Dilly's Piggies
Teenage Guinea Pig
I have two sows one is 1 year and 10 months and the other has just turned 2 years old, both have on and off blood in their urine, both have had urine cultures which revealed lots of blood but no bacteria and both have had ultrasounds which showed nothing abnormal, both have also been on antibiotics which didn't help them, so we believe they have interstitial cystitis.
Since these problems first started 1 year ago I've been making dietary changes along the way, not just for the IC pigs but for all my pigs, it has benefited everybody so I think I'm doing a good job, I barely ever see any calcium deposits whereas before I saw them all the time so I'm quite happy with that. However I still see blood from them both around once per week, Tizzie's blood is more pink tinted and Willow is very thick bright red typically, so this makes me think there are still changes to be made.
I recently bought Cystease but I haven't started giving it to them yet, I do plan to, on their bad days they can be in a lot of pain with squeaky pees and on these days I give them Loxicom 0.2ml to help with the pain and inflammation, my vet said this is okay, once every 1-2 weeks they will get one dose of this and that's usually all that's needed to fix the pain and bleeding and it's gone by the next day.
They're fed Oxbow adult pellets 1/8 cup per pig, Oxbow timothy hay, 1 Oxbow urinary support and 1 Oxbow vitamin C tablet. For veggies they get only veggies that are from the low calcium list such as red/green leaf lettuce (2 large leaves each), cucumber (1 inch slice each), celery (quarter stick each), green beans (2 beans each), bell peppers (1/4 pepper each), carrot (1/2 inch each) and half of a small cherry tomato each. I've attached a photo of what they would typically get daily, the tray on the left is for 4 pigs and the one on the right is for 5 pigs, I like to put a little extra in as they live in a herd to make sure everyone gets their portion. Once a month they will also get fruit, in this photo there is strawberry, that was this months treat, I don't feed it very often, other times they can get watermelon but for fruit I also stick low down on the calcium list I've also found fresh grass and dandelion is a big trigger for them so I try to limit this as much as possible.
Does their diet look alright or should I change something?
Since these problems first started 1 year ago I've been making dietary changes along the way, not just for the IC pigs but for all my pigs, it has benefited everybody so I think I'm doing a good job, I barely ever see any calcium deposits whereas before I saw them all the time so I'm quite happy with that. However I still see blood from them both around once per week, Tizzie's blood is more pink tinted and Willow is very thick bright red typically, so this makes me think there are still changes to be made.
I recently bought Cystease but I haven't started giving it to them yet, I do plan to, on their bad days they can be in a lot of pain with squeaky pees and on these days I give them Loxicom 0.2ml to help with the pain and inflammation, my vet said this is okay, once every 1-2 weeks they will get one dose of this and that's usually all that's needed to fix the pain and bleeding and it's gone by the next day.
They're fed Oxbow adult pellets 1/8 cup per pig, Oxbow timothy hay, 1 Oxbow urinary support and 1 Oxbow vitamin C tablet. For veggies they get only veggies that are from the low calcium list such as red/green leaf lettuce (2 large leaves each), cucumber (1 inch slice each), celery (quarter stick each), green beans (2 beans each), bell peppers (1/4 pepper each), carrot (1/2 inch each) and half of a small cherry tomato each. I've attached a photo of what they would typically get daily, the tray on the left is for 4 pigs and the one on the right is for 5 pigs, I like to put a little extra in as they live in a herd to make sure everyone gets their portion. Once a month they will also get fruit, in this photo there is strawberry, that was this months treat, I don't feed it very often, other times they can get watermelon but for fruit I also stick low down on the calcium list I've also found fresh grass and dandelion is a big trigger for them so I try to limit this as much as possible.
Does their diet look alright or should I change something?
