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I almost killed my guinea pig. :(

Coco&Luna

Coco&Luna

Adult Guinea Pig
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So I have a girl called Mama (she's the mum of two of my other girls). She has white fur and is free roam. She decided to nap on the laminate under the radiator the last few days and had dried urine upto her hips from laying in her pee on the laminate. She never usually ever pees outside her cage but hey ho she musta been too comfy to move. So I decided I'd give her a quick bath. I put her in the inch of water and washed her with her shampoo, rinsed her. She clearly was scared in the bath but I wasn't worried because I didn't expect any different tbh, she'd never had one before. But when I took her out and sat her on the floor she was completely limp, like flopped over into her side and was LIMP. I picked her up and was rubbing her with a towel with her pressed against me and talking to her while freaking out inside and I after about a minute I was starting to think I'd definetily killed her. But eventually she started moving and stood with her legs against my chest and so I took her to where her sister were and sat on the floor drying her with a towel and talking to her and she perked up super quick. Like within 10 minutes you wouldn't know that anything had happened. But I think she definetily went into shock. It was so terrifying. Also thought I'd post it as a kind of warning that this can happen and only to bathe your pigs when you really really have to! 😭 Legit traumatised.
 
Not sure what happened but I’m sorry for your fright!.
 
What a shock for you. Some piggies do play dead when they are really scared in the hope that you'll get bored and leave them alone. @PigglePuggle's Blodwen did this a lot when she was first adopted.
 
Oh dear what a shock! Like @Betsy says we have a piggy Blodwen from a bad background who did this the first time we brought her home, for hours- we were sure she'd died or had a seizure or something, but the vet said it was just a rather unusual fear response. She was proper floppy, no reflexes even if you touched her feet... she did this pretty much every day when we were treating her for ringworm...
She still does this for maybe 30 seconds when we weigh her or put her in a vet carrier but she perks up again at the smell of a treat or one of her friends!
I've no idea if its purely behavioural, or if its a physiological thing like those Tennessee fainting goats that have a mutation affecting the nervous system... Blod is a breeders reject and pretty inbred...
Glad your piggy came round ok but its very scary when they do stuff like that!
 
So glad your piggy is Ok. I've never heard of this before not surprised you were completely freaked out I would be too.
 
Coco&Luna said:
So I have a girl called Mama (she's the mum of two of my other girls). She has white fur and is free roam. She decided to nap on the laminate under the radiator the last few days and had dried urine upto her hips from laying in her pee on the laminate. She never usually ever pees outside her cage but hey ho she musta been too comfy to move. So I decided I'd give her a quick bath. I put her in the inch of water and washed her with her shampoo, rinsed her. She clearly was scared in the bath but I wasn't worried because I didn't expect any different tbh, she'd never had one before. But when I took her out and sat her on the floor she was completely limp, like flopped over into her side and was LIMP. I picked her up and was rubbing her with a towel with her pressed against me and talking to her while freaking out inside and I after about a minute I was starting to think I'd definetily killed her. But eventually she started moving and stood with her legs against my chest and so I took her to where her sister were and sat on the floor drying her with a towel and talking to her and she perked up super quick. Like within 10 minutes you wouldn't know that anything had happened. But I think she definetily went into shock. It was so terrifying. Also thought I'd post it as a kind of warning that this can happen and only to bathe your pigs when you really really have to! 😭 Legit traumatised.
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I am very sorry.

I have found that it helps a lot to have their companion close by at all times and sharing the bath when it comes to stress and freaking out. It also minimises the risk of freak blind jumps.
Bathing (including cleaning grease glands)
 
PigglePuggle said:
Oh dear what a shock! Like @Betsy says we have a piggy Blodwen from a bad background who did this the first time we brought her home, for hours- we were sure she'd died or had a seizure or something, but the vet said it was just a rather unusual fear response. She was proper floppy, no reflexes even if you touched her feet... she did this pretty much every day when we were treating her for ringworm...
She still does this for maybe 30 seconds when we weigh her or put her in a vet carrier but she perks up again at the smell of a treat or one of her friends!
I've no idea if its purely behavioural, or if its a physiological thing like those Tennessee fainting goats that have a mutation affecting the nervous system... Blod is a breeders reject and pretty inbred...
Glad your piggy came round ok but its very scary when they do stuff like that!
Click to expand...
God, that is bizarre. The thing about the goats is really sat but interesting too. Do their bodies respond this way under fear and stress? If so the memes are suddenly so not cute. I'll need to go look this up. That would make sense. Your pig seems to do it alot, poor soul. I've had her for maybe 8 months to a year now and she's never done it. She is an anxious pig and she's definetily a runt. Her babies were bigger than her at a few months old, she's tiny. Hopefully it's a 1 off and I'll just give her butt baths with a bowl of water and cloth in the same room as the other 4 in future if needed.
 
I've got a cat that does this. She's 13 now but she started at 6 weeks old. We had every test, scan, specialist go over this cat. But she literally gets paralysed by fear. She's gotten a lot better as she's got older and I guess more used to everything around her. I really hope your piggy is okay x
 
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