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veterinary fees - some important information

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my piggies' first vet bill was only $60 USD. Turns out they've got a bit of a yeast infection in their ears so we had to shell out $30 USD for the steroid free ear drops. Pretty inexpensive, but then again, our vet didn't specialise in Guinea Pigs. May have to look for another soon.
 
Consultation cost at my vets is £7.95 for my guins. Shambo's last bill was £19. 80 for a consultation, Ranitidine 5mls, Cisipride 1ml & an injection of Butorphanol for pain relief.
 
I'm really unhappy with the cost of Eddies last vet visit. £57 included the consultation, pain relief and Emeprid. That's it. I had to bring him in the next day as well because the vet didn't consider skin issues I was concerned about (he didn't think too much about what the cause was and just treated the general symptoms), and I wasn't told when I booked that the exotic vet wasn't in, and only the regular vet was to see him.

They tried to charge me another £42 for the second appointment, where I got a consultation, a single packet of Recovery and a single mite spot-on treatment. I was so unhappy about this I requested not to pay the second consultation fee as my concerns should have been noted in the first appointment, and he should have had that treatment then. Not only that, I now have to attend again tomorrow to see the actual exotics vet.

Extortionate. I've taken pigs to two other vets before, and at both places the most expensive appointment was £35, which included consultation, medication and follow up checks.
 
Reading some of the posts, I know we will go to the vets because our piggies are ill but unless it's a real emergency, if you can wait about 3 days for delivery, I would suggest to get the diagnosis from the vet and decline to purchase the meds as you can get them way cheaper online. I imagine that vets charge a premium for them as they know people will buy them because you can't exactly find that stuff in your local chemist. It's like buying toothpaste etc from a dentist, they tend to rip you off but you can buy it cheaper in Superdrug etc. You are not forced to buy from the dentist, and it's cheeky but at the surgery you can just Google the medication and decide there and then if the price difference is significant enough for you to not buy it from the vet.

Obviously, if your piggy has had an operation/is very poorly etc then you really do need to buy the meds but depending on how long the course is, you could buy a weeks worth then get the remainder online.

I see there are some common names of medications: Baytril and Metacam for instance and they can be found in places like Animeds. Vetmeds etc. Research the cheapest prices and postage. You could even buy in advance if your pet is prone to illness already and you have used them in the past.

Just a suggestion to save the coppers and I know it won't work for everyone.
 
Woodlands in Plymouth. A very dedicated team too I've gotta say.

I used them for one of my pigs, and one vet was great, the next time i saw another vet who tried to get me to book a completely unnecessary dental because my pig had stopped eating after having antibiotics without any probiotics! He was talking complete rubbish, so i decided not to use them again, i just stick to where i work in ivybridge now as there is a great exotics vet there.
 
Reading some of the posts, I know we will go to the vets because our piggies are ill but unless it's a real emergency, if you can wait about 3 days for delivery, I would suggest to get the diagnosis from the vet and decline to purchase the meds as you can get them way cheaper online. I imagine that vets charge a premium for them as they know people will buy them because you can't exactly find that stuff in your local chemist. It's like buying toothpaste etc from a dentist, they tend to rip you off but you can buy it cheaper in Superdrug etc. You are not forced to buy from the dentist, and it's cheeky but at the surgery you can just Google the medication and decide there and then if the price difference is significant enough for you to not buy it from the vet.

Obviously, if your piggy has had an operation/is very poorly etc then you really do need to buy the meds but depending on how long the course is, you could buy a weeks worth then get the remainder online.

I see there are some common names of medications: Baytril and Metacam for instance and they can be found in places like Animeds. Vetmeds etc. Research the cheapest prices and postage. You could even buy in advance if your pet is prone to illness already and you have used them in the past.

Just a suggestion to save the coppers and I know it won't work for everyone.

I would be careful with this, don't just go for the cheapest as some companies don't sell the real deal, and sell phoney products, you may be paying a little bit more from your vets but it is a security that you're getting the right product, also for prescription only medication you're often charged for the prescription that you need to order the drugs anyway, any website not asking for a prescription is a bad one!
 
Oh I didn't think they might sell phoney products but then basically any medication can be phoney including potentially NHS ones (i.e Boots as they supply the whole NHS AFAIK) as organised counterfeiters are very clever to get their fake meds into the supply chain.

I guess if you stick with the most well known vet med websites and make sure that you go on Trusted Reviews (as you should for any website you are suspicious about) to check the site is legit and read the comments from previous customers, you will be safer.
 
