Making the most out of final years

[Little Ones]

I’m sure I’ve read about this somewhere before, but I’m not sure.
My piggy, Little, is six. He’s been through the wars this year. He’s gone blind in both eyes due to cataracts. He also had one jaw abscess that almost killed him, then once he recovered he got another jaw abscess which we noticed straight away and was corrected quickly. This means Little has no bottom incisors and can’t bite down on anything.
Anyway, I’m just wondering if anyone has any ideas for how I can make the most out of his final months/years. Simon believes he has about 5 months left in him, so there may not be very long.
Any enrichment ideas that will be good for him? Both in cage and out of cage?
Also, Little at the moment prefers to sleep just on the floor of his cage and not his hidey. They’re bedded on fleece. I’m not sure if laying on this alone is good for his old bones? I know pigs with arthritis need extras in their cage so that it doesn’t hurt their bones, what are these things? At the moment, we have some new hideys waiting to be delivered as our current ones are causing some dominance squabbles between Little and the friend he bonded with last week (some of you reading may know him as Cali, but has since been renamed BB).
To go slightly off topic, BB is a young pig, just over 1 so he’s very keen on showing his dominance despite Little being top pig. Little is only a tiny boy, 1100 grams. BB is almost 1500. BB is constantly rumblestrutting or climbing on Little’s back which worries me as I don’t want Little to get hurt given how small he is. Any advice on what I can do to help Little out in this situation? They have two of everything.

But anyway, I could ramble on.
Please let me know what you have done for your older piggies to make life more comfortable for them!
Little has started looking really old the last couple of weeks. His age really seems to be starting to show on him. It’s really sad to see! But also it’s setting in the fact that he may not be here for much longer so I’d like to make him as comfortable and as happy as possible!

 

[piggieminder]

I have a little 6 year old too, the brown one in my avatar. We sadly lost his life long friend (B&W one) last December. Peanut now lives with Rusty who is 2.5. Peanut lost a lot of weight last year due to an abscess in his neck, he gained some weight after he recovered from surgery but not all, he had a UTI recently and lost more, he is now a very bony old fellow but still full of cheeky fun. Rusty had a stone removal operation in January and is on a restricted diet because of this. When they come out of the cage I always remove Peanut first and give him extras of his favourite foods that Rusty can't have. Peanut loves to play in paper bags and boxes stuffed with hay. In the cage he has double padded pee pads or pieces of thick vet bed in the places he likes to lie to cushion his joints. Rusty does mount Peanut a lot but he seems to sense not to put a lot of his 1.3 kilo weight on him and is quite gentle. I really don't know how you could stop BB doing what comes naturally to him.
It is dreadfully sad to watch them get old. I try to make the most of every day I have with Peanut and treasure every minute. I indulge him when he begs at the bars with grass and dandelions from the garden, he has this sweet habit of licking the bars when he wants attention and it melts my heart. All five of the other's bite and rattle the bars and I can tell them to be quiet but that little pink tongue gets me every time.
I know from your other posts that your piggies have a wonderful life full of love with you, I am sure Little is very happy. I hope you have him for a good while yet.

 

[Roselina]

Ah Little ones it’s hard seeing a piggie get old ( bit like our Parents) but what a great age Little is .....having come thru some awful health problems. It’s lovely you are enjoying every minute and enriching his life. I use vet bed and it’s very cosy and comfortable , washes well and can be tumble dried. It would make Little’s joints more comfortable.
Hopefully BB will settle down

 

[Roselina]

