Sick guinea pig - what to do?

[ChocolateLover2000]

One of our guinea pigs was losing weight so on Wednesday I took him to the vets. Two separate vets said he had overgrown molars which needed to be trimmed. On Friday he had his molars trimmed at the vets who seemed more confident with guinea pigs. Unfortunately he's really not eaten much since then, not drunk any water and barely pood. We got liquid food for him and guinea pig laxatives but he's not really improved. He only eats the liquid food, very little else. I feel that surely this is only going one way and we are going to end up having to have him PTS. I know the lack of poos is a bad sign in guinea pigs.

Husband is more inclined to persevere than me. I feel I can't be hand feeding a guinea pig several times a day with two kids and while working - can I? Especially when it's probably just going to prolong things.

Piggy is only 2.5 years and currently lively enough while we keep with the liquid food, so I feel awful about this. But from everything I've read it's just not likely to get much better. Even if he survives this and goes back to eating normally his molars might well get overgrown again quite quickly.

What am I meant rto do?
W

Hi, I would recommend theguineapigforum.co.uk
Extremely knowledgeable about how to look after sick piggies and everything else you could possibly need to know.
You can read through guides or join the forum to post your story for expert help.

Re planing teeth under GA; i've found it really knocks the piggies out for a few days and they seemed reluctant to eat afterwards, presumably because their mouths were sore / bruised which meant that the teeth rapidly overgrew again.

I've had more success with finding a vet or rodentologist who will trim molars without anaesthesia. It sounds cruel, but it takes under a minute for an expert to find the painful spurs and trim. Sometimes a rodentologist will take the piggy in for a week or two to syringe feed and 'train' the teeth to grow correctly

If you are in the South East i know of some vets who are able to do this if you want to pm me. Also try contacting the Cambridge Cavy Trust who know of most rodentologists and vets who do this, and 'hospitals' for sick piggies

Another second for the Cambridge cavy trust, they were great when my guinea pig had dental problems, the syringe feeding is time consuming I used to sit with my guinea pig and feed it whilst watching tv. You can soak Burgess guinea pig pellets in warm water, mix it in a paste for syringe feeding, you can buy it in pet shops. Also might be worth putting the guinea pig back with its buddy, it might perk it up, just need to watch them for a bit to make sure they are getting on okay.

Thanks everyone. I've ordered a load more critical care which should arrive today and we'll see how he gets on.

Great news, OP. Keep going - I guarantee you that the thrill of seeing his first normal-sized poo in days will be well worth the effort!

Thanks. He's really hungry and loving the critical care, but I'm worried he'll never get back to eating hay (which he isn't interested in at all at the moment). How long are we meant to give the critical care for?

If you keep him in the cage with hay he will one day just start eating it again, he won't become addicted to mush! Keep trying with little scraps or sticks of tasty veg. My older piggie took a week to get back to normal but he had other issues going on and was not keen on eating. To check if you are feeding enough weigh him every day and if he is losing you need to feed more.

Mine took about a week too. She had got dehydrated during a hot spell in August and was disorientated and unbalanced so we knew something was up.

She is back to full throttle now though!

Oh yes, the weighing every day was essential too.

Have you spoken to the vet about this? Give the surgery a ring and ask to speak to the vet as you’re not sure he’s recovering as he should. A good vet will speak to you.

Vets always seem to underestimate recovery time. If he is eating and enjoying the critical care that's good. It is possible to have problems with the healing/ bruising/ infection of the gums but then he would be fussing about eating Anything. Imagine you had just had your wisdom teeth out!

Thanks. He's mostly just having critical care but he will attempt to eat some veg. Right, we'll keep on with it then. Poor piggy!

Did they cut his front teeth too? Short front teeth makes it tricky to pick up the hay. They will grow back to the right place on their own.

Thanks everyone for your advice last week. We have been giving GP the science selective recovery food for 9 days now. At first he hoovered it down off a spoon and started to put on a bit of weight. But now he's lost interest in it and is losing weight again. He still eats some veg (but not as much as he used to) and hasn't eaten any hay for weeks I think. I've not seen him have any water in the last couple of weeks either. He used to wheek like mad for food when we were nearby but doesn't do that at all now. He mostly sits in one spot and is quite inactive compared to the other GP who is often moving around, eating hay etc.

I'm not sure realistically what else we can do and I'm going to call the vet later. I'll take on board what the vet says but I think he will have to be pts now....