Uti in guinea

[tobee]

My dd's 4,year old guinea pig Toffee is suffering from a nasty uti. The vet prescribed baytril for 10 days. She's taking it well but is crying occasionally and chattering/teeth grinding. She's drinking, quite lively and eating reasonably but not really eating her nuggets her source of vitamin c. I've just given her some leafy greens and fresh pepper but I think I'll nip to pets @home for vit c drops. I'll also get some grooming wipes as her bottom is a bit mucky but I might wait because I don't want to mess her about too much. Anyone got any other tips for dealing with guinea uti?

Aww poor Toffee

My DDs piggie (about the same age as your piggie) deposited several patches of blood on the puppy pads overnight , we took her to the vets that night, got the antibiotics.

She improved , took her meds , she wasn't in any pain when she peed .
We cut right back on any dark green veg, did some adjustments to her pellets (you need to do slowly) increased the % of selective (lowest in calcium that I could find, they were on Burgess Excell)

We knew it was her, the cagemate had a white rump/bum.

We did a couple of quick bum dips rather than wipe , her fur round her bottom got a bit claggy, she did feel better after,

I'd like to say it ended well, but sadly, not.
She was on her meds when she went to Boarding and they kept a close watch on her bedding, she was improving.

When she got home, we noticed she was peeing blood again, but it tailed off ....then we had to start Critical Care so we knew she was on her way out.
As she wasn't in pain, we kept a close check (her and GP6 were inside) she died a few days later.

I had some powder (Probiotics + Vit C) to go on the veg but she was struggling to eat by the end.
I did the "Shall we take her back to the vet/shall I not" but I'd had one of my other hogs PTS the month before and I knew I didn't want piggie to go through tests,scans etc.
I knew she'd go and provided she was comfy I'd just let her.

Would I do anything different? Probably not.
We took her to the vet the day we saw blood
We trusted the Boarding to do what was necessary (including PTs if needed)
She lay in her cage the last day , with gP6 (DH was home)
DD came home from school, piggie died about an hour later.

I think if Toffee is showing signs -crying,grinding then she might need painkillers (they love them)
You might need to syringe feed and syringe fluid .

Keep a close eye and keep her comfy. Go by what she needs.
We didn't have the outcome we wanted but our guinea had the calm end we wanted .

Thanks for your reply. I've fed 2 previous Guineas critical care through long nights and it was no fun for anyone. They also died. Sorry your gp story didn't end well. Toffee is currently just eating and drinking a tiny bit and weeing and pooing but with blood and soft. She's normally big and fat and eats for England so it's a big change in her. I didn't know you could give them pain relief. I heard somewhere they can go off food on baytril which is pretty unfortunate. Dd home from university in the next hour so will give her lots of love.

By the time they need syringe feeding they're in a bad way.
We kept it up because we knew that stopping eating causes the gut to go into stasis and then organ failure , rather than because we had any hope of turning her round

GP4 did tiny droppings, I found something like a strand of beads , it was in fact mucous with tiny droppings in it, then her droppings were like a grain of rice.

Lots of cuddles for Toffee, the last few days/hours are hard because you don't want to aggrevate them but you want to spend time comforting them.

Your vet might give you Metacam/Meloxicam (our boar had Loxicam after his castration)

Good news! Toffee is still here and seems better "in herself". Still eating and drinking and pooing and weeing but sadly still crying when weeing. Anyway, she's still alive and we're thinking of putting her back with her cage mates tonight.