vet costs. how do you feel about it?

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no one is saying all vets are bad. I made this thread only to ask people opinions. I didnt say all vets in the world are the same. Its goes without saying that everybody on here would pay anything for there pets but all I'm saying is sometimes it is a waste when alot of the vets do guess work which i could of done myself and saved alot of money. I would never say never take your pet to a vet if needed as its expensive, I'm mearly asking how people felt as the last few time i feel i have wasted my money that could of been spend on my lovely animals in a better way. Its great some of you have good vets. I am still searching for one here and will continue until i find one. Its just hard to find a good vet for guinea pigs, its a shame but thats how it is.
 
I really like my vet and think prices are reasonable (correct me if I'm wrong though). When I took tiger in with an abess and george with mites it was dear at about £33. but following time for them both to have mite treatment only £13 and today when I went for george's 3rd treatment and tigers 2nd it was only £5.30 I have one more trip with tiger next week so expect that to be about £4/£5 which is not bad really it is just the initial consultant which is expensive. I think also the vet took pity on me as this is 3rd time in three weeks I have been there! :))
 
My vet is fantastic and I wouldn't consider going anywhere else! He's very willing to learn and to try new things and without him I would have lost a few of my piggies who are now back to full health. If I am worried about anything I can phone him and he will always call me back. In fact a few people on this forum have called him for advice, and even though they aren't clients of his, he will always call them back and spent time talking things through with them. Although I have to travel about 25 miles to get to him, it's well worth the trip. As well as being a brilliant vet, he's so lovely and caring towards the animals, and you can tell he is passionate about the job he does!
 
My vet is fantastic too, she does dentals/xrays etc without GA and is prepared to go to great lengths to find out what is wrong with the guinea. She was taught to do dentals by PG himself...only problem is if one of my pigs becomes unwell, she often is not there as there are 4 or 5 vets at the practice. I made a bad decision last year to wait until the following day to see her and it cost my guinea his life. The shame of it is, if my vet isn't at the surgery, I dont have the faith in the others at the moment :(
 
If you ask me some vets are a joke with their prices but i have a good vets who know how to treat animals

x
 
My previous vets charged an exorbitant amount & "treated" some of my fur-kids when they so obviously knew there was no hope & they left for the bridge hours later :(

The vets i use now were recommended to me by Linda (Susiechin) on here, she runs a chinchilla rescue & i know of another local rescue who also use them.

When i took one of my buns in, who was limping, instead of dosing her with meds, the vet felt her leg, felt nothing untoward & said to keep an eye on her & only charged me a half consult fee of £9.98. She fully recovered approx 2wks later; most likely a sprain caused by her incessant digging :) but I know my old vets would've dosed her with antibiotics, painkillers & had her x-rayed.

When Toddie was neutered, his 2 post-ops were included in neutereing cost but i took him back again as i wasn't sure he was totally right - i was worrying about nothing, the "lump" i'd found was fat & i was charged nothing.

I trust them completely & love the fact they listen to me & they treat my fur-kids with the utmost respect, not like exhibits.
 
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I personally think there is a very big difference between a vet charging you an extortionate amount when their diagnosis is mainly "guesswork" and a vet charging you an extortionate amount for a correct diagnosis and the ideal treatment, yet the line between them seems to get blurred. I for one would pay anything, and DO anything for my own animals, and I'm sure most people on here would too. A few years ago, my beautiful Yorkshire Terrier scratched his cornea which led to it's ulceration. It had happened before and we took him to see our local vet who advised the same line of treatment - antibiotic ointment. However this time, the treatment didn't work and he ended up having an operation which cost over £250. Luckily he was insured, so we only had to pay the first £50 of the bill, but even if he hadn't been insured, I'd have sold my soul to the devil to ensure he got the best, correct treatment and wasn't in any pain. I was so grateful to the vet and the whole surgery for making him well again, and I think in those cases, your bills go to pay someone who has done many years of intensive training and who has a vast knowledge on animal illnesses and conditions. IMHO, most of the vets in this area are knowledgeable, passionate about animals in general and don't charge over the odds. Does anyone else think that sometimes, prices can reflect the level of care given to the animal too? I am sure there are vets out there who don't give a correct diagnosis and/or charge too much, but basically what I'm saying is I'll do anything for my animals.
 
everyone on here would do anything for there animals that goes without saying. Your lucky you have a good vet but some of us are not as fortunate. I would pay any price for my animals to be ok but i am not happy paying silly prices when they dont know what there doing and make the animal worse in the long run.
 
I have a great vet, and if it is just a checkup after a treatment, then I do not pay. My vet is a piggy owner himself.
There are also things, like my piggy records, that I show him, and he has made notes on their system about Blaze's weight problem, and he even admitted to me what an ideal Blaze weight would be.

My vets are also in a purpose built place, easily accesible by public transport, and just of the Edinburgh bypass, and also very close to where i live which is only a couple of km outside the city centre.
 
SunshineAndTwinkle said:
Alcester I think you were critised because you seemed to imply that all vets were hopeless and you should treat them yourself. It came across as if you were saying not to take pigs to ANY vet whatsoever.

