Thank you anyar! He's eaten first time in about a week, parsley that I pushed in his mouth and he took a little himself, he's still struggling to pick up food himself, not sure if his incisors need to grow a bit.
Can I ask, do you give 15ml in one go? I'm new to syringe feeding and after 5-10 ml he seems fed up of it, I'm not sure how much is too much.
And how much overall would you try to get in them in 24 hours?
Many thanks..
How much and how often to syringe feed
A piggy needs different amounts of syringe feed and a different feeding regime depending on what kind of situation you are dealing with. If your guinea pig has still got its appetite, it may accept syringe feed in the cage and doesn't need to be taken out.
There are other recommendations for feeding higher amounts at the beginning of an illness, but in our experience this is not practicable.
Whilst feeding, use the separate cup of water to rinse the syringe so that it does not become clogged up.
Please weigh the pig daily when syringe feeding as this will enable you to monitor whether you are feeding enough to maintain their weight. Make a note of their weight and the amount of syringes given, together with any probiotics or vitamin C and fluids.
Severe illness and total loss of appetite:
This is an emergency situation! Your aim is to keep your piggy alive and the guts from closing down until it has been seen ideally as an emergency case by a vet and the medication is kicking in. Please check with your vet whether your piggy will additionally need painkillers and a gut stimulant.
Find more tips for post-operation care in this guide here: Tips For Post-operative Care
Feed little but often round the clock. 3-5ml is often what you can realistically feed in one session every 2-3 hours with a guinea pig that is in major discomfort and that may struggle to swallow. It is also very uncooperative at this stage, so brace yourself that it can be a rather messy affair!
Make sure that you do not give more than 0.5 ml (i.e. one mouthful) at once in order to avoid anything going down the wrong way, but be aware that a piggy may only be able to cope with as little as 0.1 ml in one go. When dealing with a very poorly piggy you are aiming to give about 2ml over the course of 10-15 minutes whilst giving the piggy plenty of time to swallow and be ready for more, but depending on the severity/weakness of a piggy, it could be less. Always make sure that a piggy has swallowed the previous lot before giving more.
Also syringe as much water as the piggy will take; it is very likely not drinking either! In severe cases, you may want to use dioralyte to help rehydrating a piggy. Have the vet check your piggy for dehydration when you have it seen.
Any bit of feed you can get in during this stage can make the difference, even if you cannot make the full 40-60ml in the course of 24 hours. You may find that your piggy is a bit more willing to eat familiar tasting mushed up pellets; it can also help if you use still hand-warm boiled water when feeding the syringe mix and when watering.
I found this in the guide for a shortcut for your question
It's crap about that M1 queue, that road is always a let down, I basicly live on it lol. And also I knew the vet you used would likely have cut the teeth wrong. I'm so glad you actually got the problems inldentified
But I get payed by the hour, so I'm getting payed to sit in queues
xx
