• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Dental Poorly eating after dental care

Andy33335

Andy33335

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Jun 5, 2019
Messages
89
Reaction score
26
Points
220
Location
Romania
Hi! I'm new here but came across the forum while searching info for my baby who is not even 2 yo and had a molar trim yesterday. He had a bridge over his tongue and a sharp molar. In my country there are no exotic vets and vets that treat guineas treat them like other rodents eg rabbits. He got over his anaesthesia but he cannot eat :( in fact in 24h he didn't eat at all and today i went back to the doctor. He could not see the molars to check up (this piggy was savage even when he wasn't sick) on them and he was very surprised that piggy didn't start eating saying that guineas have very high pain tolerance (like i said ... no exotic vet). He listened to his bely and said that there is very low activity in his guts, took his temperature - 37,5 and said he has a diarheea. He gave piggy an antibiotic (enrofloxacin) for this diarheea, 3x/day metroclopramin to make his guts active. I askes him to give Meloxicam in order to ease the pain in his mouth but he didn't recommend to used it (because of the low temperature of the body) however he gave it to me bacause i asked for. I asked if a probiotics should be used for the one shot of antibiotic my pig took but he said he doesnt recommend. So i got home and i made him mashed carrots with water and pellets soaked in water. In my country there is no critical care so i have to improvise. My question is: how do i stop his diarheea if he cannot eat hay or anything else? I know that for diarheea it's recommend to reduce pig's vegetables and let him have the hay ... but mine doesn't eat because of his dental :(. Should i continue to give him probiotics (i also give him vit C) in case he has diarheea? I syringed fed him at 9 pm - 1ml mashed carrot, 3 ml - pellets) will keep on waiking up at night to feed him but i don't know what to give him in order to stop hos diarheea and also keep him fed 😢
 
Hi and welcome!

Which country are you from?

Over 80% of the daily food intake should be hay; this balances the fermentation process in the gut. Baytril is quite harsh on the gut bacteria and can cause soft poos, diarrhea or total loss of appetite, especially when it is coupled with overfeeding on veg, which contributes to unbalancing the fermentation process further.

Please just feed your piggy mushed up pellets, but no veg in order to stabilise the gut. Continue with the metacam and with the gut stimulant.
Here are tips on what you can do for a guinea pig whose digestion is out of kilter; treatment for diarrhea is pretty much the same.
Bloat, GI Stasis ( No Gut Movement) And Not Eating

@furryfriends (TEAS) may be able to advise you further on what you can feed a guinea pig with dental problems and a bad digestion.
 
I'm from Romania. No, he isn't taking it well ... i read on the forum i should give him 120 ml from syringe/day because he isn't ill but i feed mine with a 1ml syringe and he barely takes 2 ml at once. How am i supposed to reach 120ml this way? I fed at 9 pm - 4 ml, 11 pm - 2 ml, 3:30 am -2 ml and 7:30 - 2ml. I must say he started eating cucumber and carrots. I splice them thin and he eats ... last night he ate by himself 3/4 peeled off cornichon cucumber and this morning he began eating strips of carrot, again not much but he is eating. I am afraid to take away the vegs from him ... because he isn't eating anything else and i can barely feed him the pellets. I want to buy from amazon critical care but the soonest it will arrive it's 17 jun 😢. He stays in the cage with his brother and they always have hay and veggies and grass. I see him trying to pick up grass and eat but not very much success. Vet said i should have a tea from the grass and feed him to help with his diarrhea, will this help? I heard that biotics is not good for a guinea with diarrhea ... i really don't know what to do. Because he is in cage with his brother i do not know how if he takes poops and how they look like. Today is cleaning day so i will take up the little house he lives in and i'll see how they look like or if he makes some ... he is 930g now.
 
Andy33335 said:
I'm from Romania. No, he isn't taking it well ... i read on the forum i should give him 120 ml from syringe/day because he isn't ill but i feed mine with a 1ml syringe and he barely takes 2 ml at once. How am i supposed to reach 120ml this way? I fed at 9 pm - 4 ml, 11 pm - 2 ml, 3:30 am -2 ml and 7:30 - 2ml. I must say he started eating cucumber and carrots. I splice them thin and he eats ... last night he ate by himself 3/4 peeled off cornichon cucumber and this morning he began eating strips of carrot, again not much but he is eating. I am afraid to take away the vegs from him ... because he isn't eating anything else and i can barely feed him the pellets. I want to buy from amazon critical care but the soonest it will arrive it's 17 jun 😢. He stays in the cage with his brother and they always have hay and veggies and grass. I see him trying to pick up grass and eat but not very much success. Vet said i should have a tea from the grass and feed him to help with his diarrhea, will this help? I heard that biotics is not good for a guinea with diarrhea ... i really don't know what to do. Because he is in cage with his brother i do not know how if he takes poops and how they look like. Today is cleaning day so i will take up the little house he lives in and i'll see how they look like or if he makes some ... he is 930g now.
Click to expand...

