Guineapig microfauna/flora

[Dusty_bugs]

Hi all,

So my vet and I were talking about transfaunation (getting some healthy poops from a neighbors pig) to help replenish the gut micros whilst she is on a serious course of antibiotics for the next 2 weeks.

She has MRSA and some nasty anaerobes found in a deep tissue sample from her foot.

He said I should get some every 5 days until 20 days is up. That's a lot of trips to a very nice lady who I dont even know, and they have to be fresh.. the microbes die after a few hours. So I posed "the microbes wont take well to freezing?" and he honestly hasn't seen any literature on it and suggested maybe I'd like to do the research.

So does anyone here now what flora and fauna are key players in the guinea gut? When I know what I'm looking at I can do the reading a bit quicker. Most of the web pages I am trying to open are word docs and my silly computer just closes the page mallethead

thanks guys!

 

[SophRuss5]

Can't say I have even the faintest clue! Other threads people have suggested probiotics? You could see what is in them and help narrow down the search?
Found these ingredients on probiotic tablets for guinea pigs
Vitamin C 250mg, Lactobacillus Acidophilus, Enterococcus Faecium, Fos Soluble Fibre Prebiotic, Electrolytes, Dextrose, Chlorophyll.

 

[furryfriends (TEAS)]

A good probiotic, such as Avipro plus, should do the job perfectly well.

 

[Dusty_bugs]

Thanks guys.. the problem is not so much encouraging the bacteria to grow, we have loads of probiotic.. it is that she will be on 2 types of antibiotic which are going to rip out her gut fauna, so there wont be anything left to grow.. or in ultimate worse case scenario, give clostridium an unfair advantage and develop blood poisoning.

She needs fresh gut fauna from transfaunation but my vet wants to know if they will survive freezing so that he can stock his freezer with poos and not bother his kind friend every 5 days.

If there are any bacteria in the probiotics they will be spores from freeze-drying/ desiccation. They wont be the sensative bacteria which die after 3 hours outside of the gut.. I will keep trying to read up and find out about these. Even if they only last 3 hours, they might be able to survive freezing... it might be the drying out they dont like.

 

[Dusty_bugs]

I might have a look at the avipro plus anyway... I am using protexin from the vets and I'm not finding it astonishingly effective.. just average. The last time I tried transfaunation I saw a change in poo after 2 days.. after a week of soft mushy poo.

 

[Shellza]

I don't know if this will be any help, but it is comparing to humans.

We found that the bacterial richness obtained for human samples was lower than for guinea pig samples. The intestinal microbiotas of both species were dominated by the two phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, but at genus level, the majority of identified genera (320 of 376 ) were differently abundant in the two hosts. For example, the guinea pig contained considerably more of the mucin-degrading Akkermansia, as well as of the methanogenic archaea Methanobrevibacter than found in humans. Most microbiome functional categories were less abundant in guinea pigs than in humans. Exceptions included functional categories possibly reflecting dehydration/rehydration stress in the guinea pig intestine. Finally, we showed that microbiological databases have serious anthropocentric biases, which impacts model organism research.

I can't access the whole journal though I'm afraid.

 

[Dusty_bugs]

I don't know if this will be any help, but it is comparing to humans.
I can't access the whole journal though I'm afraid.

This is perfect.. can you perhaps remember the link? My vet might be able to subscribe to the journal host.

Spot on! xx>>>

 

[Dusty_bugs]

OOh never mind. I just found it via guineapig firmicutes and google! You can view the whole article by clicking the link "free PMC article" in brown under the conclusion. Lucky find! thanks again!

 

[Dusty_bugs]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3472315/ - theres a very useful graph showing comparative gut microbes between guineas and humans