Help! 2 Piggies Dead In 1 Week.

[Catherine Lee]

Help I need some advice about possible highly infectious URI.
My Guineas live inside and are meticulous clean. 2 weeks ago I noticed Willow developed a little popping noise when she breathed. The previous day she seemed absolutely fine and eating and running around the cage. I immediately phoned the vet and got an emergency appointment and she had an injection of antibiotics and anti inflammatories. Her decline was rapid and she died in my arms less than 8 hours later. She was only 3. Then today (a week to the day that I buried Willow) Nugget seemed off her food. She seemed fine last night and had a good appetite. She has just died in front of me before I could get her to the vet. She had no discharge from her nose or eyes.

I don’t know what is going on and I am worried about my 2 remaining piggies - one is only 9 weeks old.

I’m assuming it was a deadly uri that killed Willow and Nugget; they have been inside since October and as I said are cleaned out regularly. Their bedding is puppy training pads at the bottom, then a layer of wood pellets, followed by megazorb. They are feed Burgess pellets with plenty of fresh veg, hay and water.

What am I doing wrong? and how can I stop my other 2 succumbing to this. They both seem healthy now but this thing takes them so quickly!

 

[Scooby& Shaggy]

Hi, sorry to hear about your loss and sure you've already done this but if not take your remaining two piggies to the vets for a checkup?

 

[VickiA]

I’m so sorry for your losses. It does sound like sudden onset pneumonia or similar. I doubt very much that there is anything you could have done to prevent it. Is the 9 week old piggy a new addition? Is it possible that it may have been a carrier for the illness?
I agree completely with @Scooby& Shaggy that I would get your surviving piggies into the vets as soon as possible (today if you can). They may need a course of preventative antibiotics. Once again I’m so sorry.

 

[Catherine Lee]

I only got the little piggie yesterday so she is unlikely to have been the carrier. I will thoroughly clean out their cage now. My vet advised me that it was unlikely to be contagious so I have lost faith in him. I have been very vigilant; looking for possible uri symptoms but there was really nothing to show with Nugget yesterday in fact she was running around popcorning. This has all been so sudden.

 

[sport_billy]

Very sorry for your losses. That must have been utterly heartbreaking.

Do your remaining piggies live with the other two that have passed? Or are they seperate?

 

[sport_billy]

How old were Willow and Nugget?

Also Nugget displayed no symptoms or URI? It could possibly be a awful co-incidence to lose two so close together .

I think do as you are doing, a full cage clean, don't use any toys or housing belonging to Nugget and Willow.

Please feel free to leave a memorial to them in our Rainbow Bridge section, I am so sorry for your losses once again

 

[Catherine Lee]

Thank you for your replies I do feel heartbroken and am wracking my brain what I did wrong. I have called the vet and he is going to phone me later today.

Both Willow and Nugget were 3. All the piggies were together.

 

[Gem789]

I can’t offer any advice but I just wanted to say how sorry I am xx

 

[Catherine Lee]

Thank you all for your kind words. I just hope my remaining piggies are ok. I with be watching them vigilantly. I haven’t told my daughter about Nugget yet she is still crying over Willow. I’m not looking forward to having this conversation after school. I’m really glad I found this forum though. Thank you all.

 

[Vickyg]

I'm very sorry for you, totally gutting.
Have you tried looking on the vets list on this website, perhaps a specialist one might give you more confidence going forward x

 

[Wiebke]

Help I need some advice about possible highly infectious URI.
My Guineas live inside and are meticulous clean. 2 weeks ago I noticed Willow developed a little popping noise when she breathed. The previous day she seemed absolutely fine and eating and running around the cage. I immediately phoned the vet and got an emergency appointment and she had an injection of antibiotics and anti inflammatories. Her decline was rapid and she died in my arms less than 8 hours later. She was only 3. Then today (a week to the day that I buried Willow) Nugget seemed off her food. She seemed fine last night and had a good appetite. She has just died in front of me before I could get her to the vet. She had no discharge from her nose or eyes.

I don’t know what is going on and I am worried about my 2 remaining piggies - one is only 9 weeks old.

I’m assuming it was a deadly uri that killed Willow and Nugget; they have been inside since October and as I said are cleaned out regularly. Their bedding is puppy training pads at the bottom, then a layer of wood pellets, followed by megazorb. They are feed Burgess pellets with plenty of fresh veg, hay and water.

What am I doing wrong? and how can I stop my other 2 succumbing to this. They both seem healthy now but this thing takes them so quickly!

Hi! I am very sorry for your losses. It is everbody's nightmare.

Please have your piggies checked. It may not be a bacterial URI, which is still by far the most common respiratory illness. If you have a number fo guinea pigs that can be potentially affected, you may want to consider a post-mortem examination of one your deceased piggies. This is not quite cheap.

Ask your vet to check for:
- If you have a dog or had a dog with kennel cough visiting, then bordetella can transmit to guinea pigs and are fatal for them. They can also catch that from rabbits.
- Pneumonia caused by streptococcus is rare, but generally devastating, as the carrier animals usually do not show any symptoms before the outbreak. The time between infection and outbreak is 7-10 day.
- Again not common, but adenovirus can also cause pneumonia, especially in the young, frail and elderly.

Sadly sometimes pneumonia can hit right out of the blue and kill before you can get a grip on it.