Now its poorly GP4 who needs sympathy :(

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Y'know when you look in your guinea-pigs cage , what do you really NOT want to see there.

High on the list has to be blood stained pee patches.

This morning (our guineas had puppy pads and fleeces last night with a pile of hay in the sleeping area) the puppy pads had 6-7 fresh blood stained patches

GP4 hadn;t shown any symptoms, no squealy hunchy peeing, no drips of blood, no light bleed. This was out of the blue full on.
We'd had to give her a bum dip on Saturday as she was a bit manky, but no blood in the wash.

So: whooshed her off to the Guinea Vet (with GP6 as company) and now she has antibiotics (suspect cystitis) but possible bladder stone.
(DH suggested she might've passed it already)
She did a couple of bloody pees in the Pighouse, but the pee she passed in the Vets was clear.

She's happy in herself, eating and bossing Bert round .

Only thing I can think of that might've set her off is I changed their food (I didn't think of this till I was driving home). Still Burgess Excell but its a new flavour (they've been scoffing it too)
I'll search out the original one and change back.

Poor girl

[FernieB]

Poor GP4. They do like to worry us. Hope she's better soon. Bert needs to take extra special care of her

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

yes, they do indeed like to worry us

She's a lovely docile sow with people but Alpha Pig with the rest of the Herd.
I've bought some of the Selective pellets (had a scour online to find the low calcium ones) and she'll need to cut back on the dark green veg.

No more fresh blood last night, some darker wee than 'normal' today. But if she is going to be prone to bladder issues then its for life

Onwards and upwards here's hoping .,

[FernieB]

Oooh Selective Nuggets - that's what Gingerpig was on when we adopted him, so he converted Scruffy to them. Madampig is on Burgess Excel so at the moment I'm doing a half and half mix and I have no idea who's eating what but both seem to disappear. I think I'm doomed to buying both brands from now on.

It's the life sentence of no dark green leafy stuff that's the worst thing for a pig. (Scruffy would have starved). Poor GP4. Hopefully a change of diet will suit her and she'll continue to pootle on as pigs do.

[dietcokeandwine]

Oh no 70 poor little GP4.

Hope she settles down with change of diet. A good sign that she's bright and eating, though.

[EastMidsGPs]

Oh no .. more piggie worries. I hope she is feeling better today and peeing loads
Get well soon GP4, spring is almost here.

If she was human I'd ask if she'd been eating beetroot !

Burgess boring mint flavour are the only nuggets that pass muster here. We're very adept at going on hunger strike

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Loads of pee but a couple of blood spots today

I've mixed some Burgess:Selective in a 3:1 ratio to wean her slowly onto it.

I'm sure she misses Oreo but that wouldn't manifest itself like this (it didn't stop her eating when GP5 went to The Bridge)

DH asked me if she'd eaten red pepper or similar but they haven't had anything that would stain , we checked Berts immaculate white rump and undercarriage, nothing on him.

She's pootling about in her usual manner so I'm playing it by ear .

[atheistmantis]

Poor gp4 :(
Ours hardly have any fruit or veg, they get a blueberry once a week under vets instructions but hay and Timothy grass daily. I worry about that.

[dietcokeandwine]

Sounds more like a urine infection than anything she's eating to me.

Ours have stuff like red pepper, carrot, red cabbage occasionally and it's never affected their wee colour.

Has the vet given her any painkillers? Ginger pig got a urine infection a year or so ago - didn't notice any blood, but took him in for a check up because he'd lost weight) and we got some painkillers to give him along with the antibiotics. More I think to minimise discomfort to encourage him to eat and put weight on, but it worked well.

Poor little pig. Is she still bright enough in herself?

[EastMidsGPs]

How's the patient today?
Hope she's feeling better.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

The patient is accepting all the fuss and attention (and taking her medicine .

She is less accepting of the new diet regime cutting back on her beloved spinach and herbs.

GP6 hasn't even noticed that he's on the same regime (I told DD that lardy boars like him could benefit from the new pellet mix. ) We'll increase the ratio of Selective over time.

GP4 is getting her own back by chewing the water bottle at 3am and looking like butter wouldn't melt when I tell her "Oi. Piggie. Stop it"

We're not out the woods yet, thankfully no more blood today.

[atheistmantis]

How are your pigs now?
Gp three is off to the vet this afternoon, he's lost weight and is still having sludgy poos. I think he's not getting the sort that he needs to set to get the nutrients. He's still incredibly windy and stinky and doesn't squeak as much and bites if we touch him by his legs on one side. I'm done with rescue pigs after this.

