Danielle Smith
Teenage Guinea Pig
Tubs was neutered at the end of November, and while his initial recovery was slow and rocky, he started putting on weight and acting like his old self by the third week of December.
However, we took him (along with our other pig Flubs) with us visiting family over the Christmas period and noticed on our return he felt a lot skinnier. He'd never restarted eating pellets after the neuter, and he was starting to refuse most veg (even pepper; he was wolfing down spring greens and lettuce though). He was picking at hay, but not eating it voraciously like before we went to visit family.
Scales confirmed he'd lost 129 grams in 10 days (from 978g on 21st December to 849g on the 31st). We took him to the vet when we returned home on the 31st, and while his temperature was on the high end of normal and his eyes were crusty, the vet couldn't find anything immediately wrong (no abscesses, his teeth were okay, no bloat, no URI). We were sent away with advice to administer him extra Vit C (due to his refusal to eat most veg) and to restart his Loxicom (in case issues were pain-related).
Initially his poos were incredibly dehydrated (he normally doesn't drink much and I just didn't think that most of his water came from his veg ), but have got better since we've started syringing him water. They are still small and malformed though. He's incredibly lethargic, preferring to stay in a cosy all day (not even coming out for hay).
The main problem is he's extremely difficult to get Critical Care into at the moment. After his neuter when he wasn't eating, it wasn't too bad -- he was so zoned out we could syringe him food easily. After he started to fight us, we offered Critical Care on a spoon and he gobbled it up.
However, at the moment he refuses most veg except for lettuce, and won't eat hay unless we feed it strand by strand (and even then we have issues). He won't take Critical Care from spoon or syringe; to get it down him both my partner and I have to hold him while he shakes his head and spits out/pushes out the CC with his tongue! We only manage a couple ml each session and he whines the entire time. The only thing he seems happy to eat is grass (which we don't have much of, just the end of some growing in a tray). His weight has stayed stable for the last couple of days, but he hasn't started putting it on again either.
We've scheduled him back in with the most cavvy-savvy vet in the area this Wednesday, but is there anything we can do in the meantime? Any tips whatsoever are appreciated; I'm at a real loss with him refusing the CC so passionately!
However, we took him (along with our other pig Flubs) with us visiting family over the Christmas period and noticed on our return he felt a lot skinnier. He'd never restarted eating pellets after the neuter, and he was starting to refuse most veg (even pepper; he was wolfing down spring greens and lettuce though). He was picking at hay, but not eating it voraciously like before we went to visit family.
Scales confirmed he'd lost 129 grams in 10 days (from 978g on 21st December to 849g on the 31st). We took him to the vet when we returned home on the 31st, and while his temperature was on the high end of normal and his eyes were crusty, the vet couldn't find anything immediately wrong (no abscesses, his teeth were okay, no bloat, no URI). We were sent away with advice to administer him extra Vit C (due to his refusal to eat most veg) and to restart his Loxicom (in case issues were pain-related).
Initially his poos were incredibly dehydrated (he normally doesn't drink much and I just didn't think that most of his water came from his veg ), but have got better since we've started syringing him water. They are still small and malformed though. He's incredibly lethargic, preferring to stay in a cosy all day (not even coming out for hay).
The main problem is he's extremely difficult to get Critical Care into at the moment. After his neuter when he wasn't eating, it wasn't too bad -- he was so zoned out we could syringe him food easily. After he started to fight us, we offered Critical Care on a spoon and he gobbled it up.
However, at the moment he refuses most veg except for lettuce, and won't eat hay unless we feed it strand by strand (and even then we have issues). He won't take Critical Care from spoon or syringe; to get it down him both my partner and I have to hold him while he shakes his head and spits out/pushes out the CC with his tongue! We only manage a couple ml each session and he whines the entire time. The only thing he seems happy to eat is grass (which we don't have much of, just the end of some growing in a tray). His weight has stayed stable for the last couple of days, but he hasn't started putting it on again either.
We've scheduled him back in with the most cavvy-savvy vet in the area this Wednesday, but is there anything we can do in the meantime? Any tips whatsoever are appreciated; I'm at a real loss with him refusing the CC so passionately!