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Teeth Crunching

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aimzer said:
So we managed around 5ml at out latest feed with 2ml water with probiotic. She was getting restless so I out her back in her cage. I rustled bags and made the noise I normally do when I give them their evening veggies and her ears pricked straight up and she started begging up at the edge of the cage! I couldn't believe it.
She has managed a good amount of grated carrot, small grated apple and a few small strips of lettuce leaves. Took her ages but I'm so happy :D:D

Quick question, when I'm mashing down the nuggets with warm water and pulling them up into a syringe. The syringe is mainly picking up the water as the mush is too thick. The mix sort of separates. No matter how thin I make the mix the syringe seems be leave the majority of mush behind. Any ideas? Really wish my critical care arrived today
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Have you cut off the tip of the syringe like shown in our syringe feeding guide? That makes a real difference.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide
 
Wiebke said:
Have you cut off the tip of the syringe like shown in our syringe feeding guide? That makes a real difference.
Complete Syringe Feeding Guide
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Yes I have cut off the tip. I just tried it with the pets at home nuggets and it worked so much better. Must be something about the JR farm grainless nuggets but they didn't form a paste like the PAH ones did.
 
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I just took her out for a feed but all I could get in was 0.2ml. She is making these like chutting noises and pushing back from me and burying her head in to me.
I feel like she is totally stressed out so have but her back.
Not sure if the noises were breathing noises, I really hope not and that she's not getting URI :/
 
aimzer said:
I just took her out for a feed but all I could get in was 0.2ml. She is making these like chutting noises and pushing back from me and burying her head in to me.
I feel like she is totally stressed out so have but her back.
Not sure if the noises were breathing noises, I really hope not and that she's not getting URI :/
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Is she passing poos? Does she look dehydrated (sunken eyes, skin tenting and not springing back into place when you lift it)? The noises you are hearing may be due to food obstructing the windpipe a little, if she is struggling to manipulate it around her mouth. How does she seem now?
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
Is she passing poos? Does she look dehydrated (sunken eyes, skin tenting and not springing back into place when you lift it)? The noises you are hearing may be due to food obstructing the windpipe a little, if she is struggling to manipulate it around her mouth. How does she seem now?
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She does not look too bad to be honest. Her eyes look bright and shes not particularly puffy. I think she has managed to clear whatever was the problem as she made a noise sort of like clearing her throat. She has been in her cosy tunnel pretty much all night. However, I just put their morning veg in and she has come out and is eating it alongside Daisy :D
 
Maple is accepting her feeds with the help of my mum today and she has also been taking a handful of coriander afterwards. She's now sitting next to me with a good handful of mixed leaves which she is tucking into and she has also had more coriander. Looking at her just now you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with her but when she's in the cage she just hides in her tunnel all day. She still hasn't eaten any hay!
 
aimzer said:
Maple is accepting her feeds with the help of my mum today and she has also been taking a handful of coriander afterwards. She's now sitting next to me with a good handful of mixed leaves which she is tucking into and she has also had more coriander. Looking at her just now you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with her but when she's in the cage she just hides in her tunnel all day. She still hasn't eaten any hay!
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I'm not surprised she hasn't eaten hay yet. Her mouth will be sore if she has an abscess on her tongue. When is the vet seeing her again for a recheck?
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
That should be fine unless you're worried xx
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She's relatively perky otherwise and has actually put on a wee bit of weight. Just hope the greens don't give her diarrhoea! I'm literally always worrying about something. I can also hear her grinding her teeth quite often. It still sounds as if she is crunching a hard sweetie! I hope they have done a good enough job for her and she doesn't need another dental :( x
 
So I have put both girls out to play whilst I clean their cage. I have out two halves of a primary bag and made sort of little hides with them and filled both with hay.

Thankfully Maple has started nibbling!

However, they don't seem to like sharing. Maple sort of follows Daisy back and forth. Daisy was in one bag and maple went over, Daisy started squeeking, there was some teeth chattering then Daisy ran out. I don't know if maple went for her.

@Wiebke do you think this is OK behaviour? It settled as soon as Daisy moved out the way.
 
aimzer said:
So I have put both girls out to play whilst I clean their cage. I have out two halves of a primary bag and made sort of little hides with them and filled both with hay.

Thankfully Maple has started nibbling!

However, they don't seem to like sharing. Maple sort of follows Daisy back and forth. Daisy was in one bag and maple went over, Daisy started squeeking, there was some teeth chattering then Daisy ran out. I don't know if maple went for her.

@Wiebke do you think this is OK behaviour? It settled as soon as Daisy moved out the way.
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It is normal to get some dominance behaviour once your girls are back together, just to re-establish the group hierarchy. It is still sounds on the mild side and should subside fairly soon once Maple has made her point.
 
Wiebke said:
It is normal to get some dominance behaviour once your girls are back together, just to re-establish the group hierarchy. It is still sounds on the mild side and should subside fairly soon once Maple has made her point.
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They have been in their cage together since Saturday and share the veggies fine however one tend to stay up stairs and one tends to stay downstairs in the cage.

They are little monkeys among me worry!
 
The critical care finally arrived today and Maple is taking it like a champ! She seems to like it much better and doesn't struggle half as much! Some times she even opens up the side of her mouth for me haha.

She's been munching hay on and off all afternoon. When I put them back in her clean cage there was lots of exploring and hay munching!

They are still chattering at each other every now and again but hopefully that'll die down.
 
Maple eating habits seem almost back to normal. She was excited for her evening veggies tonight (see pic) and she went straight over to the hay after her veg like she normally would. She has eaten a fair bit of hay today and had around 30ml via syringe feeds.
Should I still give her another feed tonight? And what about through the night?
Surely she wouldn't get too full would she?!