[atheistmantis]

Needs to eat...not needs to set

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

We've been away for Half Term so the Pigs have been in Boarding , GP4 was taking her antibiotics last week, all was fine............but she got home, did her usual "Mark My Space" pee (she always does a pee in the clean bedding) .....and its blood

Arse.

Going to see how she is overnight then she might need another vet visit
They've just polished off some cucumber and Little Gem lettuce now onto the hay cookies.

So, not out of the woods then.

[atheistmantis]

Bugger. I hope that she's ok.
Gp3 is in disgrace, Ds went to have a shower and put gp3 in my bed with me because he was apparently looking for me ( ) whereupon he pooed everywhere

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

What did your vet say about GP3 athe ?

When our GP3 had loose droppings we cut out everything except hay, pellets and fresh water in the daytime, and gave limited veg at night time (his wives still ate veg so we couldn't eradicate it completely) for 48 hours.

They get the Vit C from the pellets and roughage from hay.

We put some Vit C /Probiotic powder on small pieces of cucumber for him.

If its been going on a while and he's windy and painful, has he a gut imbalance? Yeast build up maybe?

[atheistmantis]

One said no fruit and then the other said to give fruit. We've bought some tummy stuff to go in the water from pets for you and that is helping. He's also got antibiotics in case he has an infection because he's grunting.
Gp4 is nocturnal, he's taken to popcorning round the cage at 3am but never dies it during the day!

[atheistmantis]

Oops does not dies

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Looking back , the thing which seemed to set our gP3 off (and he was a big young Rex ) was apple , I think he had too much.
Maybe it was enough to tip the balance with him (his 2 sows were fine though). So now I'm really wary of apple (it ferments)

Likewise grapes, root veg , all high in sugar.

We give lots of variety, small bits , so of course they scoff what they like first , leaving the kale till there's nothing else. "We'll eat it , only to stop our bums from seizing up" they sigh, martyr-like .


Its difficult to plough through what is going on with them, and sometimes, uou don't find out.

GP2 did normal droppings execpt once a week or so he pushed out one the size of a Ferrero Rocher (no squealing, just squeezed it out), smooth, round, solid.
GP8 does odd pointed end droppings (all the time), not losenge. Flat one end, pointed on t'other.
Odd mammals.

[atheistmantis]

Odd things! Ours normally wolf down purple broccoli (they turn their noses up at the common green muck!) and pak choi. Today they are having apple for the first time - well the first time for baby GS4, no idea for GS3 but we've not given it to them before. They get carrots once in a blue moon.

[dietcokeandwine]

70 sorry to hear GP4 still not out of the woods. Is she any better today?

I tend to avoid apple for mine too...they get some only occasionally. They do love a strawberry top with leaves on though.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Update on GP4:

we were away for HalfTerm (they go into Small Animal Boarding) so we took her medication and new pellets and they carried on the course. She was fine when she was away but we noticed she had a bit of blood (her antibiotics finished last thursday).

Yesterday , I found some weird blood stained mucous in a string (like hair) with small 'lumps' which I found out after prodding , was pooh

We gave them hay/pellets/water for supper , i could hear one or both of the water bottles being glugged at during the night , which is unusual for our piggies , but both bottles were used.(one in each cage)

This morning her pooh nest looked better, bigger solid droppings with slight blood but not slime.

So. Still blood round her rear, she's got something going on.

She's peeing quietly, when she got home, the first thing she did was pee in the cage, it was pretty much pure blood but no noise.

Arrgh. It looks bad doesn't it.
I'm going to have to get another vet appointment. She's the same old GP4,quietly pootling about , I think being away from home puts her out of kilter, she doesn't like travelling either.
She certainly ate plenty last night , lots of pooh evidence.
But something going on inside.
Kidney? Bladder? Stone? Tumour? Cyst?

[dietcokeandwine]

Definitely something going on. Sounds like another vet visit would be sensible.

Poor GP4. Does sound as if she's not that bothered by it all though? Which is something at least.

[fortifiedwithtea]

Poor GP4, she's in the wars somewhere.

[atheistmantis]

Poor gp4.

On a more cheerful note, I gave the piggies spring greens last night and put one large leaf on top of the house. Our gp4 ran around the cage pop Corning and then started sniffing around moving hay but then worked out where it was and put his paws up and pulled it down to share with gp3 ❤️

[FernieB]

Poor GP4. The Fernie gang send parsley hugs and are crossing paws that whatever is ailing her can be sorted - perhaps with the help of some of those delicious meds all GPs seem to love.