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Urine Test Sticks - Blood?

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Claire W

Claire W

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I'm really not having a good week :(

Does anyone know where I can get hold of some urine test sticks?

Erika produced a pinky / orange wee on Thursday night :( It didn't dry brown but a normal wee colour. I have been keeping am eye on her ever since and found nothing out of the ordinary including no squeaking etc why peeing.

Out again tonight and a similar looking wee but this time from Emma :(

If one of them or both did have blood in their urine, would it show up in their cage on the shavings and on the newspaper in their cage?

I'm not sure if I am being overly cautious especially since Erin and Ena both fell seriously poorly exactly a year ago today but I would like to test their urine if possible.
 
Hi, sorry you are going through such a bad time. You should be able to get test sticks from a chemists. orange coloured wee can sometimes be due to what they have eaten or if they are on meds. very small amounts of blood would show up on test sticks but not newspaper,etc. larger concentrations of blood would be visable
 
Thank you everyone. I feel sick :(

What would bloody urine look like on white tissue / paper towel?

@helen105281 would you be able to send me a few to get me started? I will pay of course pay you. I will also order some when I next get paid
 
No money needed at all. Will pop to local shops tomorrow and get stamps and put in post on Monday, just PM me your address.

It would look red or pinky tinged.
 
Hi Claire I'm sorry you are going through this. I have some sticks, i wish i was a little closer i would have brought them to you. I dont know if this is of any help, but as you know Oscar has been having incidents involving his stone and infections. The first episode was proper red liquid, the other times is has been a pinky/orange colour that you can see through really. The colour was visible on the newspapers in their cage on all occasions. Oscar only started squeaking very recently on his last episode, he never has before even when it was the deep red colour. Really hoping its nothing bad.
 
I am sorry hopefully it isn't blood, but I know how you feel, I had to take one of mine to the vets this morning as she passed some blood. It was clearly pink urine & when it dried the blood was at the centre of the patch of wee, if it is just oxidised wee there will be a clear edge to the wee patch. I used my urine sticks today & it was positive for blood so I syringed up a small amount & took it with me to the vet to show them & the urine stick too. The blood sank to the bottom if the syringe by the time I got there. She has Septrin & Metacam now :)
 
doglovinpiggylover said:
Hi Claire I'm sorry you are going through this. I have some sticks, i wish i was a little closer i would have brought them to you. I dont know if this is of any help, but as you know Oscar has been having incidents involving his stone and infections. The first episode was proper red liquid, the other times is has been a pinky/orange colour that you can see through really. The colour was visible on the newspapers in their cage on all occasions. Oscar only started squeaking very recently on his last episode, he never has before even when it was the deep red colour. Really hoping its nothing bad.
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Thank you Karina. I have been following your posts on both here and fb regarding Oscar and you are doing such an amazing job with him. I really do hope he has plenty of time with you yet.

Poppy'sMum said:
I am sorry hopefully it isn't blood, but I know how you feel, I had to take one of mine to the vets this morning as she passed some blood. It was clearly pink urine & when it dried the blood was at the centre of the patch of wee, if it is just oxidised wee there will be a clear edge to the wee patch. I used my urine sticks today & it was positive for blood so I syringed up a small amount & took it with me to the vet to show them & the urine stick too. The blood sank to the bottom if the syringe by the time I got there. She has Septrin & Metacam now :)
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Aw, I hope she recovers soon. I actually took a urine sample from Erika on Friday morning but the wee looked perfectly normal in the syringe. The urine that was pinky / orange the evening before dried with a slight tinge around the edge so I'm really confused.

Emma has done the same kind of wee tonight.

I ironically have septein and and metacam already at home but I know it isn't advisable to treat without seeing a vet first.

I also have Enoch with his soft poops :(
 
thanks Claire, i am hopeful we have a bit yet, hes doing great. Considering i thought he would be going before Christmas!
 
Thank you :) It's scary when they wee a lot of blood that's for sure :( My piggy didn't squeak nor does she have any pain when the vet examined her. If the wee in the syringe is the same colour & there is no separation I would say it's unlikely to be blood. If they don't squeak when weeing & are fine otherwise you could wait until the dipsticks get to you. I bought mine from Amazon 100 for about £9 & they are essential to me now as I also have a piggy with chronic cystitis so I check her wee once a week anyway as blood isn't always visible. Blood can also appear when they are stressed; mine had an op 3 weeks ago & I had to rebond her to the group so we think that"s what caused the UTI.
 
