the scales then that isn’t indicative as to whether he is overweight is not.
Checking their heft is the only way to determine whether they are of healthy body size.

Do you weigh him yourself at home each week as part of routine care?

What is his diet?
A piggy should eat unlimited amounts of hay.
One cup of veg (sugary veggies such as fruit and carrots should not be fed but if you do choose to give some then it is only a tiny amount and no more than once a week).
They can then have just one tablespoon of a plain pellet per day.

 

[mims11]

What does it mean to check his heft ? I took him to the vet because he wasn't eating hay and was losing weight, so I was giving him cc, so he doesn't go into gut statis. He was sneezing a lot pooping less and making strange sounds. He wasn't very active as well. I weigh him daily he was about 1050. Then dropped to 1040-1030. But i was maniging his weight with cc. He was sick before. Was on antibiotics. Got better for a couple days. Was eating hay. This week he is not interested in hay again. The last vet i went to said that he was blooted so i stopped the veggies until he got better. Then i gave him a bell paper and cucumber and then next day he was very uncomfortable-puffed up, don't know if it was related to the veggies, but i stopped the veggies again. He was off the pellets as well. Now i
I am giving him just a little bit every day, but because i ran out of his favourite cc, I put some in the anise flavour so he could eat it, yesterday and today.

Today his weight was 1080, but his hay was left just the way i left it in his cage in the morning. He only ate a little bit of the cc that i left in a plate in his cage. I cleaned his cage in the morning and when i came from work there were only about 3 droppings.

I don't know what to do. Do I stop giving him cc or lower the amount. The vet said to give him only 1 ml just to keep him alive, but that sounds
absurd. But because he won't eat hay I am scared to not go into statis. How can he be overweight? Do i give veggies or not? The vet said to give him veggies high in fibre but low in sugar.

Before all this thing happened he was eating his hay. I now have 3 brands of hay and all the hay i put in his cage stays untouched. He nibbles just a little bit. Stays in his hidey almost all the time. I sometimes take his hidey out so he would get some movement. He eats a little bit then and that's it.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Checking his heft is putting your hands around his ribs to see if you can feel his ribs.
If he is truly overweight then you will not be able feel any ribs as they will be covered by an unhealthy layer of fat.
You should be able to feel his ribs. If you can then he is not overweight.

Please read this guide for information on checking heft.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Weight loss is only considered loss when they lose 50g or more. Before that it is just normal fluctuation.

1ml of syringe feed is completely pointless! The absolute bare minumum to keep a piggy (who is not eating hay) alive is 40ml. We recommend a minimum of 60ml but could be as much as 100ml is needed (a healthy piggy would eat the equivalent of 100-120ml per day).
It’s those daily weight checks which tell you whether you are getting enough into them.

If you weigh daily and he weighed 1080 today, what was his weight each day for the previous few days?

Lack of poop suggests lack of food.
If he isn’t eating hay and isn’t maintaining his weight then do not stop critical care. He will go into stasis if you stop feeding him.

Not Eating, Weight Loss And The Importance Of Syringe Feeding Fibre
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

For bloat, then veg needs to be removed from his diet for now. Bloat can come in waves - they can appear to get better and then go downhill again.

Medication needed to deal with bloat are painkillers and gut stimulants.

Please read this guide below
Digestive Disorders: Not Eating - Diarrhea - Bloat - GI Stasis (No Gut Movement)

When you say he was sick before and was on antibiotics, what was his illness?

 

[Posyrose]

I'm sorry that you're going through such a difficult time with your piggy. Just sending you hugs from me and wheeks from my two boys. You're obviously doing everything you can for your boy and dealing with a sick piggy is exhausting especially when syringe feeding them. Take care of yourself too.

 

[mims11]

I don't know what was his sickness. None of the vets could tell me exactly. One them said that he was blooted, but that happened a while after all started. I wrote about it here Guinea pig breathing. I guess all started at the beginning of this month. His temp was around 35. He lives in my house.Heating is always on.I don't know how it got that low. Now it's better 39. His overall condition is better as well.

I checked his heft. I can feel his ribs, not all individually though, so i guess he is not overweight after all.

His weight this couple of days was around 1030-1040. Then one day was 1050 and then back to 1030. With the cc i manage it around 1030-1040. But today was 1080. Could the extra weight be gas or he put 40-50g in one day?

It just blows my mind how i went to the vet because he doesn't touch his hay and the vet says that he is overweight,has a fatty liver and needs to be on diet with high fiber foods.

Am I worrying too much about this?

I mean I give him hay in the morning before i go to work and when i get home it's untouched. So roughly about 8 hours.Now i put a plate with cc and he would eat that but not the whole thing. It was the same during the night the hay that i gave him stayed untouched when i checked in the morning. He ate the cc though.
That means that there is a problem doesn't it?

 

[Piggies&buns]

I recall your other thread now. Thanks for linking it in.

Your weight checks are the only way to know whether he is eating hay - not whether it is touched as such as that is not possible to determine. You can’t watch a piggy with hay and know whether or how much they are eating.

If his weight is only be kept stable with critical care and he really isn’t having any (or very little of) his hay, then yes there is a problem.

Any weight changes from 0g to 50g would be considered within normal fluctuations. This is why weight loss is only weight loss when it’s 50g or more.

If you can feel his ribs well then he won’t be overweight.

 

[mims11]

If he eats normal amount of hay , even if I can't " see it" and with cc wouldn't he gain weight instead of just maintaining it. Today he is back to 1040. The thing is that when i see that he didn't poop/his cage is clean after 8 hours except 2-3 droppings and his hay stays in the same position as i left it, i give him cc. He is on various amounts of cc since all of this started everyday. So my point is- is it possible that he gets enough feed by the cc and he is satiated so that's why he is not eating his hay?

