Lilah

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Wildflower

Post   » Tue Apr 25, 2023 12:42 pm


*forewarning - death is mentioned in this post*

Hello everybody!

I'm on the board of a guinea pig rescue and I'm one of the primary medical fosters within the rescue. I've had a lot of experience with most medical conditions (and plenty of pregnancies) over the years but I don't have much experience with pregnancy toxemia and I wanted to reach out and ask for suggestions. I hope to become more active in helping others here based on our experience as well!

About three weeks ago, we had an inbred four-month-old female guinea pig come to the rescue. She came from a hoarding case where she did not have good nutrition and was of course living with males. She was so pregnant that she could barely walk and she gave birth three days after we got her (15 days ago) to two female babies. Lilah (the mom) was very thin and small in general (barely 400 grams) after giving birth and lost more blood than usual (but nothing extreme). She had a huge appetite and was doing well. Her babies were born two different sizes - one was double the size of the other one. The littler one was displaying signs of hypoglycemia within the first twelve hours of being born but fortunately, we were able to correct it and she is doing well.

We noticed that Lilah was starting to look dull and lethargic about five days ago (so ten days after giving birth). She was still eating and drinking everything she was given (and was extremely talkative, you could hear her from another room) up until she passed away before dawn this morning. Aside from being quieter and dull, she was still eating, drinking, interacting with her babies, wheeking, and walking around. We spoke with our vet about separating her from the babies when she started to look dull five days ago but she advised us to give her a little bit of time to perk up first. I was already very concerned about pregnancy toxemia (although we couldn't prove it through diagnostics) when she first started looking dull but I also know it's a little bit late in the game two weeks after birth, has anybody heard of it happening that late? One of the most concerning things to me is that six hours after she passed away, her body was still soft. She did not go into rigor mortis at all. We took her body to the vet this morning for a necropsy and are waiting to hear for results which I can post here.

The main reason that I am posting this is out of concern for her two babies. They are now fifteen days old and they were found trying to nurse off of her body this morning (and they were promptly separated). If it was toxemia, what should we be doing for the babies? They're far too small for us to get bloodwork on and we don't want to lose them too. If it was not toxemia, are there still risks because they were nursing despite her not being healthy? Bottle-feeding the babies is absolutely doable (although they're perfectly capable of eating on their own now and have been eating and drinking all morning on their own) but I want to make sure that we aren't missing anything else that we should be doing for them.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Tue Apr 25, 2023 10:27 pm


It sounds like you are much more knowledgeable about reproductive issues than I am. Most of the medical issues brought to our attention do not relate to pregnancy. Other members who have more experience may add their advice.

I am sorry you lost the mom. Information we have on hand feeding pups can be found on this page:
https://www.guinealynx.info/handfeeding.html

I am not surprised they are eating on their own - and will likely do well, too. If you are not already, I would weigh the pups daily right now, while you are concerned with their intake. You could also supplement with a "mush ball" of Critical Care which they might eat on their own from a plate/clean smooth surface.

I can't comment on the late rigor mortis (don't have a medical background and have not researched this).

I can say the board has a pretty good search engine and people have been posting for over 20 years so you may turn up advice doing a search.

Do update us on how the pups manage. You sound like a very conscientious caretaker.

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