Reduced appetite and losing weight

[ratatellie]

Hi everybody! Sorry that this is a bit of a long one! Why is it rarely straight forward with piggies?

My 5 year old piggie Astrid has been a bit fussy with food/not finishing her veggies for around a week which I didn’t think too much of at first, but then stopped eating altogether around 36 hours ago and became pretty lethargic which obviously was an immediate worry! Her weight was down around 75g compared to last time I weighed her which was about a month ago. I managed to get a tiny bit of soaked, mashed up pellets into her overnight and then took her to the vets first thing this morning. She wasn’t seen by an exotics specialist but they checked her over and the only thing they found was a very, very small tooth spur - so tiny apparently that the vet had to get her senior colleague to look to see if it even was one. They told me it was nowhere near requiring a dental and might even be normal for her and didn’t know if that was causing her issues. They gave her an injection of metacam and then prescribed her cat metacam starting tomorrow, 0.12ml every 24 hours. (Is this a reasonable dose? They calculated it based on a weight of 600g on their scales, but she’s weighing 730g on mine. I want to make sure she’s getting enough to help her pain!)

Since getting home she’s definitely perked up a bit and is a bit more active, and I’ve noticed she’s holding her front paw off the ground. (She barely came out of her bed yesterday so I wouldn’t have noticed this before.) She’s eating a fair amount of hay and drinking water, and she had a tiny nibble on some fennel greens which is a huge improvement on yesterday, but she’s still completely indifferent towards lettuce, veggies and treats.

The way she’s holding her paw suggests she’s somehow hurt it which I assume could cause her to lose her appetite. However her reluctance to eat anything except hay makes me think her mouth might be hurting after all. I suppose it’s possible that it could be both, but seems unlikely they’d both have presented at the exact same time. I have to take her back to the vet on Monday for a review, but I assume the tooth appearances won’t have changed much in just 2 days? Therefore I’m not really sure what I should be asking for as the next steps or whether to guide them down the foot or dental route.

Is it okay that she’s only eating hay for the time being? She shares an L-shaped C&C with her cage mate, 8x4 in total. I’ve blocked off the short edge with grids for now and kept Astrid separate so I can monitor her food, water and poos (which look normal despite the reduced intake). I have some critical care I can mix up if needed, as well as some puréed veg baby food, but I don’t want to stress her out even more with syringe feeding unless it’s absolutely necessary (especially since she’s very wriggly and I don’t want to hurt her sore foot!)

Any advice is appreciated, just want to help her feel better asap!

 

[ratatellie]

Not the greatest picture but you can see her holding her paw up here.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I'm no expert but the experts on here would generally say not to separate an unwell guinea from their mate and that you measure hay intake by daily weighing first thing in the morning. If the guinea maintains their weight, they're getting enough hay, if they're losing weight, then you need to step in with critical care. Some guineas will eat it out of a bowl, but if yours won't, then syringe feeding is the only way.

It's fine if Astrid is only eating hay and/or critical care, since hay should make up the bulk of the diet anyway. I think you're no longer advised to use pureed veg baby food.

Good luck with Astrid, I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along in a few hours.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear this.

First, please do not separate them. It causes them stress and in some cases can ruin their bond and they refuse to go back together.
Please reunite them straight away, if they have been apart longer than a day or two then you will have to go through the whole neutral territory rebonding process.

Separating does not allow you to monitor food intake at all and monitoring poop is not helpful in monitoring food intake either.
Hay intake cannot be gauged by eye.
Poop is 1-2 days behind food intake so by the time you see poop issues, they already haven’t been eating enough hay for a couple of days.
The only way to monitor food intake is via regular weight checks. These should be done once a week as routine but every day (in the morning) where you have health concerns.

It’s good she is still eating hay but without daily weight checks you have no idea whether she is actually eating enough to stop further weight being lost. The fact she has lost 10% of her body weight would be concerning . If she loses more weight again this morning she must be syringe fed.

Don’t worry about the lack of veg in her diet at the moment, that isn’t a main concern. It’s making sure she has enough fibre which is the most important part

There is no need to use the baby food - it can be helpful to give it a different taste if they are reluctant to take take syringe feed, but it should never be a large amount as fibre is much more important.

She is a small piggy so her dosage is going to be smaller and dosages are also based on a sliding scale on clinical need. It may be that that dose is enough for her but it is certainly a low dose and if she is displaying any pain then there is definitely leeway upwards

Even the smallest issue in the mouth can prevent them from eating. Teeth grow quickly so a small issue can become a big issue.

I’ve added guides below

I hope she is ok

Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support Levels
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures

 

[ratatellie]

Thanks, I removed the extra grids before I went to bed as I didn’t like the idea of them being apart without me to keep an eye on things! I mostly just wanted to give her a chance to try some veg if she felt like it, her cage mate is much more dominant and quite greedy so she has to be quick at the best of times

This morning she still wasn’t looking quite her usual self but when I weighed her she was 10g from yesterday. She’s still holding her foot off the ground but did try and eat about a quarter of a lettuce leaf which is better than her total refusal yesterday.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Veg isn’t the priority here but in order for you to see if she eats some, then you can hand feed her some veg.

Is that 10g up or down from yesterday?

 

[ratatellie]

Oops, my bad! That’s 10g up.

 

[ratatellie]

A sad update: Astrid was still struggling with her appetite and wouldn’t take critical care either so we went back to the vets today and were referred to an exotics specialist. After a blood test and an X-ray it was discovered she was in quite advanced kidney failure and the kindest thing to do was to put her to sleep.