Quoted £687 for spay, is this normal?

[PiggieSmalls94]

Hello!

My piggie has a cyst in her ovaries that we have just discovered. It's easily sorted, the vet has advised she would just need to have a spay to stop it coming back. It gets pretty big and impacts her digestion and needs draining.

My quote has come back as £687. I'm obviously going to pay it as I want to make sure my piggie is healthy and not in any pain at all. But just wondering is this a 'normal' price?

Thanks!

 

[Free Ranger]

We were looking at about £500 for a bladder stone removal and that was a few years ago so although it seems a bit of a smack in the eye I'd say that was realistic.

What I will say is that my current vet has quoted a price for something before and then billed me less. When I queried they said that the original estimate was for GA for 30 mins or something, but that piggy was only under for 15 so they billed for 15. This was something I'd not considered before... I had a girl go in for a significant surgery some years back with a different vet. They suspected some sort of gut obstruction and the quote was for the proposed lengthy op - but when she went under and they opened her up they immediately saw she was full of cancer. They called me and we agreed pts without bringing her round. Beginning to end this was 10 minutes - but they still billed the original amount. It never occurred to me at that point that there was a different way of doing it - but I'm glad I found my current vet. It might be worth a discussion because of course this could go the other way if the quote is for, say, 30 minutes under, but it takes 45 if you see what I mean.

Good luck little lady x

 

[weepweeps]

I have recently paid £450 for a tooth root abscess and £500 for a bladder stone removal. So yeah it can be pricey. I hope your girl is ok.

 

[HeatherW]

One of my piglets had a spay last year. In case it helps, you may find some helpful info from page 4 onwards (starting 27 May) here: Jasmine slowly losing weight

You could ask your vet for an itemised receipt, so you have a breakdown of costs upfront. This was mine, including post-op recovery of 4-5 days.



Admittedly, your quote seems pretty steep considering mine was carried out by an exotic specialist too. However, a lot of costs have been going up recently which might explain it.

 

[weepweeps]

Also I was quoted £650 for the bladder stone removal but it came to £500. So I agree it may be less

 

[Engel]

Haven't had a piggy spayed but had 2 castrated and that was £72 each. Now the vet wasn't an exotics specialist but has a lot of experience in castration/spay in rabbits and small furries.

 

[flowerfairy]

I was quoted 150 for a spay for my guinea pig who had ovarian cysts.

 

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

I think prices can vary a lot and some vets are more flexible than others. Last year one of piggies went in for GA xrays, scan and bloods to find the cause of his unexplained weight loss. Sadly he had severe liver disease and did not come round from the anaesthetic. My vet didn't charge anything as he said it never seemed right to charge someone if their pet didn't survive.

 

[piggieminder]

I think prices depend a lot on whether it's an independent vet or part of a chain with shareholders. Mine unfortunately is part of a large chain, their prices are high. Having searched this area I can't find a vet that knows about guinea pigs that's not part of a big chain.

 

[Dilly's Piggies]

It does seem to be on the high end of 'normal' but different vets charge different prices for different surgeries. I've had multiple sows spayed with the same vet and 2 years ago it was £150, now it's more than double that, usually between £300-500, not including hospitalisation, aftercare or medication etc if needed, so prices have gone up more than double since covid for my vet and they aren't even exotic specialists.

My vets also always give me a quote before doing surgery and it is sometimes much higher than what I end up paying. My vet requires half of the amount be paid before they will do surgery so they always whack everything on and give me a worst case scenario kind of quote, which might be what your vet is doing too, so it may not end up being that much. It never hurts to ask them why it totals that much and afterwards you can check with them how much of the total they actually used etc.