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Respiratory treatment

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Jenoi

Jenoi

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Hi, one of our guinea pig girls (we have 4) seems to have a rattly chest/noisy breathing, so we think that she has a URI. What is the treatment for this in guinea pigs? We also own rats and are more than used to treating them for health problems but our guinea pigs have really had no problems at all. :/

Also, can she wait until Monday to go to the vet?

Thank you.
 
If you suspect URI, please take your piggy to the vets as soon as possible. A piggy with URI can go downhill and die with frightening speed!

Here is a link that gives you more information: http://www.guinealynx.info/uri.html
 
Many cases of suspected URI often turn out to be an allergy, hay fever, problem.
Can you supply more details of her condition, please?
In the meantime let her have a sniff of some Olbas Oil, that should ease her breathing.
 
Thanks for your replies :)
She's still eating and drinking. I read that article Wiebke, the symptoms she has at the moment are sneezing and coughing and she's making a kind of crackling noise (not wheezing).
 
Hi Jenoi, welcome to the forum.

The crackling or clicking sound in the lungs tends to indicate a URI more often than allergy. Have you listened closely to her chest, putting your ear to either side - can you tell if either lung sounds worse? How long has she had these symptoms for?
 
It was just this morning when she was getting her fresh food - they are handled every day and it wasn't there yesterday, it's been happening since (all day). She's still bright though, and she's not stopped eating all day.

I've held her up... really much the same, perhaps her right side sounds a little bit worse but not much, really.

Also thanks for the welcome :)
 
How/why/where do you think your pigs contracted a URI, since, I believe, they lead a sheltered life?
 
There is only one that I suspect I know the 'cause' of. Although it was summer, I bathed the pigs with a couple of windows open letting a slight breeze in the room. Less than a week later one of the pigs came down with a URI which progressed to pneumonia, she was on around 3 weeks of antibiotics.

She came down with the same thing a couple of years later amidst other problems, but didn't survive it. I'm not sure what the cause of the second URI was, all I remember for sure is that I had a particularly nasty cold/flu virus and I was in very close contact with her while I was ill as she was being syringe-fed. I believe the pig had a systemic fungal infection and she was in poor shape.

One was diagnosed with a mild URI by Vedra, the guinea cleared up with Sudafed and Bisolvon. I don't remember the circumstances at the time of her illness.
 
Thank you both for the replies. Jenny seems completely fine now - she hasn't stopped eating at all, was out their home last night and seemed as she usually does. There's no noise at all from her chest, either.:{
 
Most likely it was an "allergy" problem. A URI would not have cleared that quickly either with or without treatment.
 
i would still get her cheaked out,i currently have 2 rats with permanent URI's and a piggy who has just gotten over it,there symptoms look to ease off and then they can come back badly and its usually hard to treat them at that point,i would see a piggy savvy vet soon xx
 
Thanks for the posts back.

Jenny still seems completely fine with no noises at all. Why would some sort of allergy flare up? They live inside (have never been outside) and nothing has changed at all, diet, hay, anything.
 
Might have been something like a hay seed that then resolved itself. :{ One of my girls gets mucusy (with loud breathing) from time to time.
 
Thank you :)
Just to update, Jenny is still completely fine.
 
Perhaps because it is a strange question to ask when you've used the term yourself...
 
I have been careful only to quote the term.
Would anyone like to give the definition?
Can anyone hazard a guess as to why I have asked the question, a New Year's Day Quiz?
 
I agree with your definition HOWEVER where does an Upper Res. Inf. end and a Lower Res. Inf. begin?
I do not think I have ever seen a reference to a LRTI.
 
alcesterpigs said:
I agree with your definition HOWEVER where does an Upper Res. Inf. end and a Lower Res. Inf. begin?
I do not think I have ever seen a reference to a LRTI.
Click to expand...

Not very smart to give somebody advice when you don't know what the term means is it? That could be harmful to the guinea pigs! Don't just post for the sake of it.

And regarding your above question that would be going into something more serious - I don't know anything more exact than that but maybe you should talk to a vet about it if that interested inbreeding
 
I do see the point of the question now explained. A similar question would be how to distinguish between a URI and pneumonia.
 
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