Help!

[Louspiggs]

one of my boys has lost a lot of weight and i can feel his spine when i touch him. hes very skittish so i dont normally stroke his body but this can only have happened in the last couple of days as i clipped his nails then and he was perfectly ok. in the last hour ive noticed that he cannot walk without wobbling and occasionally he falls over. his eyes look smaller and he is eager to eat veggies but it looks as though he cant chew it no matter how small it is. i saw him drinking this morning and he seems uninterested in the bottle now. normally he will run if he is petted but now he is letting me stroke his entire body and he keeps standing in the same corner of the cage doing nothing but wobbling. he feels cold.

I'm going to move him into a smaller cage with a warm hot water bottle and a fleece, water, and some veggies and food and hay. tomorrow he’s going to the vets but I'm doubting if he can last that long.

does anybody have any idea what could be wrong with him?

 

[Mother Hubbard]

I'm afraid without your piggies getting an examination it would be hard for anyone to give a diagnosis, however in the meantime you need to start syringe feeding your guinea pig, check out the guides in the guide section at the top of the forum. It's really important that the gut keeps moving, do you have any idea how long he's not been eating properly. As a guide I generally weigh my pigs on a regular basis, even if it's just two weeks apart, its better than no weighing to identify a problem quickly.

Good luck, and remember if you can get the syringe food down him, then you must keep going through the night, every hour or two, and of course water too.

 

[Wiebke]

one of my boys has lost a lot of weight and i can feel his spine when i touch him. hes very skittish so i dont normally stroke his body but this can only have happened in the last couple of days as i clipped his nails then and he was perfectly ok. in the last hour ive noticed that he cannot walk without wobbling and occasionally he falls over. his eyes look smaller and he is eager to eat veggies but it looks as though he cant chew it no matter how small it is. i saw him drinking this morning and he seems uninterested in the bottle now. normally he will run if he is petted but now he is letting me stroke his entire body and he keeps standing in the same corner of the cage doing nothing but wobbling. he feels cold.

I'm going to move him into a smaller cage with a warm hot water bottle and a fleece, water, and some veggies and food and hay. tomorrow he’s going to the vets but I'm doubting if he can last that long.

does anybody have any idea what could be wrong with him?

Please contact an out-of-hours vet as an emergency. This cannot wait until tomorrow.
List Of Life And Death Out-of-hours Emergencies

Offer him syringe feed made from mushed up pellets and offer him that together with hand-warm water. Prep the syringe tip as shown in the guide. give him only very little to make sure that he can actually swallow. You will have to stay up through the night, unfortunately. Feed every hour or two; the more often the less he can swallow - if can't at all, then there is sadly nothing more you can do.

If you are unlucky, he has had a stroke or he is going into organ failure, but only a vet can make a diagnosis; we can can only guess as much as you. Please make sure that the hot water bottle is only warm, but not hot.

 

[flowerfairy]

Good luck.

 

[Janice C]

Hope you have managed to see a Vet with your poorly piggy.x