cwlight
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi, this is my first post.
We have 4 guinea-pigs, and 1 of them, Jake, has recently lost a lot of weight. He was always the smallest, round about 1 kg, but had gone down to 650g a few weeks back, and was always at the drink bottle, at which point the vet checked for diabetes (borderline), did a general check, and said they could find nothing else wrong. We restricted sugary foods in their diet, and he then started putting weight back on, without any treatment, and at end of May was back up to around 850g : however, even while regaining weight, he seemed to take a long time to eat each food item compared to the others. His drinking had decreased but was still more than the others.
We then went away for a week, leaving them all in the care of neighbours who followed the usual food regime, but when we got back it was clear that he had lost weight again, and now was struggling to eat anything : he wouldn't even try to eat hay, and while eager to have his veggies (Romaine lettuce ; spinach ; occasional piece of pepper) he then took ages to eat each portion ; he was not eating nuggets but DID seem to manage a few pieces of muesli type food, which obviously we don't usually give them (we had a bag passed on by someone else).
I took him to the vet, again, (Tuesday 11th June) who this time said his incisors were fine but his molars were overgrown and we needed to book him in for a dental ; this we did, and he was away all day yesterday (Wed 12th June). When we got him back, the vet nurse said they had burred his molars AND trimmed his incisors, BUT the vet who did the job reported back than neither was actually bad enough to be causing the problem, in her opinion! (despite them suggesting and carrying out a procedure they felt not really necessary, they happily billed us £228 for the privilege, which I feel is very steep,, but that's another story.)
Today, nothing has changed : he won't eat anything other than the unhealthy muesli, and that in small quantities ; he was out on the grass today with his peers and desperately trying to nibble grass etc like they were but then giving up.
We then set him up a cage to himself to monitor what he has eaten, and it has been a few muesli pieces and nothing else. He is still very perky and bright, and enthusiastically takes all his favourite veggies from you (parsley ; carrot ; spinach) but then gives up and leaves it. When I hand-fed him a tiny piece of carrot, he tried to bite it but didn't even make an indentation. He won't even try normal nuggets or hay. I put a couple of dandelions in the cage and he desperately tried to chew one of the flowers off, but failed.
He has lost another 50g in weight.
Help, please!
I have made up some mushy pellet 'soup' as per instructions on this site, and have managed to get 5ml into him so far but despair on managing 120ml in a day.
He is back to the vet on Saturday morning, but I have no faith in them being any help : the vets are all very young women (all the senior partners retired simultaneously a couple of years ago) and frankly I'm not convinced they know what they're doing with a guinea-pig.
I am in Ipswich, Suffolk.
We have 4 guinea-pigs, and 1 of them, Jake, has recently lost a lot of weight. He was always the smallest, round about 1 kg, but had gone down to 650g a few weeks back, and was always at the drink bottle, at which point the vet checked for diabetes (borderline), did a general check, and said they could find nothing else wrong. We restricted sugary foods in their diet, and he then started putting weight back on, without any treatment, and at end of May was back up to around 850g : however, even while regaining weight, he seemed to take a long time to eat each food item compared to the others. His drinking had decreased but was still more than the others.
We then went away for a week, leaving them all in the care of neighbours who followed the usual food regime, but when we got back it was clear that he had lost weight again, and now was struggling to eat anything : he wouldn't even try to eat hay, and while eager to have his veggies (Romaine lettuce ; spinach ; occasional piece of pepper) he then took ages to eat each portion ; he was not eating nuggets but DID seem to manage a few pieces of muesli type food, which obviously we don't usually give them (we had a bag passed on by someone else).
I took him to the vet, again, (Tuesday 11th June) who this time said his incisors were fine but his molars were overgrown and we needed to book him in for a dental ; this we did, and he was away all day yesterday (Wed 12th June). When we got him back, the vet nurse said they had burred his molars AND trimmed his incisors, BUT the vet who did the job reported back than neither was actually bad enough to be causing the problem, in her opinion! (despite them suggesting and carrying out a procedure they felt not really necessary, they happily billed us £228 for the privilege, which I feel is very steep,, but that's another story.)
Today, nothing has changed : he won't eat anything other than the unhealthy muesli, and that in small quantities ; he was out on the grass today with his peers and desperately trying to nibble grass etc like they were but then giving up.
We then set him up a cage to himself to monitor what he has eaten, and it has been a few muesli pieces and nothing else. He is still very perky and bright, and enthusiastically takes all his favourite veggies from you (parsley ; carrot ; spinach) but then gives up and leaves it. When I hand-fed him a tiny piece of carrot, he tried to bite it but didn't even make an indentation. He won't even try normal nuggets or hay. I put a couple of dandelions in the cage and he desperately tried to chew one of the flowers off, but failed.
He has lost another 50g in weight.
Help, please!
I have made up some mushy pellet 'soup' as per instructions on this site, and have managed to get 5ml into him so far but despair on managing 120ml in a day.
He is back to the vet on Saturday morning, but I have no faith in them being any help : the vets are all very young women (all the senior partners retired simultaneously a couple of years ago) and frankly I'm not convinced they know what they're doing with a guinea-pig.
I am in Ipswich, Suffolk.