 
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I haven't really been getting proper looks at Maples poos as she has been eating them all however, during her feed tonight I noticed they were very soft and clumped together. I think this is probably because I had been giving her excess greens over the days as she wasn't eating. I won't give her any greens tonight. She is getting plenty of probiotic.

The only thing different I have done is use critical care but I'm guessing that's unlikely to cause soft poop?
 
Can anyone advise me on whether or not to give Maple a CC feed tonight taking in to consideration her soft poos?
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
Syringe food does tend to cause poos to be a bit soft. Nothing to worry about xx
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These poops are proper soft and misshapen. She has had them before due to too much coriander so I'm thinking I've probably over done it with the veg. She is still eating them all. You think it's ok to give her another feed? Don't want to make them worse!
 
@furryfriends (TEAS)
These are Maple's poops today. Pretty much same as yesterday. I never gave her veg last night or this morning. Hopefully they firm up soon.
Also, her weight this morning was only up 10g from yesterday morning. Should I be giving her more CC or does it usually take a while for them to put weight back on? She's 809g.
 
Can someone help me please.
I am continuing to syringe fees maple throughout the day. We did around 40ml yesterday as she still does not like it! I noticed yesterday that she wasn't at the hay as much. She was too interested in sniffing Daisy's bum trying to eat her poos.
I weighed her this morning and she has lost 6g since yesterday morning!
Please help, I don't know what I can do to get her to gain weight/eat more.

@Wiebke @furryfriends (TEAS)
 
aimzer said:
Can someone help me please.
I am continuing to syringe fees maple throughout the day. We did around 40ml yesterday as she still does not like it! I noticed yesterday that she wasn't at the hay as much. She was too interested in sniffing Daisy's bum trying to eat her poos.
I weighed her this morning and she has lost 6g since yesterday morning!
Please help, I don't know what I can do to get her to gain weight/eat more.

@Wiebke @furryfriends (TEAS)
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6g is very little and still counts as stable weight; you need to worry if it is more than 30-50g in a day.

Digging in the companion's bum for redigested poos is actually a good sign. It means that she is recovering and is keep to rebalance and re-stock her own guts. You could try and give her poo soup made by soaking fresh poos from her companion in a little water. Even when not containing as much fibre and gut bacteria as the caecotrophs, they still contain some to inoculate.
Offering her some very rough, nutritionally poor fibre can also help. Piggies seem to crave that at this stage. Brown cardboard or paper (with any handles cut through) is best.
 
Wiebke said:
6g is very little and still counts as stable weight; you need to worry if it is more than 30-50g in a day.

Digging in the companion's bum for redigested poos is actually a good sign. It means that she is recovering and is keep to rebalance and re-stock her own guts. You could try and give her poo soup made by soaking fresh poos from her companion in a little water. Even when not containing as much fibre and gut bacteria as the caecotrophs, they still contain some to inoculate.
Offering her some very rough, nutritionally poor fibre can also help. Piggies seem to crave that at this stage. Brown cardboard or paper (with any handles cut through) is best.
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Thanks. I have already put pieces of toilet rolls tubes and brown paper bags in the cage. She does nibble now and again. I just thought she'd put weight on a lot quicker. She has only really put on around 50g since her surgery last Friday. I tried the poop sound before but she wasn't keen. Will try again today.
 
Her poos are firmer today and not clumped together however, she does fluff up and squeaks when shes passing them. This is new. I feel like everything's going wrong! :(
 
aimzer said:
Thanks. I have already put pieces of toilet rolls tubes and brown paper bags in the cage. She does nibble now and again. I just thought she'd put weight on a lot quicker. She has only really put on around 50g since her surgery last Friday. I tried the poop sound before but she wasn't keen. Will try again today.
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No - it can take weeks for the weight to come back on after a difficult operation recovery or severe illness. As long as her weight is stable at this point, you are doing fine. Weight gain happens on its own once she is fully healed and well in herself again. ;)
 
Wiebke said:
No - it can take weeks for the weight to come back on after a difficult operation recovery or severe illness. As long as her weight is stable at this point, you are doing fine. Weight gain happens on its own once she is fully healed and well in herself again. ;)
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Oh my goodness, that's OK then I can maybe relax a bit! I am still giving her feeds throughout the day but I am back to work next week so won't be able to do it as much.

helen105281 said:
Have you tried giving probiotics aswell?
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Yes she is getting pro c mixed in with every feed other than the one alongside her antibiotics. I was thinking of ordering some fibreplex.
 
Often owners get worried that their piggy gains weight and then loses it again quickly. What they are seeing isn't true weight gain, but weight associated with tummy-fill. When a piggy is learning to eat again following dental work, it can a very long time for them to regain true weight. Piggies graze and consume a huge amount of food when eating normally. This amount will be greatly reduced whilst they are recovering from dental work, but getting the guinea pig eating and wearing their teeth is paramount and once they have finished a bit of a top up with syringe food is a good idea. In the first few weeks it is to be expected for weight to either reduce a little or be very static.
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
Often owners get worried that their piggy gains weight and then loses it again quickly. What they are seeing isn't true weight gain, but weight associated with tummy-fill. When a piggy is learning to eat again following dental work, it can a very long time for them to regain true weight. Piggies graze and consume a huge amount of food when eating normally. This amount will be greatly reduced whilst they are recovering from dental work, but getting the guinea pig eating and wearing their teeth is paramount and once they have finished a bit of a top up with syringe food is a good idea. In the first few weeks it is to be expected for weight to either reduce a little or be very static.
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Thanks very much, really appreciate it :)
 
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