 

[Piggies&buns]

If he eats normal amount of hay , even if I can't " see it" and with cc wouldn't he gain weight instead of just maintaining it. Today he is back to 1040. The thing is that when i see that he didn't poop/his cage is clean after 8 hours except 2-3 droppings and his hay stays in the same position as i left it, i give him cc. He is on various amounts of cc since all of this started everyday. So my point is- is it possible that he gets enough feed by the cc and he is satiated so that's why he is not eating his hay?

They generally don’t gain weight that quickly once they are past the period of fast growth as youngsters. Day to day you are more likely to see maintaining - which is absolutely fine. It’s loss which is concerning.

No that’s not possible - a piggy who can eat hay, will eat hay. They tend to refuse being syringe fed when they are eating enough hay independently.

When syringe feeding you are looking to get them to maintain their weight each day. Gaining takes a long time and won’t happen until he is over whatever is causing him to become unwell.

 

[mims11]

Yesterday night i put hay in his cage as usual and this morning i was pleased to find almost all of it gone. I gave more hay and he is eating it right now. Went straight to it as soon as i put it in. That's the way he was before he got sick. His weight is 1030 though. He is on Lactulose, don't know if that makes him feel better. I am home at the weekend so i will be able to monitor him more often.

What would you suggest regarding the cc if he keeps eating his hay. Do i still offer it to him? I was going to, but he is eating hay and i really don't want to distract him. If he keeps doing well do I just stop giving it to him or I lower the amount each day or I keep offering it until he rejects it. When is a good time to stop the cc?

 

[Piggies&buns]

Yesterday night i put hay in his cage as usual and this morning i was pleased to find almost all of it gone. I gave more hay and he is eating it right now. Went straight to it as soon as i put it in. That's the way he was before he got sick. His weight is 1030 though. He is on Lactulose, don't know if that makes him feel better. I am home at the weekend so i will be able to monitor him more often.

What would you suggest regarding the cc if he keeps eating his hay. Do i still offer it to him? I was going to, but he is eating hay and i really don't want to distract him. If he keeps doing well do I just stop giving it to him or I lower the amount each day or I keep offering it until he rejects it. When is a good time to stop the cc?

You can’t stop the critical care until you are certain he has been eating enough hay consistently.
Feeding him critical care will not stop him from eating hay independently. Instead, he will reject the critical care and choose to eat enough hay

 

[piggieminder]

Is there another vet you can query the Lactulose with? I don't think it's suitable for guinea pigs but I'm not a health expert. As far as I know it's used for human constipation, guinea pigs don't suffer with constipation. When one of my guinea pigs had gut stasis he was given Cisapride and Metacam.

 

[mims11]

Is there another vet you can query the Lactulose with? I don't think it's suitable for guinea pigs but I'm not a health expert. As far as I know it's used for human constipation, guinea pigs don't suffer with constipation. When one of my guinea pigs had gut stasis he was given Cisapride and Metacam.

I don't know which vet to ask about it. I have been to 5-6. One of them didn't know what cc was. 2 told me that they are not seeing guinea pigs that much so it will be the best to find one more knowledgeable about them. One said that he was blooted and told me to feed him brocoli . One injected him steroids- i didn't know better then. The one that gave him Lactulose works at pets 4 vets at pets at home. A lovely member of the forum suggested that i try them, because they sell guinea pigs at the store, so they would know more about them- which i agree with. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. He took a cotton swab and checked the food inside his mouth. Said that he is chewing his food well. He also looked in his mouth with something like a funnel with a light. Took X-ray straight away. He said that they could do blood tests, but it's hard for the guinea pigs, so we could try the Lactulose and if he is still sick, then do blood tests. One of the previous vets said that even if they take an X-ray they don't know what's normal.

So this one did more then all the previous ones, but I still don't trust him completely. That's why i post all the things vets say in this forum, hoping to get advice from someone,who is more knowledgeable.

The vet mentioned that Lactulose is used for human constipation. He prescribed that, because i said that when I got back from work he had like 2-3 droppings.

I actually have metacam and I am giving him. Was prescribed from the previous vet.

If anyone knows more about Lactulose or if it is bad for guinea pigs I would stop it right way. The vet said to stop it if he gets diarrhoea.

He never actually got the diagnosis gut statis. All the vets said that his gut is still moving.

 

[Lorcan]

Lactulose works for constipation but it doesn't sound like your boar is impacted? Impaction would be the closest equivalent for constipation, if he's not producing enough poop then that's a different issue. His gut is still moving if he's producing poop because he's still getting food, but he's not getting enough of it.

However, it turns out lactulose is being used for hepatic encephalopathy in humans and small animals and with you mentioning liver problems I wonder if that's the idea behind it rather than just constipation in which case I'd speak to your vet again just to clarify exactly what the reasoning is for using it. Because of how lactulose works, d end for a human you'll need to adjust water intake amongst other things while using it. Better you be clear on it before start.

 

[piggieminder]

I'm sorry you are having so many problems finding a vet you trust. I do sympathise, it took me a long time to find one myself. Unfortunately the forum is short on active health experts at the moment for various reasons. I hope an expert will be along for you soon.

 

[mims11]

I'm sorry you are having so many problems finding a vet you trust. I do sympathise, it took me a long time to find one myself. Unfortunately the forum is short on active health experts at the moment for various reasons. I hope an expert will be along for you soon.

I am really grateful for all the support and advice I received in this forum, my little boy too.

As a first time piggy owner getting advice from more experienced owners on how to deal with a sick piggy saved his life. There is still more work to be done, but he is getting there. I am sure the vets meant well, but they weren't as helpful as you guys.

I am happy that there are more people who love and take care of their little fur and can understand why I am willing to put the effort to give him the best life I can.