Probiotic & Critical Care Help.

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

So I have critical care & probiotics (from P@H) and I'm a bit confused as to what to give Iggy.

Tonight I gave him 1ml of probiotic an hour before his baytril and I gave him a syringe full of critical care & pellet mix after his meds (0.2ml of baytril and 0.3 of metacam).

I'm a bit confused as to how much to mix with how much water, I followed the instructions on the packet as best I could but I want to do it properly for my boy.

With my syringing efforts today (pellet mix) he's now 603 grams as of this evening.

Can anyone help?

 

[DM030819]

@Cavy Kung-Fu Probiotics are given when a pig is on medication, especially Baytril as it helps to keep their digestive system bacteria normal and hopefully prevent eating issues. It's usually given 1.5-2 hours after the medicine.

I usually put a little bit in the blue scoop, add 1ml of water and then syringe it to the pig.

Critical care is a food substitute for when they're not eating on their own, or are losing weight. You need to give them whatever amount is needed to maintain their body weight. Which can be 60ml per day, sometimes more.

You mix it to whatever consistency works for you and the pig. If they are having teeth issues sometimes a more watery mixture helps them to eat. But if you're battling weight loss then a thicker mixture works.

The best way to syringe it is to use a 1ml syringe with the tip cut off. That widens the syringe up so you can suck a thicker mixture into it.

You still need to offer hay, veg and pellet too to encourage eating by themselves. Yoi can chop the veg and hay into smaller pieces and wet the pellets a bit so they're softer to bite if it helps.

 

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

@Cavy Kung-Fu Probiotics are given when a pig is on medication, especially Baytril as it helps to keep their digestive system bacteria normal and hopefully prevent eating issues. It's usually given 1.5-2 hours after the medicine.

I usually put a little bit in the blue scoop, add 1ml of water and then syringe it to the pig.

Critical care is a food substitute for when they're not eating on their own, or are losing weight. You need to give them whatever amount is needed to maintain their body weight. Which can be 60ml per day, sometimes more.

You mix it to whatever consistency works for you and the pig. If they are having teeth issues sometimes a more watery mixture helps them to eat. But if you're battling weight loss then a thicker mixture works.

The best way to syringe it is to use a 1ml syringe with the tip cut off. That widens the syringe up so you can suck a thicker mixture into it.

You still need to offer hay, veg and pellet too to encourage eating by themselves. Yoi can chop the veg and hay into smaller pieces and wet the pellets a bit so they're softer to bite if it helps.

Thanks for your reply, I know I probably sound like an idiot but how much is a little bit of the probiotics? The baytril has caused him to eat less hay (but he's still eating some) and I don't think he's really eating pellets.

Would it help to give him some of my girls' poos too?

Yes he's being really naughty with the pellet mix/critical care I mixed up so I'll have to make it a bit thicker, he's just spitting out the more watery mixture but he'll eat the solid stuff off my finger (and a bit of my finger with it!).

On the critical care pack there's a warning to say don't give too much concentrated in water but doesn't really give me an idea of how much to do per syringe? I'm hoping he might eat it off a spoon mixed with pellets as he's just spitting it out of the syringe. I'll have to get some more to cut off a tip as I'm running out of syringes with all the treatment he's having, poor little mite.

He's got plenty of hay, nuggets and veg. He's having no trouble eating up all the veg! Which is a start I suppose!

 

[DM030819]

@Cavy Kung-Fu You're not an idiot at all. Sometimes it's best to ask as some things need to be given as an exact. I'd say a 1/8th of a scoop. But it's okay if you give a little bit more. As long as it's not half a scoop or anything.

I'll try to remember to take a photo of the portion I give to Jon later today!

Giving him some of the girls poo is a great idea. It's a natural probiotic for him. You will get the worst stink eye from him though, haha!

As for the critical care, as long as it you can get it to suck up into the syringe then it's fine. When it comes to giving it to him it's normally worth not giving any more than half a syringe at a time. If you're not too confident then 1/3 of a syringe at a time

 

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

Thanks! A picture would help loads.

I did pop him in the run after the girls yesterday and hoped he might eat a few, he was certainly interested in sniffing them but I don't know if he ate any. Maybe it's poop soup time! He was actually doing zoomies it was amazing to see him with energy

Well the critical care stuff I've got is a powder? It came from P@H and it's a white powder but the instructions on there are kinda vague to me. I've not had it before, usually just syringing pellet mixture but as he's so poorly I thought I'd get this to boost him a bit.

I just don't know how it works

 

[DM030819]

Aah, that's not the Critical Care I was thinking of @Cavy Kung-Fu

This is the one:

I'll have a search for the one you're using. Give me a few mins

 

[DM030819]

@Cavy Kung-Fu I've had a look at it, and I'm not entirely sure what the point of that one is. if you want to syringe feed him then I would either use his regular food and water it into a paste, or buy some of the Oxbow Critical Care food.

The Vetark stuff seems to be mainly protein, and a pig needs fibre. Plus, it contains egg which pigs shouldn't have. The Oxbow one is Timothy grass, and is specifically for herbivores.

I'd personally give it a miss and use pellets or Oxbow Critical Care.

 

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

Ooh bums, okay I'm not sure where to get the oxbow stuff? Do you know of anywhere in the UK?

Thanks for your help, it's such a mine field and a bit new to me. Good job Iggy is cute!

 

[DM030819]

@Cavy Kung-Fu The link above is to good old Amazon, which is where I tend to get it. Other online petshops sell it too. It's a bit harder to find in local petshops though as they see it as a more specialised product, and sometimes charge a lot for it, so it's not a big seller. Most good guinea pig things like Oxbow hay is rare to find in petshops.

The packets aren't that big so they can be pushed through your letterbox if you're away at work and can't take delivery

There's also a liquid food called Supreme Recovery, which I used to be given by my vet. So, that's an option if you can't get any Oxbow

 

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

@Cavy Kung-Fu The link above is to good old Amazon, which is where I tend to get it. Other online petshops sell it too. It's a bit harder to find in local petshops though as they see it as a more specialised product, and sometimes charge a lot for it, so it's not a big seller. Most good guinea pig things like Oxbow hay is rare to find in petshops.

The packets aren't that big so they can be pushed through your letterbox if you're away at work and can't take delivery

There's also a liquid food called Supreme Recovery, which I used to be given by my vet. So, that's an option if you can't get any Oxbow

Fab, thanks! I didn't realise piggies shouldn't have this other stuff or I wouldn't have got it

I'll bear that other stuff in mind and might ask my vet about it when I see her next week!

 

[DM030819]

Here's the portion of Pro-C i usually give @Cavy Kung-Fu . I add 1ml of water to the scoop and then suck it back up the syringe. My boy loves it! He could smell it when I took the photo so I had to give him a dose.

Don't worry about buying stuff from shops that turns out not to be tailored to pigs. I've done it plenty of times before. You would think that shops would know what to see and what not to. But, if something doesn't make a pig instantly ill then I think they think it's okay for them to eat.

I try to check the ingredients before I buy something these days. If I see something like for example, egg in the list of ingredients I avoid it as I know that pigs don't eat eggs. Have a scan of some of the packets when you're next at the shop, it's surprising what some ingredients are in stuff they say is okay for pigs.

 

[Cavy Kung-Fu]

Thanks @Jaycey I did check on here before buying the CC so idk?

Is that pro C you have? Looks a bit different to mine but I presume it's okay.

Thanks I'll definitely go by that pic and give it a go, he does seem to like it even if it looks horrible being green! Hope he enjoyed it

 

[DM030819]

Yep, it's Pro-C. My Jon thinks it's amazing, it's piggy drugs to him.