There are good vets and bad vets I'm lucky I have a fantastic vet and also a practise willing to learn. I know to well the heartache of losing a much loved animal though a vet not knowing all about guinea pigs.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more Louise. To be honest here you're hearing a handful of stories about vets being unknowledgeable or incompetent. The fact is, you just don't hear the "good" stories.

It's like any service you have to pay for, you shop around.
 
My vets are brilliant, both with cost and advise/treatment. My last visit cost me £10.60 for 2 consulations and a injection of Metacam. They do help me as they know I foster for Sokel and would rather me spend my money on the piggies food then pointless x-rays etc :)
However me saying that ^ does not mean they dont let a pig suffer or go with out necessary treatment they just dont do anything thats not necessary
 
i am not very happy with a bill i recieved from my vet today i took my rabbit to the vets on the 11 th of march and they performed a needle
biopsy on a fluid filled lump she has near her teat i paid the £15.93 bill
but today i recieve a bill in the post for £27.60 aparently it is the laboratory fee no mention of this at time of appointment or when the vet
phoned me with the results needless to say i have paid it but i am a little
annoyed about it :a19:
 
As mentioned in this thread, paying through the nose for accurate diagnosis and life saving treatment is a financial bother, but paying through the nose for best guess hit and hope treatment is extortion.

For the last couple of years I've been going to a rather pricey vet as he saved Treacles life ("all" she had was a tooth spur, but no local vet could manage to diagnose and treat it, she was more than a month on the syringe and in pain :( ). I believed him to be forward thinking, willing to learn, and well skilled. I'll still go so far as to say dentally he is excellent, I have a degu that has had 6 or 7 dentals there now over two or three years.

However...

What I originally took for a concise explanation to aid understanding of any illness is seeming more and more like bluff and bluster to sound all knowing. This is starting to trouble me, but not as much as the diagnosis and so prognosis given Pimple. OK, so she didn't make it, BUT thanks to his unwillingness to listen we lost a week of treatment based on his advice. Who's to say that week wasn't critical? His surgery fobbing us off for those days so as to avoid having to admit they were unwilling to treat her further on ethical grounds is not a good sign. Medicine is a science, and good science doesn't just come up with a theory in the face of contrary evidence. Bad science does.

I question how it is Debbie's vet phoned me back after I'd rung the same day, to discuss Pimple and possible medication, when my vet seldom if ever phones me when one of mine is actually there for treatment. The best I can hope for in those situations is a phone call from a nurse or receptionist, some time after the event. Given I'm a bag of nerves every time one has to go up there, I don't much appreciate being left in suspense. Although suspense is better than being left sat in an empty waiting room when trying to discuss a case, and being told I can't possibly see the vet as he's fully booked.

More than once one of the critters has come home in a poorly condition, having been given the all clear and "eating and drinking fine" from the vets, or more to the point the nurses who do the monitoring. This is frightening, two haven't made it due to complications after being sent home supposedly fit and well, and but for much nursing at home at least one more would have gone the same way. I've been willing to accept (though not comfortably) the lack of aftercare in the belief the vet himself was genuinely superb.

Now I know this thread is for costs, but the above has some relevance in that maybe people think I'm paying low to mid range given the experiences I have had. So here's a break down of this weeks bill after I had to take Jet in for a digestive issue:

Consultation: £37
Subcutanious fluids (20ml): £9
Metaclop: £12

Plus VAT... Best part of £67.

Now, I did want to be sure Jet didn't have a blockage as though I thought it was "just" bad guts I don't feel experienced enough to make that call absolutely. And I was already heading to this vets to pick up my dentalled degu. But the last thing I was expecting was a £70 bill for a quick grope and jab!

I will say that aside from obsessive use of anaesthetic for x rays and guinea dentals, this vets is as far as I can tell exceedingly good for dental work, and though I have a couple of nagging doubts their surgery seems to be fine too. But the amount they charge for what I'd consider "general practice" is somewhat steep, and as the bill must surely cover the entire experience (from reception to leaving) considering the attitude of the other staff I'm really not feeling I get value for money. And that's the problem, we would move heaven and Earth to help our critters, a lot of vet practices would only move bank notes and costs.
 
Thank god I have 2 good vets with lots of animal skills. Unfortunately, it's the people skills they often lack. As Stinklepig says, I don't like being in suspense either. When an operation is done, I would like to hear about it and I would like to know how they're doing after a big surgery.

Last year when my dog had to undergo surgery because her uturus (is that how you spell it?) was coming out when she was in heat. They had to do a emergency surgery or she would have probably died. And ofcourse, it was on a sunday. The kind doctor didn't charge weekend hours for himself. He had to do so for his assistent, because he can't make that discision for her. The fact that he charged normal hours saved us up to €300. It still was a pretty expensive surgery, but it had to be done, so cost isn't relevant.

He said that he wishes there were more people like us, who would take their dog to the vet, even if it's in the weekend. He has seen many dogs put to sleep, because their owners wouldn't take them to the vet in the weekend because of the costs. Even though he doesn't like working weekends, he's still very happy that he could perform the surgery!

Well, this story has gotten pretty long, point is, that not every vet tries to screw you over by charging extremely high fees. Some vets try to work with you instead of against you and cut back on their prizes ;)
 
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