This isn't going to bring our guinea pig back but I found this site (too late sadly) and hope it might make us all feel a bit better even just writing it down. We bought 2 x guinea pigs from a reputable pet shop in 2013 - my eldest two children named them Rex and Max. My husband built and outside wooden hutch high off the ground - 3 levels with wooden doors to close at night time and also had a run for them in the day which they spent at least 7 hours eating grass. We fed them on the pellets, lots of hay, mainly celery and cucumber and occasionally a piece of apple. The kids would have them out in the garden everyday etc. Max is still very healthy. In July at the start of the summer holidays we noticed Rex had lost weight and also that he was more lethargic and moving around like an old man. He has always drank lots of water now I wonder if he was diabetic. We also noticed he was wheezing so we took him to our local vet. She looked at him and listened to his chest gave him an injection and antibiotics. She said there was no upper respiratory infection that she could hear. She said if he wasn't eating etc to bring him back but he ate all the way up to his death. Anyhow, we gave him his course of medicine and he was more or less the same still eating but the wheezing had gone. we went on holiday in August and our friend looked after them. When we came back although he had been eating he was just all bones. I took him back to the vet immediately and I said could he have cancer, diabetes and that he was still eating all the time but he wasn't getting the benefit of it. She said he didn't look like he was in pain. At this point he weighed 600grams - she gave a different antibiotic medicine and said come back if he stops eating. This was on the Thursday on 3 September he was dead by Sunday morning.
I have since had a voicemail message saying she now has an instrument to look at his teeth and he can have a free health check. My son is devasted and cries every night and I feel had I known more then I could have saved him in some way. I now know that there are specialist vets out there but I assumed a vet would be able to look at any animal. She did say he might have cancer but she couldn't feel any tumours or kidney disease. Should I have insisted on diabetic medicine - do guinea pigs get medicine for that - I felt his diet was healthy or was it something else?
I have since had a voicemail message saying she now has an instrument to look at his teeth and he can have a free health check. My son is devasted and cries every night and I feel had I known more then I could have saved him in some way. I now know that there are specialist vets out there but I assumed a vet would be able to look at any animal. She did say he might have cancer but she couldn't feel any tumours or kidney disease. Should I have insisted on diabetic medicine - do guinea pigs get medicine for that - I felt his diet was healthy or was it something else?
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You did all you could.