I have a little 6 year old too, the brown one in my avatar. We sadly lost his life long friend (B&W one) last December. Peanut now lives with Rusty who is 2.5. Peanut lost a lot of weight last year due to an abscess in his neck, he gained some weight after he recovered from surgery but not all, he had a UTI recently and lost more, he is now a very bony old fellow but still full of cheeky fun. Rusty had a stone removal operation in January and is on a restricted diet because of this. When they come out of the cage I always remove Peanut first and give him extras of his favourite foods that Rusty can't have. Peanut loves to play in paper bags and boxes stuffed with hay. In the cage he has double padded pee pads or pieces of thick vet bed in the places he likes to lie to cushion his joints. Rusty does mount Peanut a lot but he seems to sense not to put a lot of his 1.3 kilo weight on him and is quite gentle. I really don't know how you could stop BB doing what comes naturally to him.
It is dreadfully sad to watch them get old. I try to make the most of every day I have with Peanut and treasure every minute. I indulge him when he begs at the bars with grass and dandelions from the garden, he has this sweet habit of licking the bars when he wants attention and it melts my heart. All five of the other's bite and rattle the bars and I can tell them to be quiet but that little pink tongue gets me every time.
I know from your other posts that your piggies have a wonderful life full of love with you, I am sure Little is very happy. I hope you have him for a good while yet.

It is so sad to see them grow old. Sounds like Peanut is a very happy piggie and gets lots of attention and treats. Great advice you have given for Little ones !

 

[Little Ones]

I have a little 6 year old too, the brown one in my avatar. We sadly lost his life long friend (B&W one) last December. Peanut now lives with Rusty who is 2.5. Peanut lost a lot of weight last year due to an abscess in his neck, he gained some weight after he recovered from surgery but not all, he had a UTI recently and lost more, he is now a very bony old fellow but still full of cheeky fun. Rusty had a stone removal operation in January and is on a restricted diet because of this. When they come out of the cage I always remove Peanut first and give him extras of his favourite foods that Rusty can't have. Peanut loves to play in paper bags and boxes stuffed with hay. In the cage he has double padded pee pads or pieces of thick vet bed in the places he likes to lie to cushion his joints. Rusty does mount Peanut a lot but he seems to sense not to put a lot of his 1.3 kilo weight on him and is quite gentle. I really don't know how you could stop BB doing what comes naturally to him.
It is dreadfully sad to watch them get old. I try to make the most of every day I have with Peanut and treasure every minute. I indulge him when he begs at the bars with grass and dandelions from the garden, he has this sweet habit of licking the bars when he wants attention and it melts my heart. All five of the other's bite and rattle the bars and I can tell them to be quiet but that little pink tongue gets me every time.
I know from your other posts that your piggies have a wonderful life full of love with you, I am sure Little is very happy. I hope you have him for a good while yet.

I’m sorry for your loss, that must’ve been awful for both you and Peanut Little is now on his third companion. He was with Honey for 5 years, then I had a Peanut of my own for just over 1 year, and now BB. As BB is only young, I think it guarantees that he will be Little’s final friend, even if he manages another year or two. I think this is probably better as it must be awful for them to lose their friend so often. And awful for me to lose two in two years, but also knowing that next year will likely be the year I lose Little too.
Little is also really bony due to his medical issues. He lost about 300 grams and only gained around 100 back. I think that because BB is so large as he is young, it makes me notice how old and bony Little is. I’m really hoping BB starts to cool off with the dominance. I think it’s part of why Little is sleeping on the floor as he’d go in a hidey and BB would always get in it with him - sometimes because he’s scared, and other times because he just wants to. Little isn’t a fan of this though and just squeals and squeals until I remove one of them. I’m hoping the new hideys will be better for them both. I’ll definitely buy some vet bed though, Little will also just fall asleep wherever he’s stood. So if he’s stood in one place for a length of time, he’ll usually hunker down and sleep. Whenever he decides to move after being in one place for a while, he does the cutest full body stretch. It’s adorable.
Thank you for the enrichment ideas too. Little’s favourite thing to do during floor time was to roll a toilet roll tube around with his nose. He would just roll it everywhere. But at the minute he hasn’t been bothered at all. So I want to find him something else that he’ll enjoy, I’ll give your ideas a try
Oh Peanut just sounds so sweet! He knows exactly how to get what he wants from you! It’s the little things like that that you’ll miss when he goes. Little is also a big licker. He has been all his life but especially now that he can’t bite down. He enjoys licking everything during floor time: walls, chairs, table legs, radiator. His favourite thing though has always been the skirting board. No idea why, bless him
Thank you for all your advice and for your kind words it means a lot. I love him to death. I’ll be lost when he goes. My mum bought him for me from a pet shop when I was 14 (of course we only use rescues now) so I’ve had him since he was only tiny and he’s been with me exactly 6 years on December 13th. It’s a long time to have had a piggy anyway but especially because he’s been there through some important years. He’s been with me through high school, college and university. I’ll be devastated when he goes, but I just want him to enjoy the rest of his life as much as he can.

