Stopped eating

[Alipri00]

Hi everyone, I have a guinea pig that we rescued just over a month ago. When she came to us she was a plump 1.2kg and now she is 990.

We have noticed she’s not eating as much hay as she once was and is not eating any nuggets. But she is happy to eat veg. We have given her critical care, which she is very stubborn and is refusing.

We’ve gone to two different vets to understand the weight loss and both seem to think it’s her teeth, but they also said she wouldn’t be eating any veg/cardboard if it was really painful. We are given pain relief which we have given her everyday and saw a slight improvement but now she’s gone down in weight again.

I was wondering if anyone has had something similar to this and any advice. Should we keep feeding her critical care and wait it out or should we take her for a dental.

Our last pig sadly passed under anaesthetic hence the hesitation to put her under.

Any advise will be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Piggies&buns]

Welcome to the forum and I’m sorry to hear of her issues.

It is entirely possible for a dental piggy to still eat veg but be unable/refuse to eat hay. They can often manage softer items.

If she has a dental issue then it is not going to get better on its own - she needs the dental check and any treatment completed. Not eating hay and only eating critical care will mean any teeth overgrowth will continue to get worse.

If she is losing weight then she needs more critical care per day - it is a 60ml minimum needed.
If she doesn’t like the critical care, then the using emeraid or even mushed pellets to see if she will take that.

What dosage of pain meds is she on?
Is it cat or dog Metacam?

Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support

 

[Alipri00]

Welcome to the forum and I’m sorry to hear of her issues.

It is entirely possible for a dental piggy to still eat veg but be unable/refuse to eat hay. They can often manage softer items.

If she has a dental issue then it is not going to get better on its own - she needs the dental check and any treatment completed. Not eating hay and only eating critical care will mean any teeth overgrowth will continue to get worse.

If she is losing weight then she needs more critical care per day - it is a 60ml minimum needed.
If she doesn’t like the critical care, then the using emeraid or even mushed pellets to see if she will take that.

What dosage of pain meds is she on?
Is it cat or dog Metacam?

Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support

She’s currently on 22ml of cat metacam, we were told that we could up it to twice a day if needed.

We were wondering if it was bloat. But the vets checked her stomach and said everything seems okay with that

 

[Piggies&buns]

Do you mean 0.22ml?
0.2ml once a day of cat Metacam is a very low dose

If two vets think dental then that should be looked into. I can fully appreciate its scary with anaesthetic concerns but leaving a dental issue unchecked unfortunately isn’t an option

 

[OM91]

It might be worth asking your vet if you can either increase the dose of Metacam or move to the dog version.

Guinea pigs generally tolerate Metacam very well.

Also, they metabolise it very quickly, so one dose might not be enough to cover 24 hours, especially at such a low dose.