Guinea pig bleeding

[Flojobunny]

My female Rex is scaley and dandruffy, then I noticed a puddle of blood, on heat? Period type bleeding? Or maybe urinary?
I've separated her from the other 2 females and will get her to a vet tomorrow. Will she be ok?

Could be urinary infection which can be solved with antibiotics. Is she neutered?

How old is she?

On heat they get a waxy cream coloured discharge.

Could well be a Urinary Tract Infection?
Is she hunched up when she pees.

Is it definately not a wound?

Dehydration doesn't help and I know the hot weather is a blighter for GPs.

She's 12 months old. She isn't neutered as I have 3 female piggies. Haven't seen her peeing, only just noticed this. They had been sleeping outside for past few nights, usually indoor cage which is where she is now on her own.

Check to see where blood is coming from there may be a sore patch which she scratched if her skin is scaly? Ive had a lot of girls and never had blood when on heat.

Hopefully vet will sort out tomorrow. Good luck x

Ps make sure she drinks and has stuff like cucumber or spinach /celery to keep her weeing.

No cucumber in, never thought to give them that. She's on dandelion leaves and broccoli this eve.
I did check, hence why I thought urine or on heat. It's red and weepy looking, but their urine is quite weepy looking at those times so wasn't sure. She's not happy without her pals but hopefully the vet will sort her out tomorrow and she'll be back with them.
She's usually the quite one, last to feed etc hence why separated

If it's fresh blood, I would suspect urinary tract infection. I've had it happen twice with boars and it's very scary-looking, although neither pig seemed overly worried about it. Antibiotics cleared it up swiftly, thankfully. Good luck with the vets.

She might be a bit prone to urine infections if she's been dehydrated flojo.
If she's the quiet one, her cagemates might be preventing her getting to the water.

I use a bowl, (which my boys ignore ) outside and a bottle (which my boys ignore) inside/ in their run.
There's plenty of room at the bowl for both to drink.

If it's cystitus, read up Peter Gurney (he recommends Pearl Barley Water - you make it yourself and syringe it down them) or cranberry juice. But check with your vet because the cranberry juice has a 'natural' antibiotic.

How did you get on at the vets? Hope your gp doing ok .

Thanks for the replies. Vet couldn't find anything wrong with her but have her antibiotics to be on safe side, also treated for mites. I enquired about home treatments to prevent mites but was told they don't really work. Advised to give her vit c in water. Though she does eat plenty of greens as I tend to put her in run/cage first and give her a ten minute head start on the others.
Maybe she has become dehydrated, they usually have a bottle indoors but I've just built them an outdoor pad and using water bowls out there, is it possible she doesn't know how to use water bowl? Or are they usually good at sourcing what they need?

Glad she got on ok...sounds like treatments should help. I would put water bowl and bottle in to be on safe side but some of them just dont seem to drink so make sure she gets lits of cucumber, water melon, celery etc to keep her hydrated.
This heat is not helping so try and keep her shaded as well :)

I'm not sure why many vets seem to push the "put vitamin C in the water," line. If pigs get vitamin c rich foods every day, they really shouldn't need supplements but even if they do, putting it in the water won't guarantee it gets into the pig.

My boars both drink like proverbial fishes, but put anything in the water and they won't touch it - so it would have the opposite effect from getting them to drink. If she is okay about it though, just make sure and use a glass bottle and bowl, as vitamin C makes the water acidic and this can cause chemicals to leech out of plastic bottles into the water.

What antibiotic and what dosage was she given?

Also, it might be a good idea to supplement what she drinks with a syringing with water. If you think she might be dehydrated, you could mix up some dioralyte with the water and give that - maybe 4 or 10 mls 3 or 4 times a day. That will help flush out anything sinister and make sure she's well-hydrated until she can get "back on her paws."

There's more info about UTI's and links to info on antibiotics here, which may be helpful. www.guinealynx.info/uti.html

Best of luck!

