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Wheezy pig?

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Amanda1801

Amanda1801

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So.. After determining that the pig with the intermittent cough when eating was Jeff, I took him to work with me on Sunday and got him checked over.

Leslie the vet couldn't find anything wrong with the examination that he did. Lungs sounded fine, no teeth issues (I spent ages cleaning his mouth out!) heart sounded fine. He did say his breathing was a little bit wheezy if you listen closely with a stethoscope (took me a while to hear it myself!), but certainly nothing to warrant antibiotics. He said it could be a ?mild allergic reaction.

So...fastforward to today. He's still coughing intermittently when eating, but now he's wheezing audiably. He sounds like a chicken cooing. Again, it's intermittent, but frequent, sort of for 5-10 seconds every 4-5 minutes.

He's DUDE fine, he's his normal self behaviour wise. I've called work tonight and made him an appointment to see Carol one of the best vets in the place, 10.15 tomorrow morning (the top small animal vet is there, but fully booked, but I'll probably be able to grab him at some point!).

What I want to know, is if anyone has ever experienced this?

Could it be the beginnings of a RI? Could it be an allergic response? Could it be heart related? His gums and tongue are still nice and pink, so he's not hypoxic or anything, but I'm monitoring. I'm aware that heart conditions often need an ultrasound or x-ray to be diagnosed, so should I get this done anyway? Luckily I have an ex colleague who is a veterinary cardiologist who I could email images to if necessary....

The problem with Jeffy being a rescue, is that I don't know his age. The RSPCA had him down as 18-24 months, but he could easily be older than that.

Any ideas?

Amanda & Jeff
 
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When my piggies are being greedy and scoffing there dinner they cough sometimes. I think they just sometimes get a bit of food stuck while scoffing.

A heart problem cough would more likely happen after sleeping and excessive exercise. I would assume an allergy cough would be straight after putting new bedding in and a RI would probably show more signs than a simple cough. Such as nasel discharge and upper respiratory noises which your vet would have picked up on.

Just sounds like a greedy pig.

x.
 
Abi_nurse said:
When my piggies are being greedy and scoffing there dinner they cough sometimes. I think they just sometimes get a bit of food stuck while scoffing.

A heart problem cough would more likely happen after sleeping and excessive exercise. I would assume an allergy cough would be straight after putting new bedding in and a RI would probably show more signs than a simple cough. Such as nasel discharge and upper respiratory noises which your vet would have picked up on.

Just sounds like a greedy pig.

x.
Click to expand...

Theres no nasal discharge, no real resp noises on Sunday (I also examined him myself) but this wheezing isn't right. It's a proper hooting noise, like a pigeon cooing! There's no real pattern to it either, like after new hay or bedding, and nothing has changed, not washing the fleece in anything different etc. He's been popcorning about, and it seems to be after that that he hoots most.

I think I'm going to be in for a long night - Jeffy is my bestest pig!

Edit: now he's coughing again :( He's not eaten anything for a while so he's not been gobbling!
 
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can't advise, but one of our piggies long time ago was coughing regularly, she didn't have any other symptoms; we tried different bedding and it was all gone very quickly as she appeared to be allergic to it.

our pigs do wheeze sometimes after washing themselves: we think the white disinfecting liquid they discharge for washing gets into their nose and they wheeze for a while until it dries out.

but I don't know anything about heart problems, so can't really advise.
 
I do sympathise....It's really concerning isn;t it especially when you cant seem to identify what the problem is.

I have had cooing in several piggies..all with different causes:

Bailey had intermittant cooing - I isolated that down to an allergic reaction to his first "teddy" and once it was removed we have had no more problems.

One of my new girls developed this cooing after being outside in the run in early May for the first time (she has travelled a long way from a compeltely different area of the country). I think it could have been a reaction to some of the tree pollen around here as I myself dont normally get hay fever but had real problems over those few days she has had no further episodes.

Grommie had chronic pneumonia with intermittant cooing/nasal noises....he was given frusemide diuretic to clear the fluid when he got bad and I found that a steam bath with Vicks bubble bath helped clear him for a time. We didn;t X ray him for heart porblems and we never managed to identify the cause as it seemed to be more nasal rather than lung-based.

We did however X ray Muffin who, it turned out, really was a heart pig (but had no cooing sounds :{). The only evidence she was a heart pig was swollen paws, ascites in the abdomen, lethargy, bluish tinge to her lips and fluid round the heart/lungs seen on X ray (i.e. stethoscopes couldn;t find anything). Once on heart meds she really perked up



I would suggest that if you are sure you;ve ruled out an allergy you get an X ray done as this will show up fluid either in or around the lungs and amy also show a slightly enlarged heart. If they can look at the teeth roots as well that would be helpful as I'm thinking more of the choking issues here...choking is often a sign of early teeth issues.

The only other things I can think of is some type of obstruction in the nasal passages (either hay, an abcess or growth) that may be intermittantly interfering with the airway passage and causing the sounds you hear...(x ray or ultrasound may help determine this) or I believe a bug infection in the trachea (tracheitis.) can also cause choking/cooing and sometimes baytril isn;t enough to shift it so maybe azithromycin or other suitable antibiotic would be better (a throat swab may be able to help diagnose if this is the case)

Sorry I can;t be more help but hopefully there are some pointers here as to what to discuss with the vet going forwards.

x
 
Thanks for the huge reply Pebble!

I've been checking his lips/gums, ears, feet etc. throughout the night and no issues there, but this hasn't been going on for very long so it doesn't rule out heart and/or circulation problems.

we're going to the vets in 2 hours, so we'll see more then. I'm going away tonight so might end up leaving him there, and writing those three very expensive words on the consent form.... "treat as necessary" :x
 
Well..

We're trialing antibiotics as a first option, although the vet isn't convinced it's a respiratory infection and neither am I, but they make a logical starting point treatment wise. So, after discussing pros and cons of baytril vs septrin and decided on septrin.

The vet I saw agreed with me that it sounds like an allergic response, or heart problems developing. Whatever it is it seems to be progressive. If the antibiotics work, great. If they dont make any improvement, or he gets worse, the next stage will be investigation along the line of ultrasound and X-rays.


I've left him at the vets tonight as I'm away for the night so the nurses will medicate him (septrin = yummy according to Jeff but fibreplex not quite so!
 
Collected Jeffy (and Cameo who was keeping him company of course!) tonight, he seems much better already. Read his notes, he had another check up this morning and according to the vet that examined him, his lung sounds are normal, so hopefully it is just an infection that's on it's way to being sorted!

I've not heard any suspect noises or coughs since he's been home, so fingers crossed it stays that way!
 
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