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HELP!

Oreo1234

Oreo1234

New Born Pup
Joined
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Hello everyone 🤗
I need help with my guinea pig as he's not eaten for 1 week except for hay.
I contacted the vet who said they haven't got any space for him.So I now don't know what to do.
He's been drinking a lot of water,but has been loosing a lot of weight.He has lost around 220g in a week.
I've tried feeding him with syringe.But he refuses and bites me instead.
 
Hi

I am very sorry for the impossible situation you are finding yourself in. Is there any other vet you can get to? Are your vets not seeing guinea pigs on principle. Can they book you in for the coming week?

Unfortunately, unless you get enough syringe feed into him in order to keep him going and to replace what hay he is not eating (it makes over three quarters of the daily food intake), he is going to die eventually. Your boy has obviously not quite ully lost his appetite as there is clearly nothing wrong with his fluid consumption - with less of it coming with his food, he is naturally drinking more. The need to breathe comes before the need to drink and only thirdly the need to eat.

Please weigh him daily first thing in the morning on your kitchen scales for best day to day comparison but also so you know how much feed you need to aim for in order to firstly stabilise the feed and slow down the weight loss. You cannot control the hay intake by eye. The poo output always reflects the food intake from 1-2 days before.

I suspect a health issue that has a stronger pain component. Have you checked his body and his boar bits for any painful areas?

You can try whether he likes a mix of soaked pellets and syringe feed better but you will have to cut off the tip of syringe in a very specific place in order to allow the much rougher syringe fibre to pass. You can find pictures of where to cut the syringe with lots of helpful how-to tips both links:
How to Improvise Feeding Support in an Emergency
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures (includes videos and pictures of how to feed and medicate an uncooperative guinea pig)

Emergency and Crisis Care as well as Bridging Care until a Vet Appointment
 
The vet said there just isn't any space for him to stay over and they can't see him as they are fully booked. I am going to try to get him an appointment for next week and hope they have space.
I've checked him all over and he doesn't seem to be in any pain and still has energy to run.
I've tried syringe feeding him and he refuses.
I've also been weighing him every day and so far has been loosing about 5g a day.
He lives with another male guinea pig for a year and he doesn't have this problem.
 
It could be a dental issue? Is there another vet nearby to try who may have an appointment sooner?
 
I've phoned 3 different vets and no hope.
I don't know if it's with his teeth as he eats hay still and bites me if I try to give him syringe
 
Oreo1234 said:
I've phoned 3 different vets and no hope.
I don't know if it's with his teeth as he eats hay still and bites me if I try to give him syringe
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we can only guess as much as you without access to your piggy and not being vets ourselves. Once you have checked for anything obvious, it really needs a hands-on examination. :(

As a quick check (it is not fail-safe though), can you have a look at the incisors. If the edge is even and clean then that means that the whole dental system is working. If the edge is slanted, especially considerably slanted, then this points towards one-sided chewing, usually because of a pain issue either in the incisor root or one of the back teeth and the grinding back teeth possibly starting to overgrow. A v-shape in the incisor edge point towards restricted jaw movement. A jagged edge to irregular chewing at the back. If the two sets of incisors are to inward pointing and no longer meeting, this means that the teeth at the back are overgrown.
Since your boy is still picking up and eating hay, I doubt that it is a dental problem.
 
Thank you to everyone! I will try feeding him, his food from the syringe in a bowl to see if he will try to eat it.
I'm just hoping tomorrow the vet will finally give me an appointment as I've just weighed him and he has los another 5g from yesterday.So he now weighs 797g😓
 
Oreo1234 said:
Thank you to everyone! I will try feeding him, his food from the syringe in a bowl to see if he will try to eat it.
I'm just hoping tomorrow the vet will finally give me an appointment as I've just weighed him and he has los another 5g from yesterday.So he now weighs 797g😓
Click to expand...

The difference between a full and an empty bladder is 10g so 5g is basically stable/small loss so he has been eating just about eating to hold his weight. Try to see this as a positive. He is still hanging in there. ;)
 
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