I personally would never buy any medication from anywhere other than my vets.
 
If you look for the VMD (Veterinary Medicine Directorate) accredited retailer logo you should be safe. This is a sign that the company is a part of AIRS The veterinary accredited internet retailer scheme.

Here is a bit more info on it:

http://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/pdf/leaflet_internetretailers.pdf

I personally agree with @Toffeewoffee and would always prefer to buy direct from my vet, but it's a personal choice for you to make and as always it's each to their own :)
 
I happily buy online for thigns where a long course is needed, things like ranoxen for the rats a friend and I bought in bulk online and shared them as they're the go to antibiotic for a rat with a URI. I wouldnt advise self diagnosis in any other case but with rats its common to buy in bulk and give whenever they need them in a course how the vet told you to the first time you took them in ... I hope that makes sense :-) For the rat it takes the cost of treatment from £30 per rat down to less than a fiver, handy when you have 6 and each one gets charged a full £23 consultation! I have rescue rats 2 of which have recurrent URI.
 
I think if antibiotics and pain relief are needed you should get them straight away from the vets as these things need to be given quickly. For anything that requires longer term meds then it can be cheaper getting them online with a prescription. I had all 15 pigs on Itrafungol after Buzz and Izzie died on the same day and got this online as it was about £40 cheaper per bottle (I needed 5 of them). We already had some at home luckily so were able to start the course before they arrived. The vet gave me a prescription for all 15 pigs.
 
I do the same, urgent medications are bought from the vet, and long term prescriptions (such as cushings medication for the horse) are bought from whoever is the cheapest online company. currently I'm using Hyperdrug.
 
I used them for one of my pigs, and one vet was great, the next time i saw another vet who tried to get me to book a completely unnecessary dental because my pig had stopped eating after having antibiotics without any probiotics! He was talking complete rubbish, so i decided not to use them again, i just stick to where i work in ivybridge now as there is a great exotics vet there.
They have a branch in Ivybridge too, that's where Rillo had to have one of her ops. I agree it depends on which vet you see there, there are a couple I won't bother with but the one's I usually see there are excellent. Justine (at the Ivybridge branch) did one of the ops and Jane (at the Plymouth branch) sorted out the rest with Rillo. Sadly, Jane isn't there any more. Can you remember the name of the vet? It wasn't Nick by any chance?
 
They have a branch in Ivybridge too, that's where Rillo had to have one of her ops. I agree it depends on which vet you see there, there are a couple I won't bother with but the one's I usually see there are excellent. Justine (at the Ivybridge branch) did one of the ops and Jane (at the Plymouth branch) sorted out the rest with Rillo. Sadly, Jane isn't there any more. Can you remember the name of the vet? It wasn't Nick by any chance?

I have no idea of the name of either vet, i'm pretty sure it was a blonde woman i saw the first time and a dark haired man the second time, i go to Filham park vets in ivybridge and see Steve :) I only really went to woodlands to see what they were like, i went to the veterinary hospital first and they were quite good but no one particularly good with guineas, hence why i tried else where. Now it just makes sense to go where i work as it's much cheaper thank god haha.
 
I know who you mean with the blonde woman, must admit she's not one of my faves :/ It's always good to hear other peoples views & Filham Park is a note I'll keep in my book for future reference as always handy to have a couple of other options ;)
 
I know who you mean with the blonde woman, must admit she's not one of my faves :/ It's always good to hear other peoples views & Filham Park is a note I'll keep in my book for future reference as always handy to have a couple of other options ;)

I don't remember her being all that nice, she was quite rude, but got the job done so i was just glad to have something for the my pig sorted, but at the time i didn't realise i needed probiotic as well so ended up with an even more poorly piggy. Yeah one of the reasons i try other vets occasionally is just to see what they're like to have other options etc. :)
 
Hi good to hear about your experiences with the Plymouth vets. I use Woodlands for the piggies and tend to see either Jo or Nick. There have been other occasions (with another vet) where the piggies teeth have been clipped needlessly and we have ended up with worse problems than when we started. As for the Vet hospital I have seen 2 different vets specializing in small furries and have been impressed with both.
 
I don't remember her being all that nice, she was quite rude, but got the job done so i was just glad to have something for the my pig sorted, but at the time i didn't realise i needed probiotic as well so ended up with an even more poorly piggy. Yeah one of the reasons i try other vets occasionally is just to see what they're like to have other options etc. :)

Ah, I didn't know piggies needed probiotics. Which ones do they prescribe? Are they the same ones as humans can take?
 
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