You feed as much as you can. 40 ml in 24 hours is the minimum to aim to get as close as possible to for with a very ill guinea in order to keep the guts going.
If it is that bad, please feed grated or mushed up veg if he is taking that - getting enough food into him to survive is more important than tackling the diarrhea!
I am very sorry; it is such a horrible situation you are finding yourself in. You are a good and very caring ownetr.
 
I have very good news, yesterday he started eating grass and tomato. Today i managed to buy some Rodentcare (also a critical care). Today is 3rd day after the dental and he started eating hay, he isnt eating too much, he prefers the grass. The things is he can eat it but he prefers grass. I gave him some critical care from the spoon and he ate by himself but then stopped so i hand fed him. He is energic, he seems well, i did not give him vegs yet as i want to see him eating hay. This morning he was 943g and after i came from work i've put him on the scale to see what and if he ate when i was away. 937g i think that's not bad at all, he manages to keep his weight even if i was at work 9h. I think things are getting better and better. I don't give up critical care yet. I will continue to use vit C and probiotics, he is off medication now. Now we need to get rid of his static mites 🤪🤪
 
Andy33335 said:
I have very good news, yesterday he started eating grass and tomato. Today i managed to buy some Rodentcare (also a critical care). Today is 3rd day after the dental and he started eating hay, he isnt eating too much, he prefers the grass. The things is he can eat it but he prefers grass. I gave him some critical care from the spoon and he ate by himself but then stopped so i hand fed him. He is energic, he seems well, i did not give him vegs yet as i want to see him eating hay. This morning he was 943g and after i came from work i've put him on the scale to see what and if he ate when i was away. 937g i think that's not bad at all, he manages to keep his weight even if i was at work 9h. I think things are getting better and better. I don't give up critical care yet. I will continue to use vit C and probiotics, he is off medication now. Now we need to get rid of his static mites 🤪🤪
Click to expand...

That is great to hear! :tu:

Guinea pig weight swings around 30-40g in a day depending on how fill or empty the intestines and bladder are. You generally work in a weight band than in absolute weight when you weigh daily or more than once daily.
But it is wonderful to see that he is able to hold his weight on his own and that he is able to eat hay and grass by himself. Grass is softer and juicier so he is likely finding it easier to eat.
Weight - Monitoring and Management

The more hay and grass he eats, the better as the silica in it is what grinds down the teeth. they have evolved to grow at the right speed to wear down accordingly since silica is very abrasive. That is the reason why guinea pig teeth overgrow so quickly if regular chewing is disturbed for some reason.
 
His poops are still smaller, thiner and longer than usual but i guess that if he starts eating more and more the poops will get fattier. The color of the poop is good - dark brown. How does diarrhea looks in a piggy? Even tho the vet said he has it, his poos seem pretty normal to me, only smaller than usual.
 
Andy33335 said:
His poops are still smaller, thiner and longer than usual but i guess that if he starts eating more and more the poops will get fattier. The color of the poop is good - dark brown. How does diarrhea looks in a piggy? Even tho the vet said he has it, his poos seem pretty normal to me, only smaller than usual.
Click to expand...
Diarrhea looks like it does in humans, very watery/sloppy poos.
 
👍 So glad your boy is improving each day. Dental piggies do seem to have smaller thinner poos when they are struggling to eat the correct amount of hay. But grass is good for wearing the teeth down. His poos will firm up once he has started to eat some hay and gain some roughage x
 
Well ... I'm coming back with some updates as i find myself again in the situation of not knowing what to do. After the trim above the pig started eating but in 2 weeks he started struggeling again with food. He did not lose weight as he was able to eat soft stuff and i was handfeesing him but i could see there is a problem. So i took him to another vet last Friday and she told me he had some pointy, sharp edges of his molars and Saturday we were back to her, anaesthesia again and a new filling for his molars. This time he recovered much faster and after 4-5h he was eating himself. She gave me meloxicam to give him for 3 days, 0,5 mg/day and he started eating with no problems even carrots. He refused to eat hay. Tuesday was the last day i gave him meloxicam and since yesterday (thursday) i noticed he is reluctant eating again. He eats soft food (tomatoes, cucumber, a bit of broccoli, maybe some bell paper, cherries) but he refuses carrots which he likes. This morning he struggled to eat some carrot from my hand but very small bites and slow chewing. I do not know what else to do ... is he in so much pain that after dropping meloxicam he cannot eat properly? Is it possible for the pain to last a week? I know that if i take him to doctor she won't do anything as she already saw him and filled the teeth ... in 2 weeks i'm going on vacation for 2 weeks and my grandma will baby sit them but she is old and she doesn't know what to do or where to go if he stops eating. I must say his poops are soft and irregular shapes. I am pretty lost right now
 
Hey... He died a month ago... I went to pick him up after the anaesthesia for CT and i found him dead. I miss him very much and not a day goes by without thinking about him
 
I'm sorry to read your news.
I have seen similar in a pig, and it turned out that she had a huge infection in the bone of her jaw which is why her teeth started to go wonky. The vet tried to clear the infection but we too lost our dear little piggy.
Sometimes we just can't save them :(
 
Oh I am so sorry, you did everything you could have done for him Andy x
Sleep tight little man x 🌈
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top