 

[Little Ones]

Ah Little ones it’s hard seeing a piggie get old ( bit like our Parents) but what a great age Little is .....having come thru some awful health problems. It’s lovely you are enjoying every minute and enriching his life. I use vet bed and it’s very cosy and comfortable , washes well and can be tumble dried. It would make Little’s joints more comfortable.
Hopefully BB will settle down

He’s a little fighter! You can tell he appreciates things more since he survived his first abscess. Nearly everything he does is accompanied by happy noises. Even if it’s just walking through his cage. He was so so ill. Simon said it was the worst pressure on an abscess he’d ever seen. It was under his bottom incisor, when the tooth was removed the pus literally just exploded out. I think Little felt so awful, that it made him appreciate his life a lot more. I was devastated it had even gotten to that point as we had put our trust in another vet, only for Little to almost die without Simon’s help. But he’s come out the other end, and he is a happy little chappy!
I will definitely be getting some vet bed too

 

[Bill & Ted]

Little is an amazing old gentleman and a real fighter too. I know he is a very special piggie to you, he’s been with you through some important milestones and the care you have given him over the last year with his dental problems has been amazing. Vet bed is wonderful, I can highly recommend it. Ted loves his vet bed, he sometimes pees in his sleep and it’s great for wicking the pee away It’s warm and cozy like sleeping on a cloud, lovely for old bones I could do with some too

 

[piggieminder]

These elderly boars are such a delight it's funny how their characters develop as they age. Peanut was always a quiet little thing I don't think for his first 5 years I heard him wheek, now he squeaks and chatters all the time, Rusty often gets a telling off. Peanut falls asleep when he's eating hay. I've watched him drop off standing in the hay pile, he'll suddenly wake up as if nothing happened and carry on munching. I use the hooji cubes from Fuzzbutts for my boars, the two openings are ideal. They are quite expensive but they wash very well and seem to be better padded than the cheaper ones. I've had some of mine for 3 years now and they are still like new. I put a wodge of folded newspaper in the bottom and top it with vet bed to stop the whole thing getting wet by my bedwetters. Caspy is a big drinker and his bed gets soaked, before I used vetbed in it he was getting urine scald on his feet, I can't praise vetbed enough really. When it was just Spike and Peanut I lined the whole cage with it but now I have 3 large cages it's too much to wash as it's so heavy I can only wash one cage liner a time. Fleece liners are so much easier to wash.

 

[Little Ones]

Little is an amazing old gentleman and a real fighter too. I know he is a very special piggie to you, he’s been with you through some important milestones and the care you have given him over the last year with his dental problems has been amazing. Vet bed is wonderful, I can highly recommend it. Ted loves his vet bed, he sometimes pees in his sleep and it’s great for wicking the pee away It’s warm and cozy like sleeping on a cloud, lovely for old bones I could do with some too

He is a lovely lad. Thank you for all your support in everything, it is always very much appreciated Wow the vet bed does sound good! I’ve been looking online for it today, I’m trying to decide where the best place to buy it from is but I’m definitely going to get some. I think Little would appreciate it.


He’s also gained weight over the past week. He generally fluctuates between 1090-1130 but he’s consistently been between 1130-1150 every time I’ve weighed him this week . This is the first time he’s gained some weight back in a good few months. Though, we did put some pellets in the cage for BB and Little would eat them none stop. We weren’t aware he was still able to eat them for himself until the rescue let us know. He struggles with a lot of the pellets but eventually manages to grab one. We’d written this off as him not being able to because it does take him some time and so decided not to offer them to him as we didn’t want to dishearten him and make him lose confidence in the things he should really be eating like his hay. We would syringe him some pellets at least once every two weeks, sometimes once a week. But he’s really been tucking into them this week so maybe that’s why his weight has improved? We have since removed the pellets as we didn’t want him to overeat them! But maybe we will have to let him eat some everyday again?

