[Weatherlight]

My cavies often leave some white powder stuck on the fleece. Several days ago, there was white that wasn't powder; it kind of broke into tiny chunks when I scratched at it. Figuring this was the bladder sludge mentioned in the sticky, I decided to cut way down on the calcium for a few days and see how it goes (I wouldn't use such a low CA:PH ratio longterm, of course). Yesterday afternoon I put clean fleece in and checked it this morning. There were some small whitish-yellowish spots, but there was also a lot of white on one spot. I put my finger on it and it was soft and solid...like play dough or clay? I have never encountered this before. A little while later, it dried. Then it was definitely chunky, although these crumbled easily into powder.

I don't know how there could be so much excess calcium considering the CA:PH ratio the past few days has actually been below 1 (I found this out yesterday when my kitchen scale arrived). I was going to raise it to at least 1.5 from today, thinking some calcium deprivation for days was more than enough.

Another problem I've noticed is that some poops were small and/or tapered. Might this be related? I started carrying lettuce to them in bowls full of water and gave lots of it twice a day (they won't eat much cucumber). The bad poops are now a small minority of the total, but they're still there. I've gotten another water bottle, and this morning changed the location of the 3rd, which they don't use much. When I move the hay rack, I'm placing it near at least one bottle hoping this will encourage them to drink. I can't think of what else to do and don't know what I'm doing wrong. They all love hay and mealtimes, but I think (not sure, I should measure) they're drinking less from the bottles, maybe only because they've been getting more moisture from veggies. Otherwise they seem perfectly healthy from what I can see, enthusiastic about food, exploring and training when I move houses and hay rack around, etc.

Sorry. I think this is too long.