Hi, sorry as my post was a bit cluttered. I'll try to order it more here.
Peanut has had a minor digestive problem once in the past where he was doing small, teardrop shaped poos. We took him off all veg on advice here, and encouraged him to just eat hay, and it rectified. As he improved we slowly introduced veg without any issues. Since then we have also changed from cheaper pellets to the Science Selective brand.
Peanut had a more significant incident in late November, the initial subject of this thread. He had what in retrospect was bloat, or something similar to it, as after an x-ray and all the various tests they could only find gas buildup. After about a week of medicine, and three weeks of syringe feeding, he was back to normal, albeit at a lower weight but which he then maintained.
Since then we fine-tuned his diet by introducing small amounts of veg, in different groups, and he is basically only fed a selection of a few herbs (Parsley, Coriander, Dill, Mint) along with small amounts of some lettuce, celery, green bell pepper and cucumer, albeit all in small amounts. We have removed all brassicas from his diet, as much as he loves them, all fruit, and the 'woody' herbs like thyme and rosemary. This is alongside unlimited high quality hay (we also switched from a brand of unknown quality, Helme's Hay, which was meadow, to give him Burgess Excel feeding timothy hay). He has otherwise been fine since then, and in fact more energetic than he has been in quite a while.
Last night he seemed a little more subdued than normal, but he does have lazy days like that (5 and a bit years old now also). However, he seemed a bit too reclusive for my liking during a bit of sofa time and also when he was put in his clean cage - he normally explores the cage very excitedly, eating from every little hay pile we make around it.
He had a little bit of hay this morning and last night, but what appeared to be not enough. He was also not foraging, sniffing, nibbling around, as per his normal behaviour. I weighed him this morning and his weight was down ~40g on his normal swing, which had been normal two days prior. In line with the weight management post here I rang the vets, and they gave me an appointment for 3PM this afternoon. They said they found an impaction along with some gas in his tummy, though nothing serious in their opinion. They cleared out the impaction, asked us to look at him a few times daily to do the same, and injected him with an anti-inflammatory and a gut stimulant to help out. They have asked us to call in the morning.
Since getting Peanut home he hasn't been absolutely tip-top - for the first hour or two he just wanted to sleep, which is fair enough given he'd been poked and prodded. However, since then we've given him three lots of syringe feed at 10ml a feed, every two hours, and he's taken that just fine. He is nibbling at hay and walking around his play area, interacting with his brother pig, and so on, and so looks less lethargic/subdued than he did yesterday. The vet was of the opinion that he isn't so bad, and that his antisocial/subdued nature before and immediately after we took him in was reasonable given he was essentially constipated.
So essentially he has had gut problems twice in the past, and we've tried to address that with much reduced veg and with veg much less likely to impact on his delicate gut. However, the vet also found an impaction. With regards to the impaction, I have in the past found him 'bunged up' like that and conduct a check twice a day just to see how he is. I can't say finding an impaction is a daily occurrence, it's more infrequent than not.
Thanks!