 

[Little Ones]

These elderly boars are such a delight it's funny how their characters develop as they age. Peanut was always a quiet little thing I don't think for his first 5 years I heard him wheek, now he squeaks and chatters all the time, Rusty often gets a telling off. Peanut falls asleep when he's eating hay. I've watched him drop off standing in the hay pile, he'll suddenly wake up as if nothing happened and carry on munching. I use the hooji cubes from Fuzzbutts for my boars, the two openings are ideal. They are quite expensive but they wash very well and seem to be better padded than the cheaper ones. I've had some of mine for 3 years now and they are still like new. I put a wodge of folded newspaper in the bottom and top it with vet bed to stop the whole thing getting wet by my bedwetters. Caspy is a big drinker and his bed gets soaked, before I used vetbed in it he was getting urine scald on his feet, I can't praise vetbed enough really. When it was just Spike and Peanut I lined the whole cage with it but now I have 3 large cages it's too much to wash as it's so heavy I can only wash one cage liner a time. Fleece liners are so much easier to wash.

That’s so sweet. They really do come into their own when they get old. I read Wiebke’s section of the recent GPM about how older piggies know who they are and have nothing to prove. It’s so true. It doesn’t surprise me that your Peanut has become very vocal in his older age. He has no reason to be shy and he is showing his confidence. That must be particularly nice to see. Little was a right terror when he was younger. He was overly dominant with Honey, his cagemate at the time. They got along, but their bond could’ve been better. But also, like I said, Little was just very very dominant. Since he got to being about 4 and a half, around the time Honey got liver disease (poor lad went from being 1500 to 800grams), Little became a lot more tolerant. The liver disease made Honey, who was always lazy, hyperactive. It was actually crazy how different he became. He was no longer timid or wary of Little at all. I think Little understood that Honey was ill so made allowances for him. Since then, Little has totally mellowed out. He enjoys a quiet life. Though, now he has BB running circles around him! It’s been so long since I had a piggy this young, it really does take me back to when I was 15 with Little and Honey. Older piggies and younger piggies are very different. You don’t realise how much they change.
Little does the exact same thing with falling to sleep on the hay, then waking up and munching again instantly! It’s so cute. Maybe it’s an oldie thing.
Thank you for tips! I will check out the cubes, too. I’ve also been looking at vet bed but just trying to decide the best place to buy from. It seems like really good stuff. I wish I’d known about it when I first got Peanut last year, there were times that he was so scared (such as going to the vet) that he wouldn’t move at all so would sit in his pee resulting in him needing a bath. I think he would’ve appreciated something like that. I think it’s something I’ll really get my use out of.

 

[piggieminder]

I get a lot of my vet bed on ebay, you can often find off cuts quite cheap. I have also bought it from petnhome direct, they are not the cheapest but it's lovely thick quality and they are fairly local to me so although I was buying on line I felt I was supporting a local company.
I read Wiebke's article tonight, I could really relate to what she was saying.
Pet N Home

 

[eileen]

ah Little is lovely.ive just bought a large peice of vetfleece 180 x 75 cm from vetfleece ,original green backing,in blue.i love it,so easy to wash. wooden tunnels are good,as two entrances no fighting.lounging logs on amazon. forage from piggie parcels in a paper bag,or old cardboard cartons,soft hay as well.i hope you have lots more time with Little,he is a very handsome gentle piggie.

 

[anyar.dris]

Sending big hugs to you and Little.

The oldest piggy I had only reached 5 yrs. We weren't lucky enough to have an healthy oldie piggy and most of that we adopted always end up with underlying health issues. My current piggies are aged 2 yrs (2 of them) and a year old. Hopefully these 3 will reach the good old age with no problems.

