Possible Uti?

[Sian25]

I'm worried our one year old guinea pig Hugo may have a UTI. He is not showing any signs of pain urinating but his urine seems to be dark in some places. We use fleece bedding and usually newspaper underneath but I have started to use puppy pads underneath the part of the fleece where he urinates the most.

His urine has always seemed to dry dark but I have always put it down to the ink running from the newspaper but now I have used puppy pads I am a bit worried.

The attached picture shows the area that Hugo urinates in the most, there are other patches on the puppy pads that look normal colour.

I would be grateful if someone could tell me if his urine looks as though there is blood present or do you think that it is dark because he urinates in the same place over and over again. That puppy pad was not changed for 3 days so there is 3 days worth of urine mostly in that area.. Thanks in advance.

 

[Wiebke]

The urine is oxidising quite noticeably once it has left the body, but as the rim is the same colour as the patch itself and there are no red spots in the middle either, there is no sign of blood in the urine.

Is your boy a good drinker?

 

[biscandmatt]

it's hard to say to be honest. mollie has bladder issues at the moment and her urine is dark aswell. my rabbit bisc has dark urine and his is not health related. as he's got older he's not been drinking as much so this may be why with him.

the picture you posted looks like it could have oxidised more because it's three days on and the centre parts are lighter. there doesn't look to be any visible blood and there isn't any excess calcium either.

has he any other symptoms at all? any weight loss?

 

[biscandmatt]

i find that their urine seems to always be a little darker on puppy pads/bed mats.. not sure why but i did notice this when i used them the last time with mine. mollie did a few wee's in the same spot aswell and it did look like the picture you posted.

 

[Sian25]

Obviously the amount of water he drinks fluctuates but I would say on average he drinks around 70ml per day. Also he has has quite sandy calcium patches on the fleece but in the last week I've reduced his calcium intake and I've been giving him vegetables with low calcium only and the white spots on the fleece seem to have reduced.

We have another boar which we bought first but not being experienced with guinea pigs we didn't know how important it is to have more than one guinea pig together. Unfortunately when we got Hugo we couldn't get the two to bond so they are now in a big c&c cage with a divider down the middle so at least they can communicate through the cage and they seem happy enough. But in a way I am grateful that having them in separate cages means that I can monitor their food/water/wee/poo better.

I have attached a picture of Hugo's urine patch on puppy pad this morning after it being changed yesterday. It looks normal to me which leads me to believe that it must have just been dark with him urinating over again in the same area for a few days.