Clare King
New Born Pup
Hello all, I’m not expecting much advice but just wanted to write down my thoughts and know this will be an understanding place for me to write.
We collected our pigs from their holiday boarding establishment on Friday just gone and one of them is seemingly extremely poorly. I just want to clarify that at no point am I putting any blame on the boarding establishment, they did all that they could for her. We’d been away for 2 weeks and on the first Monday, she was wet underneath so they took her to their vet who diagnosed a uti and she was prescribed 0.5ml of baytril once a day and 0.22ml of feline metacam (also once a day). All seemed to be ok and they text me and said she was doing well and was no longer wet underneath.
When we arrived to collect on Friday, the lady said she was worried about Bella as she’d been very quiet the last few days and hadn’t been out and about the hutch much and they weren’t sure how much she’d been eating. She said that her eyes had seemed half closed esp in the mornings and she’d been giving her some syringe food too. She was also still on the baytril and metacam.
Bella did look very sad and sorry for herself when we saw and her coat was not shiny or smooth. All our other 7 pigs were absolutely fine and looked just as they did when we left them so again the boarding establishment have been great in caring for them. I must also clarify that Bella is a rescue pig and very very timid so her hiding away wouldn’t be a great surprise and I had warned the boarding establishment that she was very shy and quiet.
I took Bella to our vets when we got home and after an examination and X-ray then we found out she had a large amount of gas in her stomach and our vet said her stomach was completely empty and didn’t think she’d eaten for 24hrs
.
We came away with metaclopramide, Zantac, dog metacam and more baytril and syringe food. We’ve been administering all these since Friday and feeding every 2-3hrs approx 10 mls at each feed but we’re just not seeing much (if any) improvement. I went back to the vets yesterday to see if there was any improvement and there were some small gut sounds and she is doing some small and very irregular shaped poos.
As there currently aren’t any uti symptoms then we made the decision to stop the baytril in case that was affecting her appetite with the option to restart it or a different antibiotic if needed. Her teeth were also checked and there were no sensitive areas on her jaw and her teeth also looked ok. There was also evidence that she had been eating a small amount of hay.
So that leads us to today, we’re still on the metacam, metaclopramide and Zantac and syringe feeding with emeraid. Bella has shown very little interest in eating, she ate a tiny amount of romaine lettuce but otherwise isn’t wanting dry food or any hay. I’ve been and got some readigrass today and she had a small nibble this afternoon but no real interest. She has lost about 250g since we took her in for holiday boarding but has remained reasonably stable at around 1100g these last few days. We are due to return to the vets tomorrow afternoon and i just wondered if anyone else had had any ideas or experience of anything similar.
Bella is approx 4 1/2 and before this has always been fine and in the 18 months she has been with us has not had any issues. The weight loss is particularly noticeable across her back and haunches. She is sitting very still in the cage (she lives with her sister and a neutered boar) and not wanting to move on her own. She is interested in food and raises her head when she hears it being chopped but when I put it in the cage she sniffs at it but then turns away, it’s like she hasn’t the energy to bite. She is also very wobbly on her legs and bunny hops instead of walking normally, I’m not sure if this due to the muscle loss or something else. (I meant to say, no stones were found on the X-ray).
I apologise for such a long thread but I’m just at that horrible stage where I don’t want to give up on her if there might be hope but again I absolutely don’t want to keep her going if I’m being cruel as currently this doesn’t seem to be much of a life for a previously energetic pig. I will be absolutely guided by my vet too and as I said I’m not sure what I’m wanting from posting here but I think I just wanted to get all my thoughts written down. I’ve not had a pig with severe bloat before so I’m unsure of the recovery ‘timeline’ and if 4 days of meds to still not want to eat is normal or if there’s something else going on there like kidney failure or a stroke. Thank you for letting me write everything down and you’re incredible if you’ve read all this
We collected our pigs from their holiday boarding establishment on Friday just gone and one of them is seemingly extremely poorly. I just want to clarify that at no point am I putting any blame on the boarding establishment, they did all that they could for her. We’d been away for 2 weeks and on the first Monday, she was wet underneath so they took her to their vet who diagnosed a uti and she was prescribed 0.5ml of baytril once a day and 0.22ml of feline metacam (also once a day). All seemed to be ok and they text me and said she was doing well and was no longer wet underneath.
When we arrived to collect on Friday, the lady said she was worried about Bella as she’d been very quiet the last few days and hadn’t been out and about the hutch much and they weren’t sure how much she’d been eating. She said that her eyes had seemed half closed esp in the mornings and she’d been giving her some syringe food too. She was also still on the baytril and metacam.
Bella did look very sad and sorry for herself when we saw and her coat was not shiny or smooth. All our other 7 pigs were absolutely fine and looked just as they did when we left them so again the boarding establishment have been great in caring for them. I must also clarify that Bella is a rescue pig and very very timid so her hiding away wouldn’t be a great surprise and I had warned the boarding establishment that she was very shy and quiet.
I took Bella to our vets when we got home and after an examination and X-ray then we found out she had a large amount of gas in her stomach and our vet said her stomach was completely empty and didn’t think she’d eaten for 24hrs
. We came away with metaclopramide, Zantac, dog metacam and more baytril and syringe food. We’ve been administering all these since Friday and feeding every 2-3hrs approx 10 mls at each feed but we’re just not seeing much (if any) improvement. I went back to the vets yesterday to see if there was any improvement and there were some small gut sounds and she is doing some small and very irregular shaped poos.
As there currently aren’t any uti symptoms then we made the decision to stop the baytril in case that was affecting her appetite with the option to restart it or a different antibiotic if needed. Her teeth were also checked and there were no sensitive areas on her jaw and her teeth also looked ok. There was also evidence that she had been eating a small amount of hay.
So that leads us to today, we’re still on the metacam, metaclopramide and Zantac and syringe feeding with emeraid. Bella has shown very little interest in eating, she ate a tiny amount of romaine lettuce but otherwise isn’t wanting dry food or any hay. I’ve been and got some readigrass today and she had a small nibble this afternoon but no real interest. She has lost about 250g since we took her in for holiday boarding but has remained reasonably stable at around 1100g these last few days. We are due to return to the vets tomorrow afternoon and i just wondered if anyone else had had any ideas or experience of anything similar.
Bella is approx 4 1/2 and before this has always been fine and in the 18 months she has been with us has not had any issues. The weight loss is particularly noticeable across her back and haunches. She is sitting very still in the cage (she lives with her sister and a neutered boar) and not wanting to move on her own. She is interested in food and raises her head when she hears it being chopped but when I put it in the cage she sniffs at it but then turns away, it’s like she hasn’t the energy to bite. She is also very wobbly on her legs and bunny hops instead of walking normally, I’m not sure if this due to the muscle loss or something else. (I meant to say, no stones were found on the X-ray).
I apologise for such a long thread but I’m just at that horrible stage where I don’t want to give up on her if there might be hope but again I absolutely don’t want to keep her going if I’m being cruel as currently this doesn’t seem to be much of a life for a previously energetic pig. I will be absolutely guided by my vet too and as I said I’m not sure what I’m wanting from posting here but I think I just wanted to get all my thoughts written down. I’ve not had a pig with severe bloat before so I’m unsure of the recovery ‘timeline’ and if 4 days of meds to still not want to eat is normal or if there’s something else going on there like kidney failure or a stroke. Thank you for letting me write everything down and you’re incredible if you’ve read all this
removed. Thankfully they all came back as fatty lumps and he recovered really well. He’s still on the milk thistle but his last blood results showed all levels were back to normal ranges and his weight is now stable. 
