Post-stasis Eating/digestion Problems

[Paul Thomas]

Our 3.5 year old guinea pig Cecily went into a digestive stasis last weekend. She stopped eating either due to stress from holiday travel, or since we weren't able to find her regular type of pellets while traveling, or both. Unfortunately we didn't notice right away as her cagemate was fine and so food still kept disappearing from the dish.

After noticing she was lethargic we started checking her weight, and when we found it was dropping we got her to a vet. The vet found no obstruction and said her teeth were fine, and so prescribed metoclopramide to get her stomach moving again and hand feeding with Oxbow critical care. We're also giving her a vitamin C supplement.

We're now on day six of hand feeding. Her weight stabilized after a couple of days and the vet says her hydration has greatly improved. However, her droppings are causing us concern. Initially after we started hand feeding she went a day without pooping, and since she started again the droppings have been extremely hard, coming out like small, dark sticks, or as tiny little dropping strung together by mucus. She also has barely eaten anything on her own even though the vet prescribed Periactin (cyproheptadine) and a probiotic (florentero) as appetite stimulants. She also spends most of her time hunched and looking uncomfortable.

Would anyone have any suggestions on how we could help her further? We're guessing the hard droppings are causing the discomfort which is limiting her appetite and movement.

 

[Abi_nurse]

It can take a little while for poops to become normal after gut stasis. It may be that they have been hanging about in the guts for a little while and become like this.Hard dry pellets being passed would be most likely caused by dehydration. It may be worth syringing her water, trying watery veg.

x

 

[Paul Thomas]

Thanks so much for getting back so quickly! We have been syringing about 80 - 100ml water a day in addition to the critical care, but we can try to get in more. She has shown some interest in veges, so we can give that a try. We were thinking the problem could be insufficient fiber, and so had been holding off on them.

 

[Wiebke]

The hard, small mucus covered droppings are a sign of major dehydration and not eating. Please keep on syringing water after each 3 or 5ml of recovery food or mushed up pellets; you need to feed at least 120ml in smaller feeds over the course of 24 hours. Ideally, you use a 1ml syringe, whose narrow tip has been cut off.

Please weigh any ill piggy daily, and a healthy piggy weekly to pick up problems early on. You can try to offer a bit of fresh herb or grass before hand feeding to encourage self-feeding; these are often the first things that tempt the appetite. Rough fibre like toilet roll inners or other cardboard are also things that are often desired by an ill piggy. Poo soup (water in which fresh poo from a healthy piggy has been soaked) can help to restock the guts with helpful bacteria and is usually very much a hit with ill/recovering piggies. They often stick their nose up other piggies' bums to catch the best ones!

Encourage your piggy to move around and be active to help get the body going again, but don't spook or chase it. Gentle massaging can also help.

Unfortunately, it takes time for the guts to get working again after a full or partial gut stasis, and they can stay fragile for several weeks or even months after. A penchant for bloating or cow pats and sensitivity to certain foods can be a permanent remainder. Please see your vet asap if you see signs of bloating (taught, painful belly that sounds hollow when you knock).

 

[Paul Thomas]

Thanks so much for the advice. We're going to give it all a try and hopefully she'll perk up.

 

[klee]

I hope she starts to improve soon. Like Wiebke has said poo soup is a major hit with my pigs when they are poorly, and I found it to give the guts a boost whilst syringe feeding and increase the amount of poos produced. Cardboard is a big hit, as is newspaper, when my Esme had partial gut stasis when she was poorly newspaper was very tempting and she would rip pieces off the days newspaper and eat it whilst she had a bit of a run in the living room.

 

[Janey]

Didn't know that about cardboard/paper klee. Phoebe likes to nibble on the newspaper too.

 

[Pebble]

Are you still giving metoclopromide? It needs more than one dose sometimes.....and after a serious bout of stasis the poos that have been stuck will come out dehydrated like black air gun pellets for a couple of days. If it has been longer than that, despite all the hand feeding, then might be worth discussing zantac/ranitidine as this works more on the hind gut whilst metoclop tends to work on the foregut.

My vets usual regime for slow guts is cisapride (difficult to get hold of so metoclopromide will do) for a couple of days but always supported with zantac, which can continue for at least a week

x

 

[Paul Thomas]

Thanks all for the advice. After turning for the better, Cecily seems to have become poorly again.

After following your advice Cecily picked up quite a bit yesterday. She was moving around quite freely and was gorging on hay, pellets and cilantro. The only thing out of the ordinary was that she wasn't drinking and wasn't pooping much. We cut sharply back on the critical care as she was eating as much as our healthy pig, but were still giving her quite a bit of water by syringe. We were also still giving the metoclopromide (the vet gave us a prescription of 1 ml / every twelve hours, thought I don't know the concentration of the suspension).

This morning though instead of finding a further improved pig, she had regressed. She has lost almost all interest in food, except for cilantro, and has gone back to sitting hunched up. Also, we've found a hard, grape sized lump in her stomach slightly on the left hand side closer to her rear. I swear it wasn't there before as we were doing fairly extensive abdominal massage when she wasn't pooping. Which brings me to the one bright side - she is pooping quite a bit.

We've started her back on a full serving of critical care and are hoping this is just a temporary set back. However, any thoughts you might have on the regression would be most welcome, and especially on the lump.

Thank you again for all of your help!

 

[Briony_S]

so sorry to hear she has dipped again sorry I cannot help but wanted to send her some love x

 

[Paul Thomas]

We lost her this morning. Yesterday she started wheezing a bit with each breath. It was like hiccups. When i picked her up, it was like she was trying to cough. I did some research online and and thought what had probably happened was that some food had gone down wrong when I was hand feeding her. We hoped it would clear up.

When I woke up this morning she was even more listless and didn't even want cilantro. The wheeze had become louder and she was opening her mouth with each breath. I gave her some food and found an emergency vet that was open, but by the time I got dressed to take her she had slipped away.

Thank you again for all of the advice and support. She was so much better on Friday - just like her old self. But then she declined so fast.