URGENT. Please advise on 6 week old baby piggy MEDICAL.

[Lsd3]

Hello,
Today my 6 week old guinea pig suddenly started limping in morning front left foot. We went to the vet and they said XRAY shows the humerus and long bones are good, but hard to see the wrist bones, likely a sprain, (gave Gabapentin) and small cage rest separate from his 2 brothers (6 weeks old). So I put him on another small cage with the divider in between (to his mom and sisters) cage. Since then he is so stressed out he wants to escape, he keeps biting the cage divider. I am worried what to do. His limb is hurt pretty bad. I don't want to keep him alone, but if I put him back with his brothers (it's been 7 hours since we separated them). what if the dominance start, and he gets more hurt. But i am not sure if stress can make him sicker. He ate his veggies an hour ago.

Please help.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Generally speaking we would not advise separating for a sprain - I certainly never separated my piggies when one of my boys hurt his leg - but obviously we don’t know how bad it is in this situation.
If he absolutely must be apart from them and the risk of being with them is a greater risk to his leg , then all you can do is wait it out and wait for him to calm down. Provided he can still interact through bars is obviously important.

The reason we say that is because medical separation can ruin a bond but as a boar trio is unlikely to work long term, they chances of them needing to be separated at some point are high. I know that doesnt mean you wanted it to be now though.
If the separation needs to be for a long time, they may not accept him back.
Stress itself won’t make his leg worse in this case.
Obviously it’s not good for him to be stressed though.

 

[Lsd3]

Hi, yesterday we noticed our 6 week old boar was limping. We immediately took him to our exotic vet and she did an X-ray. She said the humerus and long bones are good, but hard to see the wrist bones as they are tiny. He is only 320gms. They gave him Gabapentin. He is back in his cage with his baby brothers. I am really worried. He hasn’t once put the leg on the floor and is fully limping and also the paws is fully curled up and back. Is this just a bad sprain then ? Any thoughts (see video attached) front left paw

 

[Piggies&buns]

If he isn’t willing to put his foot down then he is likely in a lot of pain. As to whether it is a sprain or something more, I’m afraid only a vet can answer that upon examination - we aren’t vets and couldnt tell anything from a photo in any event.

 

[Wheekallweek]

At least he's got some pain relief, and gabapentin is a strong one! I wonder why they didn't try metacam first?
If there were no breaks or fractures seen then I think I would give it a few days to see if there's any improvement.
It could be there is a break in the wrist area, but as you say it's so tiny it would be difficult to see on an x ray!

 

[Wheekallweek]

We had a situation like this a while back actually with a piggy around the same age as yours at the rescue! Her name was Crumpet.
She came in holding up her paw with a bad limp, and the vet said, like yours, they could x ray but she was so tiny they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to accurately identify any breaks or fractures etc.
She had pain relief and cage rest and recovered well, then went on to a lovely home with one of our neutered boars, Bigwig.
Here they are!