G'Pig has a cough

[Cheeptrickortreat]

Hi

My G'pig has a cough, is there anything i can do to help her? We have all had the flu/cold illness, could she have caught our cold?

Its horrible sitting here listening to her cough and not to be helping her. She has water and food and hay - they live in a cage on the breakfastbar in kitchen so get veg and lots of cuddles. I dont know what else to do

Take her to a vet asap. Guinea pigs are susceptible to respiratory infections which can prove fatal quickly.

She will almost certainly be given an antibiotic - Septrin is preferable but Baytril is acceptable.

I'd also make sure she's getting plenty of vit C in the form of dark green, leafy veg and sliced peppers as this can help support their immune system.

Also make sure that there are no draughts in the kitchen and the humidity and temperature are fairly constant (not the easiest things to ensure in a kitchen) as high humidity/temp fluctuations aren't good for them either.

Thank you - our vets is open tomoro so i will take her in then.

We put vit c drops in their water everytime we change it but the cage is above the radiator. Its not great but its the only place they can be at the mo as house too small. They started outside but there were slugs in the cage and i didn't like them being out side so got them in last year and put them in the run during the summer and bring them in at night.

The coughing seems to have stoped now but i will still take her to vets tomoro.

Thank you for your help.

Vit C drops in the water are ineffective as it can react with the metal spout and chlorine and change into other compounds, plus GPigs usually need 50mg of vit C a day or 100mg if they are sick, and it is diluted beyond a useful amount in the water IYSWIM?

Your vet may have a sweet vit C liquid you can drop straight into their mouths, or make up some from a vit C powder from Holland & Barrett into distilled water and mix with something sweet (such as frsh apple juice, or ask at your vets for Oxbow Critical Care formula) as it is rather sour.

Best of luck.

Thank you i will ask vet for some tomoro.

I didn't know that it was not good enough just to put the drops in the water

Unfortunately most people don't, so don't feel bad about it. You were doing what you thought was best for the GPigs.

It's only because DD1 has spent many hours researching vit C concentrations in these liquids and has spent a LONG time talking with her vet about it that she actually knows.

Please thank your DD for me - i will see it the vet has a better vit c soloution for us and up the green leaf veg.

DoesItWearingWellies do you give Vit C as a matter of course or do they get enough from a varied diet?

We give Burgess Excel pellets (orange bag) ,loads of hay daily -ours eat the bedding hay even though they've got plenty in the rack, so I give fresh daily)
Grass, dandelions,spring greens,brochilli,cauliflower and leaves,rocket,cucumber,parsley,carrot and occasional apple. We divide between breakfast and supper so we're not giving the same things.
I've given them red pepper but they gave it the thumbs down (if they had thumbs that is [hgrin] )

Should they have Vit C supplement? (Both 1 yr old boys, fur covered eating machines)

3 times a week DD will give them 50mg of vit C, just to supplement a varied diet (very similar to your boys Lord), and it certainly won't hurt them to do the same, although I know DD does it as a belt-and-braces type thing. She will give them 100mg daily if they are ill.

There's been a couple of respiratory infections, plus one currently has an infected toe so they get 100mg daily for the duration of the infection, then for a week after the symptoms are gone.

The one with the infected toe also has dental problems so it was advised that vit C would improve this so he would normally get 50mg daily.

Grrr, it's really annoying because the Royal Dick Vet Hospital still recommends inclusion of vitamin C in water bottles. Any time I've gone there they mention it during the assessment and I just go "yeah, yeah," but I know that neither CCT or any of the small animal rescues of repute recommend this.

I've never given supplements to any of my pigs, but am careful about giving vitamin c rich fresh foods and have never had any problems. The only time I've given supplements was with a mini pig from a dodgy pet shop who had ricketts when I got him. Poor wee mite.

I'm not sure how additional vitamin C would improve dental problems. Generally if a piggie has dental problems, it's an issue for life and ongoing maintenance is the only way to deal with it.

Additional vitamin C is supposed to help "firm up" the tooth sockets and prevent the teeth loosening, just as would happen in humans with scurvy I assume. I don't think it's supposed to cure it, just prevent it from getting worse.

By all means feel free to correct me wrt vit C, I'm only relaying information from an exotics/small animal specialist vet (but I do know that vets get very "set in their ways")

I will admit that with the other 8 GPs before these we never supplemented them with vit C, but DD has been very "PFB" about her boys.

Would like an update, too, pretty please.