Powdery Wee

[Sian25]

I have always thought that powdery wee was normal but just read on another thread that it shouldn't be happening every day which I was not aware of.

My pigs are on burgess excel nuggets and have an egg cup amount per day each. Obviously they get their unlimited hay and have cellery, cucumber, green or red pepper and a bit of spring greens each day. I did filter the water until about last week when the filter went out of date so need to get a new one.

I've attached a picture of the wee marks.. The fleece was changed two days ago so the marks have been left within 2 days. Is this not normal? I'm very worried now. Any tips?

 

[Wiebke]

Powdery white patches are just dried calcium pees; that is the normal way of the body to excrete excess calcium and nothing to worry about unless you have them on a very regular/near daily basis, in which case you want to look at reducing the calcium content of the piggy diet (pellet amount, veg and filtering water) and may want to see whether you want to reduce it. Try the IS diet recommendations for a daily low calcium, but nutritionally balanced diet with pellets adjusted and the water filtered (it is not just the calcium, but also minerals that can buidl up in a bladder) and see whether that is changing things.
Recommendations For A Balanced General Guinea Pig Diet

Guinea pigs can react differently to calcium; some are more prone to excreting calcium than others. I rarely have calcium pees with my nearly two dozen piggies (unless they get an occasionally bit of kale or spinach as a special treat) with the exception of one of my piggies on the same fairly low calcium diet; but she is an ex-interstitial cystitis (IS) piggy, so I assume that her calcium pees have something to do with that. She's never had stones.

If there is any hard grit in there, that is pointing towards bladder sludge/mineral build-up. You may want to investigate this at the vet's if it is more than a one-off or if there is a lot of it. Again, it would be good if you lowered the calcium content of the diet and especially filtered the water.
Low Calcium Diet For Bladder Piggies

 

[Sian25]

There doesn't seem to be any grit in the white marks but they do produce the marks a few times every day. I already feed the IS diet if I am correct it is : cellery, cucumber, pepper and spring greens. I do filter their water usually but the filter has recently gone out of date

 

[Wiebke]

There are no signs of stones and as you are not feeding them anything that could cause stones, I would not worry too much.

Here is the IS diet again:

Veg and fresh herbs that can be fed daily or used for a balanced low calcium diet (IC diet):
1 slice of bell or sweet pepper/capsicum of any colour; 1 slice of cucumber; 1-2 chunks of celery; 1 French bean; 1 sprig of coriander/cilantro; 1 one inch strip of spring greens