Tommyjw
New Born Pup
Hi all,
Read this forum many times but now coming for a bit of advice.
Local exotics vet has always been extremely helpful for various pigs over the years, currently though forced to see a "backup" vet due to absence, and not getting the best treatment from what we feel like is jumping the gun to putting our pig to sleep so looking for any thoughts before we e.g. consider an alternative vet.
He's an older boy, about 5-6 though rescued so not exact, last month or so has had very heavy breathing , easily noticeable by looking at him, and on one occassion was quite lethargic and wouldnt move much. Was then put on a few different medications. He seemed to have slowed down a bit and lost about 50g so is down to 1.15 but thats remained stable for a good week since checking daily. He is still eating all food normally so far as we can see.
So far two different medications been on havent made any real change to his breathing rate.
Vet thinks he should be put down now, that he's in pain, and that a scan to check what may be happening due to "likelihood he wont make it" would not be a good idea. But we are finding it hard to correlate that with no large change in his eating or active behaviour, compared to pigs in the past where eating less was an easy and obvious way to see something was wrong.
We expect and understand there is an element of the medication & pain relief is keeping him content for now and that long-term that isnt viable and we need to investigate the issue quickly, but it seems quick to jump straight to putting him dowm, at a healthy weight, when he doesnt currently need to be force fed by us or anything? . But equally like a lot of people we may be ignoring things because we dont want to lose him so looking for 2nd thoughts.
Thanks
Read this forum many times but now coming for a bit of advice.
Local exotics vet has always been extremely helpful for various pigs over the years, currently though forced to see a "backup" vet due to absence, and not getting the best treatment from what we feel like is jumping the gun to putting our pig to sleep so looking for any thoughts before we e.g. consider an alternative vet.
He's an older boy, about 5-6 though rescued so not exact, last month or so has had very heavy breathing , easily noticeable by looking at him, and on one occassion was quite lethargic and wouldnt move much. Was then put on a few different medications. He seemed to have slowed down a bit and lost about 50g so is down to 1.15 but thats remained stable for a good week since checking daily. He is still eating all food normally so far as we can see.
So far two different medications been on havent made any real change to his breathing rate.
Vet thinks he should be put down now, that he's in pain, and that a scan to check what may be happening due to "likelihood he wont make it" would not be a good idea. But we are finding it hard to correlate that with no large change in his eating or active behaviour, compared to pigs in the past where eating less was an easy and obvious way to see something was wrong.
We expect and understand there is an element of the medication & pain relief is keeping him content for now and that long-term that isnt viable and we need to investigate the issue quickly, but it seems quick to jump straight to putting him dowm, at a healthy weight, when he doesnt currently need to be force fed by us or anything? . But equally like a lot of people we may be ignoring things because we dont want to lose him so looking for 2nd thoughts.
Thanks
