It has been a while since I posted about Mr Bubbles. He just turned 4 and is doing well. He did give me a little bit of a scare yesterday. I went in to see him and discovered that he didn't touch his red bell pepper from the night before. I thought that maybe something was wrong with it, so I gave him a green one for his morning veggie feeding. He didn't eat that either.
I had a terrible flashback to the ordeal with Scruffy and got a sick feeling in my stomach. I was thinking the worst and I started really hating 2020 more than I already do. I know that Mr Bubbles is starting to get up there in age and that he's not going to live forever, but he still has plenty of time and life to live. I'm not ready to lose him and definitely not the same way I lost Scruffy. 2020 has been bad enough without losing my best piggy and little buddy.
Once I started looking into this, I realized that he had made short work of the lettuce he gets to go with the bell pepper. I gave him a bit of cilantro and he ate that right away. Same with every other veggie and his grass. Man, does that little guy love his grass. His water, hay and pellet intake is normal. His urine and feces output hasn't changed either. He's not showing any physical signs of illness; no tenderness in his abdomen, no discharge from his eyes or nose. His activity level hasn't declined at all. He still runs up to greet me with a squeak and a cage nibble. He also jumps into my arms when I reach for him and once I pick him up, he still nestles under my chin and purrs for me.
So I guess it turns out that he's just tired of bell pepper. That's understandable considering he's had them virtually every day for the last 4 years. I'm giving him a couple of days break from them and giving him carrots and cucumber on alternating days to go with his lettuce.
Why are my piggies getting sick?
New medical development with Mr Bubbles. I got started posting about it on his chronicle thread when I should have been posting it here. I'm quoting what was posted there so far and will be continuing with posting updates on him here.
Bookfan
For the Love of Pigs
Post » Wed Oct 07, 2020 12:31 pm
It does sound like he's otherwise fine/eating normally.
This may be more serious than I thought. Mr. Bubbles didn't want anything to do with lettuce today. He did eat his cucumber, along with some hay and fresh grass though. He not very active this evening and he's squeaking like he's in pain when I hold him. Same thing Scruffy did the night he died. I'm really upset here. I can't get him to the vet until morning. If he doesn't eat his night veggies, I'm going to try hand feeding him critical care. He doesn't have any discharge from his eyes or nose. Haven't seen a lot of feces output so it looks to be a digestive issue. I'll try to keep posted.
ItsaZoo
Supporter in 2019
Post » Wed Oct 07, 2020 9:08 pm
Good luck with Mr. Bubbles, I hope it's just a minor digestive issue and he'll start feeling better soon.
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.
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.
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.
bpatters
And got the T-shirt
Post » Thu Oct 08, 2020 8:11 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.
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
Supporter in 2019
Post » Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:04 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.
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.
So that is everything from the other thread so people don't have to go back and forth between the two of them in order to stay caught up with what is happening.
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.
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Bookfan
- For the Love of Pigs
How is Mr. Bubbles this morning?
Sounds like you're doing a good job of getting cc in him. All of our pigs have complained about being force fed cc. Carly got some this morning & balked, but she's finished off some leftover from Gracie's feedings at other times & loved it. So it's clearly lack of appetite, not the taste. Daughter has started a thing where she syringes the pig a bit of cc & then gives her a nice snuggle, then repeat.
It is possible something new - cilantro - could cause gastric distress.
Sounds like you're doing a good job of getting cc in him. All of our pigs have complained about being force fed cc. Carly got some this morning & balked, but she's finished off some leftover from Gracie's feedings at other times & loved it. So it's clearly lack of appetite, not the taste. Daughter has started a thing where she syringes the pig a bit of cc & then gives her a nice snuggle, then repeat.
It is possible something new - cilantro - could cause gastric distress.
Mr Bubbles condition hasn't changed much. He left a reddish brown urine between 11:00 PM and midnight. I felt the color run out of my face when I saw that. I looked for possible causes of reddish brown urine and or blood in the urine online and it's not necessarily blood. It could be from something he ate or he could be dehydrated a little. If it is blood, it can be due to stones, a URI, bladder infection or the worst case; Cancer. I stewed on that with a heavy heart until I had to go in and feed him at about 2:30 and got a little bit of relief when I saw a puddle of bright yellow urine with a slight orange tint. I have him extra water. I also sent photos to the vet and I'm waiting for a call back.
He was fed a couple of things yesterday that he's never had before. The apple-banana flavored critical care, mineral oil and the white powdered benebac probiotic. I'm keeping tabs on it and haven't seen any fresh urine yet today. He took on between 2 and 3 tablespoons of critical care with the probiotic mixed in. I give him plenty of water with it, so I should have my answer today. He didn't eat any of the veggies I left for him, but I caught him nibbling on a little bit of hay. I also saw some of his droppings by his pellet bowl. There's not very much in there but I still couldn't tell if he ate any of them. His water bottle is close to the bowl and I know he's drinking water, so he could have dropped them while getting water.
Speaking of droppings, they're still smaller than usual by about half, but look normal otherwise. I'm giving him some time and then he's getting more critical care with extra water.
He was fed a couple of things yesterday that he's never had before. The apple-banana flavored critical care, mineral oil and the white powdered benebac probiotic. I'm keeping tabs on it and haven't seen any fresh urine yet today. He took on between 2 and 3 tablespoons of critical care with the probiotic mixed in. I give him plenty of water with it, so I should have my answer today. He didn't eat any of the veggies I left for him, but I caught him nibbling on a little bit of hay. I also saw some of his droppings by his pellet bowl. There's not very much in there but I still couldn't tell if he ate any of them. His water bottle is close to the bowl and I know he's drinking water, so he could have dropped them while getting water.
Speaking of droppings, they're still smaller than usual by about half, but look normal otherwise. I'm giving him some time and then he's getting more critical care with extra water.
I mixed it once with his critical care per the vet's instructions. It's supposed to comfort the bowels and help him pass droppings. I'm not giving him anymore since he's passing them just fine. That was the directions; to stop when that happens. I think he's got an infection though because his droppings are still coming out strung together. They separate when they dry. I have SMZ/TMP left over from BJ because I only gave him one dose. It doesn't expire until 1/31/2022. The dosage reads 40 mg per 5 mL. Just don't know how much to give him for his weight of 2.7 lbs.
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Sef
- I dissent.
Mineral oil can act as a laxative, and humans do use it for that purpose. However, the problem with any oil like that is that, in theory, the oil coats the contents of the GI tract and thus could prevent it from becoming hydrated enough to move. In other words, the oil makes the GI contents "water proof." I know there are vets in the UK who advocate its oral use but, here, not as much.
Are you providing a poop sample to your vet for fecal analysis? That would be the best way to tell if there's a parasite or infection going on.
Are you providing a poop sample to your vet for fecal analysis? That would be the best way to tell if there's a parasite or infection going on.
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Sef
- I dissent.
On the SMZ, you can use the dose calculator here:
https://www.guinealynx.info/dose_calculator.html
According to it, a 1.2 kg pig would need roughly 0.75cc (30 mg/kg).
https://www.guinealynx.info/dose_calculator.html
According to it, a 1.2 kg pig would need roughly 0.75cc (30 mg/kg).
So would mucous holding together a chain of droppings indicate an infection? Dr Landon is a good vet, but she gets busy and is bad about calling back. My wife thought that the second urine, the yellow one looked a little mucusy. I wonder if I should go ahead with the antibiotics. Does SMZ/TMP treat a bladder or UT infection?
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