Cyberpig
Junior Guinea Pig
I've not posted on here before and until Saturday, I didn't even know this forum existed. This place is such a wealth of knowledge, and this knowledge and several posts on this forum have saved my piggy's (Shui) life:<>.
As a little history, our pig is almost six years old and male, and at the moment he is our only pig. This is due to himself, because although he loves human company, he does not get on with any other pigs (he was quite a bully to our older pig who died 5 years ago). He is a free running pig, which means he has his cage with a flapdoor and he is allowed to roam upstairs. We made it guinea pig safe, and he is quite house trained (or maybe he prefers the soft hay to do his business so to speak
|)). We always frequented the Peter Gurney website and I had guinea pigs pretty much all my life. I know about the general things (cutting nails, watching out for teeth overgrowth - interestingly enough I never had problems with that, my piggies always loved to eat hay). Also for 2 years now, we have helped Shui along with what we call his "good stuff". He suffers from the anal impaction (thanks to Peter Gurney's website we knew all about that:-) and it has become an almost daily task to feed him the "lovely smelling" stuff:^-. He has always been a good eater (eating his greens, carots, parsley peppers, cucumbers, fennel, dandelion, grass etc.). He has dried food and he eats is, but he isn't too fussed about it. He would rather eat human food, but we keep him from that
. On Friday night, he was his usual self (he spends the evenings in our sitting room - again guinea pig safe), and he as very interactive, ate some greens etc. On Saturday, something was strange. Normally he would wake us up with squeaks to announce that he was getting up and that he would like some fresh food (he is a wee bit spoilt). He didn't get up, and I looked at him, he was not looking very good (milky half closed eyes, all puffed up, big distended stomach, and no poos around him whatsoever, and no poos in his bottom (sorry I'm used to checking the impaction). When I tried to tempt him with any food (even parsley, he didn't want to eat it - although he nibbled on some salad and dandelion, which he shouldn't have). To be fair, I have had many guinea pigs and to me he looked like he would not survive Saturday. I was already crying my eyes out, and my other half was the same. However, we then went online, looked at Peter's website (although he is not very encouraging when it comes to blockages etc.), and then we went and googled bloat and guinea pig and we found this forum.
Reading all the posts, and what to do, I started immediately massaging his tummy (strangely enough he let me do it without any objections). I then went off and bought infacol, probiotic yoghurt and a syringe. By now it was quite late (4.00 pm). I gave him the infacol (I followed stinklepigs advice and gave him 0.5 ml, then I gave him some yoghurt and I started massaging. Low and behold after 10 minutes, I felt bubbles in his stomach and he started passing wind. I kept massaging and give him two more doses of infacol and yoghurt, and then massaged some more (with more bubbles and gas). I also got the first sign of something coming out of his backside, but it was very sticky and weird looking. At about 10.30 we put him in his cage, and at about 11.15 we heard him chew some hay:<>. At 3.00 am he woke us up (coming out of his cage and running into the other room, his food is kept in a different room to encourage him running around and keeping mobile). There was a carrot from the same day, and he started chomping on it. I went downstairs and brought some cucumber and fennel and dill, and he started eating all of it (he was starving). He then turned to his dried food (we put some dried herbs in there as well), and he ate that. He is still fine now, no distended stomach, he is eating healthily. We will carry on with the yoghurt (I think his impacted bottom, is partly responsible for his problematic digestive system).
However, sorry for this stupid long first post, but without having read everything on here, and without reading that bloat was treatable, we would have despaired. I don't trust vets anymore (with regards to guinea pigs), too many have told me that the best thing is to put down the animalgrrrr, when there wasn't that much wrong with them. But thanks to you, we now also know about a good vet in Dunfermline.
So just to say, thank you, thank you so much. Shui would not be alive without this forum (and he is very alive at the moment):<>.
As a little history, our pig is almost six years old and male, and at the moment he is our only pig. This is due to himself, because although he loves human company, he does not get on with any other pigs (he was quite a bully to our older pig who died 5 years ago). He is a free running pig, which means he has his cage with a flapdoor and he is allowed to roam upstairs. We made it guinea pig safe, and he is quite house trained (or maybe he prefers the soft hay to do his business so to speak
|)). We always frequented the Peter Gurney website and I had guinea pigs pretty much all my life. I know about the general things (cutting nails, watching out for teeth overgrowth - interestingly enough I never had problems with that, my piggies always loved to eat hay). Also for 2 years now, we have helped Shui along with what we call his "good stuff". He suffers from the anal impaction (thanks to Peter Gurney's website we knew all about that:-) and it has become an almost daily task to feed him the "lovely smelling" stuff:^-. He has always been a good eater (eating his greens, carots, parsley peppers, cucumbers, fennel, dandelion, grass etc.). He has dried food and he eats is, but he isn't too fussed about it. He would rather eat human food, but we keep him from that. On Friday night, he was his usual self (he spends the evenings in our sitting room - again guinea pig safe), and he as very interactive, ate some greens etc. On Saturday, something was strange. Normally he would wake us up with squeaks to announce that he was getting up and that he would like some fresh food (he is a wee bit spoilt). He didn't get up, and I looked at him, he was not looking very good (milky half closed eyes, all puffed up, big distended stomach, and no poos around him whatsoever, and no poos in his bottom (sorry I'm used to checking the impaction). When I tried to tempt him with any food (even parsley, he didn't want to eat it - although he nibbled on some salad and dandelion, which he shouldn't have). To be fair, I have had many guinea pigs and to me he looked like he would not survive Saturday. I was already crying my eyes out, and my other half was the same. However, we then went online, looked at Peter's website (although he is not very encouraging when it comes to blockages etc.), and then we went and googled bloat and guinea pig and we found this forum. Reading all the posts, and what to do, I started immediately massaging his tummy (strangely enough he let me do it without any objections). I then went off and bought infacol, probiotic yoghurt and a syringe. By now it was quite late (4.00 pm). I gave him the infacol (I followed stinklepigs advice and gave him 0.5 ml, then I gave him some yoghurt and I started massaging. Low and behold after 10 minutes, I felt bubbles in his stomach and he started passing wind. I kept massaging and give him two more doses of infacol and yoghurt, and then massaged some more (with more bubbles and gas). I also got the first sign of something coming out of his backside, but it was very sticky and weird looking. At about 10.30 we put him in his cage, and at about 11.15 we heard him chew some hay:<>. At 3.00 am he woke us up (coming out of his cage and running into the other room, his food is kept in a different room to encourage him running around and keeping mobile). There was a carrot from the same day, and he started chomping on it. I went downstairs and brought some cucumber and fennel and dill, and he started eating all of it (he was starving). He then turned to his dried food (we put some dried herbs in there as well), and he ate that. He is still fine now, no distended stomach, he is eating healthily. We will carry on with the yoghurt (I think his impacted bottom, is partly responsible for his problematic digestive system).
However, sorry for this stupid long first post, but without having read everything on here, and without reading that bloat was treatable, we would have despaired. I don't trust vets anymore (with regards to guinea pigs), too many have told me that the best thing is to put down the animalgrrrr, when there wasn't that much wrong with them. But thanks to you, we now also know about a good vet in Dunfermline.
So just to say, thank you, thank you so much. Shui would not be alive without this forum (and he is very alive at the moment):<>.
p
Perhaps we should all put together some kind of guinea pig massage routine for those that are anally challenged and it might sort their impaction problems outrolleyes (is he still impacted or is he pooing normally? yes i AM obsessed with poo 
