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Older Pig Losing Weight...

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Jojoba

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My beloved pig Silvio, who is approx 5 yrs old, has recently started to lose weight. It isnt very sudden, but he is slowly feeling lighter to pick up and his bones are slowly feeling more prominent.
He is on a burgess complete food, he still munches through his veg, eats his hay and readigrass (though he has never been fond of eating a lot of hay), he drinks a lot but always has. He is starting to seem cold - when I fetch him out he is sometimes shivery so I have been giving him deep hay beds - our house is quite cold so I have been putting the heating on more too. I am going to get him blankets and pouches tomorrow to snuggle into. He is bright an happy as ever in himself, normal poos and wee, no sign of discomfort being handled and just as lazy and cuddly as ever. He still has a little bink around his cage at feeding time and enjoys his gnaw sticks, sweet corns and treats.
Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Anything I can feed him to keep weight on better? I love him dearly and am hopeful that he will live forever, I don't like seeing him getting older :(. He is sitting on my knee snoozing as I write this.

Thanks in advance
Jo
X
 
A after doing further research I have now discovered he has some impaction - I cleared one recently but it's definitely bad again, I've just had a good look. I'm nervous to hurt him clearing this?
 
I'd suggest you start weighing him regularly so you can monitor his weight more easily and take him to the vets to hopefully find out if there's a reason for his weight loss.
Oats can be fed to help pigs put on weight, I find mixing some watery or juicy fruit or veg in with the oats makes them more appealing. Sweet corn is also quite high in fat.
 
The impaction seems to my untrained eye to be pretty bad though he has since poo'd several times around it so I know he isn't blocked up. I'm going to try and get him a vets appointment first thing tomorrow (has anyone ever had an animal that got unwell on a day other than Friday?) and get the vet to thoroughly clean him so I can be sure it's done properly, then I can keep on top of it from that point hopefully :). I hope this hasn't caused him any issues, I feel very bad that I didn't know about this problem until now :(.
 
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