 

[Little Ones]

Sending big hugs to you and Little.

The oldest piggy I had only reached 5 yrs. We weren't lucky enough to have an healthy oldie piggy and most of that we adopted always end up with underlying health issues. My current piggies are aged 2 yrs (2 of them) and a year old. Hopefully these 3 will reach the good old age with no problems.

I have my fingers crossed for you It’s nice when you have oldie, it’s sort of confirmation that you are doing things right. My first ever guinea pig when I was 12 only lived until he was 2. It’s awful to think about how long he would’ve lived had my mum and I knew what we were actually getting ourselves into rather than listening to the pet store. Little was my second guinea pig, so it is very rewarding to have him be this old, he deserves it!
Little has always been very resilient. He’s never once been ill aside from 3 abscesses. Honey, who we had for five years, was almost always ill. He got hay pokes all the time, had life long respiratory problems and then eventually got liver disease. I think part of how their health is in later life can be determined by the conditions they were in when they were a baby. I could be wrong on that theory though.
Honey came from quite a bad place when I think about it. Whereas Little, even though he was from a pet store, I think the breeder he was originally brought from was ‘one of the good ones’ - if you can even say that. He came to us as such a lovely Guinea pig from the get go. It was clear that they treated him as a living being rather than being solely profit. He loved people and would curl around and fall asleep on me within the first few days of owning him. This is something he does to this day. When he doesn’t need a wee, he can sit for over two hours! He can get a bit cross with me when I have to put him back in the cage, lol. We definitely got lucky with him.
But at the same time, with guinea pigs anything can happen at any moment. Peanut was perfectly healthy, then began losing weight slowly at first then rapidly and about a week later, he was dead. Everything can change so fast and out of nowhere. I think a lot of it is luck of the draw, especially if you’re providing really good care to them. I still find it bizarre that guinea pigs can live to being 8 or 9. I don’t think most people would believe that they can live as long as dogs given how small and insignificant many people think they are.

 

[Little Ones]

ah Little is lovely.ive just bought a large peice of vetfleece 180 x 75 cm from vetfleece ,original green backing,in blue.i love it,so easy to wash. wooden tunnels are good,as two entrances no fighting.lounging logs on amazon. forage from piggie parcels in a paper bag,or old cardboard cartons,soft hay as well.i hope you have lots more time with Little,he is a very handsome gentle piggie.

Thank you, I’ll have a look for them! It’s all a bit different for me as I haven’t witnessed proper dominance behaviours in about 4 years. There might’ve been occasional squabbles, but nothing more! I’m going have to make sure I have a lot of things with two entrances now, before there wasn’t a need once they grew up but this young pig likes to rumblestrut wherever he goes, even if Little isn’t there!
Hopefully Little has a few more years in him. He’s no health concerns as of now, but things can change so quickly with piggies

 

[Bill & Ted]

He is a lovely lad. Thank you for all your support in everything, it is always very much appreciated Wow the vet bed does sound good! I’ve been looking online for it today, I’m trying to decide where the best place to buy it from is but I’m definitely going to get some. I think Little would appreciate it.


He’s also gained weight over the past week. He generally fluctuates between 1090-1130 but he’s consistently been between 1130-1150 every time I’ve weighed him this week . This is the first time he’s gained some weight back in a good few months. Though, we did put some pellets in the cage for BB and Little would eat them none stop. We weren’t aware he was still able to eat them for himself until the rescue let us know. He struggles with a lot of the pellets but eventually manages to grab one. We’d written this off as him not being able to because it does take him some time and so decided not to offer them to him as we didn’t want to dishearten him and make him lose confidence in the things he should really be eating like his hay. We would syringe him some pellets at least once every two weeks, sometimes once a week. But he’s really been tucking into them this week so maybe that’s why his weight has improved? We have since removed the pellets as we didn’t want him to overeat them! But maybe we will have to let him eat some everyday again?

I’m so glad Little is doing so well after everything he’s been through x