I hope that your piggies feel better soon.

It really is scary :( My very first piggy Connie had chronic bladder problems who we sadly lost after a 5 month battle.

And then last year, Erin had bad cystitis. She had a bladder flush as her bladder was full of sludge but she didn't recover well due to needing an eye removal at the same time. She wasn't strong enough for both :(

I shall be ordering some sticks for my first aid box
 
They are such a handy thing to have, ours get tested quite often though getting certain pigs to sit in a bucket is a challenge.
 
You can buy test strips online. To make sure whose pee you are seeing, you might want to separate them out. We tend to put each one in a Tupperware container with a big piece of cucumber until they pee. Pee with blood in it can look pink/red or it can looks rusty orange/brown, depending. One of my pigs has chronic bladder issues, and we have seen all of the above from her at various times. I hope it's nothing to be concerned about. Have they eaten anything new recently? As you are seeing it from both of them, it is not obvious red blood, and UTIs really aren't contagious, I would wonder if they've eaten something that would change their urine colour.
 
Claire W said:
Thank you Helen. Very much appreciated.

Would it be more or less every time they weed?
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You might see it in some pees but not others. Like colour, it can depend on how concentrated the urine is. More concentrated urine will have more noticeable blood. However, test strips will pick up occult blood (blood that can't be seen with the naked eye) and you should still get positive test strips even with a small amount of blood. My bladder pig would have normal-looking pee and visibly bloody pee in the same day when she had a bladder infection, sometimes even in the same hour. So keep an eye on the bedding to see if some of the urine still looks off-colour.
 
Freela said:
You can buy test strips online. To make sure whose pee you are seeing, you might want to separate them out. We tend to put each one in a Tupperware container with a big piece of cucumber until they pee. Pee with blood in it can look pink/red or it can looks rusty orange/brown, depending. One of my pigs has chronic bladder issues, and we have seen all of the above from her at various times. I hope it's nothing to be concerned about. Have they eaten anything new recently? As you are seeing it from both of them, it is not obvious red blood, and UTIs really aren't contagious, I would wonder if they've eaten something that would change their urine colour.
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Thank you.

Well I did take them all of veg for 24 hours as Enoch developed soft poos. They also spent a fair amount of time out on the grass. The pee came after they were eating veg again so may be it was that working its way back in to their system? None of the veg was red or orange though.

All piggies were out and about for most of the day on Friday and there were no suspicious looking pees that day
 
Here are some photos of dried pee from various pigs at various times.

I'm not sure if I am being overly cautious or not :( The first and second photo (where the wee is on the plain white tissue) is the same wee patch but the lighting is making the second photo darker.
 

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Claire W said:
Thank you.

Well I did take them all of veg for 24 hours as Enoch developed soft poos. They also spent a fair amount of time out on the grass. The pee came after they were eating veg again so may be it was that working its way back in to their system? None of the veg was red or orange though.

All piggies were out and about for most of the day on Friday and there were no suspicious looking pees that day
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Ahhh the grass may explain it! One of our piggies used to pee quite pink wee after being out on the grass but never at any other time, the next day it would return to normal! I used to worry the grass was rough on her insides, but I am guessing it used to just be a chemical reaction :)
 
That second pic looks like a normal chemical reaction of the wee, it doesn't look like blood to me. Ziggy's blood was in the centre of the wee, it didn't spread out to the edge like that x
 
I do hope so.

But they ate the grass last Monday but the pinky wee was on the Thursday? Erika did eat a lot of celery on Thursday though and that was after quite a few hours of no veg.

The 3rd photo is Emma's. That came out slightly pinky last night but dried to be that colour? She has been eating the same as Erika.

The last photo is Enoch who has the squishy poo problem. He hasn't eaten any veg since yesterday morning since the soft poos started again.

I will still test their urine though as I'm still confused and unsure x
 
Yes still check it & then take it from there, but it certainly doesn't look like blood so hopefully the sticks will set your mind at rest & you'll know if they need a vet visit :)
 
Those urine strips you guys are talking about are they the ones that are for people to use? I am a Type 1 Diabetic and I have used strips like that to test for ketones in my urine and I was wondering if they would be the same thing. If so here where I live you can buy them at any drug store.
 
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