Mr. Bubbles and Scruffy

Post Reply
User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:00 am


I'm relatively sure he has impaction. He isn't pooping. His belly is a little distended and he can barely walk with his hind legs. He's dragging them a little. I'm stopping his food intake for the night and administering water with a few vitamin drops. I'm going to give him as much as I can get into him every hour. He'll drink a little bit and nibble hay, but he needs a lot more than he'll drink on his own.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:27 am


The reason I think he has impaction is because of his age and symptoms. No discharges from any of his "openings", distended and tender belly and no feces despite him eating. After I posted the above, I got Mr Bubbles to drink 3-4 ml of water from the syringe. I also came across the article on impaction in the medical portion of this site. I followed the directions and got one very small ball of hard feces and a regular sized cecal feces out of him. I'm sure there's more a little further up there, but I couldn't get anything else to squeeze out.

I've traumatized him enough for now, so I'm going to let the water I got down his gullet cycle through and repeat the process in an hour or so. I don't think what I'm doing until I get him to the vet is going to hurt him and it may help even if I'm wrong about the impaction. I've never heard anything about a guinea pig getting too much water. More to come later.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 6:27 am


Second and third hours got at least 2 mL of water into Mr Bubbles. He's starting to pass some feces and it's looking a little moist. Also noticed that he passed two of them together. Not full size, but that could be because he didn't eat as much over the last 24 hours as he usually does. I've seen him nibbling his hay too. I'm not sure I'm opening his anus enough to get all of the impaction out, so there's that. I'll have the vet look at that and maybe she can get more out if it's in there. In the meantime, I'd like to think that every little bit I can get him to pass has got to be helping.

Bookfan
For the Love of Pigs

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:57 am


Keep us posted.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:11 am


Don't squeeze the stuff out! If it's been in there a long time, it will be very hard.

You can soak his bottom in warm water and gently manipulate the sac to loosen it up. The take a q-tip dipped in oil or water and scoop the rest of it out. There can be quite a bit packed in, and it may take a while to remove it. You can flip the sac open with your fingers to make it easier to see and get to the poop.

Also, if you dig out some of the cecal poop (soft, green, smelly), offer it to him to eat. It helps with digestion, and the longer he goes without the stuff the worse his pooping situation will be.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 12:57 pm


I called the vet and they are going to see Mr Bubbles on space available. I went to get him out and found him dragging a strung together chain of small poop behind him. It fell out when I picked him up, so I took a picture of it to show the vet. Other than the initial dry and hard ball I got out of him, I'm not squeezing anything out of him per say. It's more like it comes out when I flipped his sac open. I'm sure I'm not doing that part right, largely because he's struggling.

In the middle of writing this post, the vet called and said that his anal area is pretty gnarly but they couldn't find large amounts of impacted feces in there. She couldn't feel any masses in his belly either. It looks like he has bowel irritation going on. It could be something he ate. There's no way to tell really. They're going to clean out his anal area and we're going to do critical care and mineral oil for now and see how he does. They'll reevaluate him next week after this dietary treatment.

The good thing is that he is eating some and passing poop on his own. His eyes, nose and ears are clear. His weight is good for now but it's only been a day and a half since his decline in eating. The critical care and mineral oil should keep his weight up and make it easier to get his bowels moving properly again.

User avatar
Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:04 pm


The string of poops does likely indicate gastric upset of some sort, and could well be something he ate. Does it look like mucous stringing them together? I'd be inclined to try a good probiotic to help get his gut back into balance.

User avatar
Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:25 pm


Poor guy! I hope this is something that resolves - at least you will see the vet tomorrow.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Thu Oct 08, 2020 10:57 pm


Hey Sef, it didn't look like mucous holding them together unless it dried out. It looked more like thin strands of hay or something like that. I got about 6 or 7 syringes full of critical care into him throughout the day. He nibbled some hay and I even got him outside to graze on grass. He didn't devour a large amount like he usually does, but he did eat some. He passed a few droppings and they looked small, but otherwise normal. It didn't seem to cause him any discomfort either. I hope we're on the right track.

I'm going to try and get more critical care into him tonight than I did during the day because I am not comfortable with the amount he took in during the day. The feeling I got between the critical care and the rest of the nibbling he did wasn't enough food for him. I'm also going to leave some lettuce and maybe a cucumber in with him overnight in case he decides to eat on his own. Of course there'll be plenty of hay in there as usual. It'll be clean because I changed his cage bedding today.

I was looking at the packaging for the timothy hay cubes I got for the piggies and noticed that there's alfalfa in them. He also had cilantro the other day. I wonder if one of those things which he doesn't normally get could have caused this.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:01 am


Did the night feeding. Went ok. I never envisioned having to do this with Mr Bubbles. He's always been a very hearty eater. He's trying that sad squeaking to try and get me to not put the syringe in his mouth. It's not working, but it makes me feel extremely sorry for him. Anyway I got at least 10 mL into him before he just wouldn't take anymore.

Come to think of it, I should have been posting this on the medical thread. I will do that from now on. I will quote the posts to it from here so the record is complete.

User avatar
Renonvsparky

Post   » Sun Nov 08, 2020 9:10 pm


Image

This is what lap time is about! He really loves his wheat grass!

Bookfan
For the Love of Pigs

Post   » Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:49 am


Such a handsome boy!

Post Reply