Off to emergency vets with guinea pig and dodgy back leg:(

[DazzlePaintedBattlePants]

One of our pigs is all of a sudden not using a back leg. Had snuggles fine this morning, but didn’t appear from their hidey hole when I gave them a new wicker ball. Didn’t think anything of it until this evening when I noticed her lying in front of the hay rack at an odd angle :( She is eating, drinking and pooing fine, and can hop around the cage but she’s not bearing weight and it does bother her because she bit me when I tried to pick her up.

Emergency vet trip booked this evening - silly question but do I bring her sister as well? They’ve never been apart. What do vets do for dodgy Guinea pig legs?

You can take both the guinea pigs with you as long as the vet doesn't mind, it's quite a good idea as they do pine for each other and familiar humans.

We had one with a broken shoulder, it was pain relief and possibly surgery depending on how the guinea pig got on from after the initial treatment.

Could they have been fighting?

X ray shows clear femoral fracture :(
Fighting is a possibility - there’s a bit of alpha pig stuff going on. We’ve got Metacam and vet thinks it will heal itself with cage rest so fingers crossed. She’s out of her hidey hole and eating, so that’s something. Poor piggy!

Metacam will help. Are you able to divide the cage for a bit ? We did that for a while with previous pigs when bonding them, it gave them space to get used to each other.

Well pig was quiet yesterday but perked up after her Metacam and is eating and drinking. Has also been spotted loafing around outside of her hidey hole which I think is a good thing. We’ve split them as far as possible and gave them more places to hide. Would like to see some more poo but she’s not eating as much as usual. Came over to say hello when I was poo picking in the hope of more parsley!

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

Well pig was quiet yesterday but perked up after her Metacam and is eating and drinking. Has also been spotted loafing around outside of her hidey hole which I think is a good thing. We’ve split them as far as possible and gave them more places to hide. Would like to see some more poo but she’s not eating as much as usual. Came over to say hello when I was poo picking in the hope of more parsley!

So far so good.

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants how is your guinea pig getting on ?

The pig lives 😄 I’ve even seen some (gentle) popcorning, but no jumping onto the roof. Back on light cuddle duties. We had bought them a fleecy pigloo for Christmas which we gave them early and she’s claimed that for herself and generally likes to lounge around on it. So fingers crossed we’ve made it through- I doubt her leg will ever be 100% but she’s noodling about with no problems.

I am ridiculously attached to such a small beast❤️ Thank you for asking!

Also Metacam is clearly the pig equivalent of crack. We had no problems getting that into her

I'm so pleased!
Metacam certainly seemed to perk up our piggie who decided to jump from the top level of the cage (climbing over the barrier to do so) to the bottom and knock out two of his teeth.

AIBU to have happy piggie news make my day?