Not sure what she's on, giving it her via the syringe so getting a bit of water and vit c in too.
Vet said piggies love melon skins, is that any melon or did she mean water melons. Bought a galia, can they eat that? Got cucumber to try too. Can they eat courgettes? They were on offer at tesco! Want to give them as much variety as poss, stuck safely to carrots, spring greens and dandelion leaves mainly.

Hi Flo

courgettes are fine
watermelon, any melon are fine (and skins)

I don't give Vit C as a rule as my boys eat a variety of veg but I did syringe water + crushed Vit C when GP2 was ill (he wasn't eating pellets and very little veg).

I saw a video where the owner was giving a Vit C tablet which the GP ate (not a human Vit C , IIRC it was an enriched vitamin tablet for GPs. And one very well trained GP). I'll try and find the name but it might have been in USA.

Mine don't entertain water so there's no point putting it in their drink.

There's not many veg that guinea-pigs can't have ; you just need to monitor the quantity.

Cabbage/brocilli/spring greens - too much can cause wind (and if they get bloat it can be fatal).
no ice-berg (too watery and no nutrition)
the very dark green veg like spinach, watercress , kale needs to be limited
fruit can give them sore mouths and you need to be aware of the sugar content

dandelions can be diuertic - so if you are trying to get fluids into the pig be careful how many she has.

I usually do 4-5 choices per meal and try to give different for supper.

Whole sweetcorn (with the leaves) is wolfed down here
And GP1 thinks a sprig of parsley = a bag of parsley.

Oh I never thought of sweet corn. Thankyou for all the info, chances are then I might be giving too much greens, though there are 3 of them.
The have a guinea pig muesli in the morning which tends to just get picked at. About 20 dandelion leaves (between them) and a couple of carrots and an apple.
They don't seem to like the vit c water. The bottle doesn't seem to have gone down much, if at all.
Peppa's scaley back seems much better though since the treatment. She back at the vets on Monday, in meantime I'm syringing antibiotics. Maybe I should syringe in the vit c while I'm at it and leave the water alone.

Hi flo hope gou are getting on ok. Reading waht you have written it might be that they are having too many dandeluons, as 70 says, they are diuretics so maybe making the weeing situation worse?

Mine loved peppers, celery, tomatoes apples and banana skins plus the odd slice of wholemeal bread in addition to 70s list above..... A bit random!! Maybe you coyld find sone of that seedy type grass too x

Could
some
sorry for typos

Banana skins? Wasn't aware of that one, or bread. Really must try new things, just scared of giving them the wrong thing and killing them.

Flo they love banana (I give them a 1" chunk, it can give them constipation if you give too much)

Off the top of my head, the things they definately cannot have are:

dairy
meat
fish
eggs
onion/onion like (leeks,spring onions)
potatoe (any part)
beetroot leaves but the actual beetroot is good
iceberg lettuce
nuts
honey
avocado
chocolate

any plants from bulbs- daffodils.lilies,bluebells
buttercups,daisies on the lawn
some dock leaves are ok some poisonous so best avoid all

I researched tree/wood for chewing and found these on the list

fruits with stones and the wood from those trees (so no peaches, cherries,plums)

Most guineas are good at avoiding what's not good for them. But don't rely on this (they aren't the sharpest tools in the shed)

And my boars were quite partial to a toast crust if they were sharing a special breakfast.
No butter or marmalade thanks mum

Oooh and I bought some Sorrell and thought "Herb. That looks nice"

But when I looked on various sites it said sorrell was poisonous so I gave it to DH used it for us.

I think though there are more than one sorrell plant. Maybe in USA it's a different plant.
Didn't risk it though

One of mine loved kiwi fruit skin - full of Vit c. The others didn't like it at all!

All of mine liked tomatoes, apples, broccoli, spinach and especially dandelion leaves.

And when they are poorly and not able to eat for some reason, we've given them innocent fruit smoothies - lots of goodness and no effort to eat ( use a tea spoon or a syringe)

Thankyou so much, want to go to tesco now and try everything!

Gave them 3 cherry tomatoes but they aren't interested. The cucumber hasn't touched their sides though.