My guinea pig might have a problem of some sort, I'm not sure. Any ideas?

[sophistacavy]

It would be great if Ly&Pigs could also give me her opinion.

Well, I have a female guinea pig named Noel, and she is my youngest cavy of 3 total females. I adopted her from PetSmart (I know how some people on here feel towards PetSmart, so just try to remain calm ^_^). I have had her since exactly December 24th,2007. Concerning age, I'm not sure, but when I brought her home, she seemed pretty young and smaller than she is now, so she's grown, which I guess places her age at pretty young. So now, she's that much older.

I've noticed that when I hold her on my lap (sitting on the toilet with the lid down to put Animax ointment on her nose), her sides (not right at her butt, but more like 2/3 or 3/4 of the way there) seem to have little soft lumpy things there. I don't think they're very formed, and they aren't like a rock solid abcess either, I'm able to gently move them around, they're a bit squishy.

I tried to sorta hold her by them(she wasn't in the air at all, still fully seated on my lap), and it seems like 2 things that are probably there, not like I'm confusing them with something else. Then, I looked at her kind of at a bird's eye view, and "one of them" was out more on the left(which was where I looked). I took some photos for you all to see, once I get them on here, . I definetely don't feel these same things on my other 2 girls, by the way.

Here are the photos:

[fourboys4now]

Could she be pregnant? I've seen preggie pigtures before and they usually make the piggy look pear shaped. If not, maybe a cyst or something of that nature. I would make a vet appointment just in case it is something serious. Good luck with your baby.

[guinealovee]

Looks like she's pregnant.

[cavyinhawaii]

Pick her up and hold her side to your ear. Can you hear chattering? Late in pregnancy you can hear baby teeth chattering.

[mommyoffive]

Try palpating her stomach and then hold your hand still on her belly for about 10-20 seconds and see if you can feel anything moving in there.

[frashy]

Try the tips that everyone else is giving..but another thing to check for is try tapping on it and see if it sounds hollow..it might be bloat. Unless you figure out that it's pregnancy you really should consider going to the vet.

You should keep us updated though, that's kind of odd, because the it looks like she has a funny dent which doesn't look exactly right for a pregnancy. Though, I'm not experienced about breeding and pregnancy.

[sophistacavy]

I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has responded so far. I will use your advice to try and tell if she's pregnant or not, and if I think she might not be or if I'm not quite sure, I will take her to the vet.
Also I will do my best to keep you updated.

Thanks again!

[VoodooJoint]

Is there any hair loss or thinning of hair on her sides? Has she been acting "off" lately, rumble-strutting more? Trying to mount? Aggressive?

How do her nipples look? Do they appear elongated? Crusty? Any discharge?

I don't think it's pregnancy. It's to singularly pronounced for that. It looks a bit more like she may have Ovarian Cysts...perhaps an ovarian infection because of how pronounced they are. I have had 2 females with cysts and have become rather well versed on the subject.

There is a good thread about Ovarian cysts, their symptoms and treatment, here on GPH. It's here http://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/...inea-pigs.html

Dilly's cyst story on GL is here. She was my first girl diagnosed with it and my inexperience shows in the dialog Guinea Lynx :: Topic - Female GP with bald patches


For the full story of Meg's diagnosis and spay on GPH the thread is here (by this time I'm practically and expert) http://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/...y-surgery.html Meg's thread on GL is here Guinea Lynx :: Topic - Meg is getting spayed

[Ly&Pigs]

She doesn't look pregnant to me. Take VJ's advice as this pig could have ovarian cysts or some other type of lump or tumor on that one side. VJ went through the ovarian cyst problems with my grandpiggie Meg and her other pig Dilly. I've not had to deal with any major medical problems with my own girls other than a couple of eye injuries.

[pigsforlife]

I was also going to suggest checking out ovarian cysts earlier on, before either my computer mucked up or the forum did!

Ovarian cysts are certainly something that should be brought up with your vet. She doesnt need to have all of the symptoms for it to be Ovarian Cysts either.

GL article - Guinea Lynx :: Ovarian Tumors (nice picture too!)

[pigsforlife]

VJ, I have to ask. I just read through your threads on Meg's and Dilly and how you took photos and videos. Do you still have the videos?

[VoodooJoint]

Yes, I still have the videos but I never did edit them for size and upload them.

[SerpentineSylph]

Sorry to run off topic, but I love your new avatar, VJ!

[sophistacavy]

Ok, I'm going to take her to the vet ASAP. Thank you for the advice.

Its not anything I did wrong, right? Its just that PetSmart doesn't take good care of them, and they don't get them from a nice place?

Thanks!

[VoodooJoint]

Originally Posted by SerpentineSylph

Sorry to run off topic, but I love your new avatar, VJ!

Thank you, I figured it would give people a laugh. For those of you that don't know it's based off Star Trek NG (the Borg), although I'm not really a trekker I did used to enjoy the show.

Originally Posted by sophistacavy

Its not anything I did wrong, right? Its just that PetSmart doesn't take good care of them, and they don't get them from a nice place?

It is most likely nothing you did and nothing you could have prevented. It is also quite possible that there is nothing really wrong as well.

Cysts seem to be unexplainable. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason. I feel it's genetic and without knowing the complete medical history of an animal's genetic line there is little that can be done to track the "whys" and "hows".

My Dilly was an SPCA rescue, probably a petstore pig. She first developed cysts then developed a sudden and profound malocclusion. During the teeth trimming (under anesthesia) she stopped breathing several times and had to be recussitated. She was slow coming out of anesthesia, survived the surgery but died later that evening. The vet (a VERY good one) stated that it was all (cysts, teeth and death) probably due to genetic issues she always had that tend to suddenly "explode" when a pig reached 3-4 (Dilly's estimated age). He has seen similar problems crop up about that age in pigs many times. We don't know if it's a local breeder's line or if it's nation/world wide.

Meg was from an accidental pregnancy. Her mother and father are rescues of unknown origin. Meg herself has always had the best of the best of care yet she still developed cysts before age 2 (seems genetic to me).2 sows became pregnant by the same male. Her 2 half siblings both died. 1 was stillborn and the other died within a week despite supportive care. Meg's full brother died at about one year of age of unknown causes and we aren't certain if her sister is alive or not as we haven't heard from her adopter in a while.

All in all my pigs, although unrelated and from different regions (Meg was born in Arkansas) both seem to have poor genetics that caused the cysts and other issues. I watch Meg like a hawk hoping that other problems don't crop up and so far she seems healthy and happy.

As far as "it could be nothing", I fostered a couple of older females that were dumped at the SPCA a couple of years ago. I pulled them and fostered them because I thought they were pregnant and had mites. I took them to my vet and it turned out they weren't pregnant at all (but did have mites and other skin issues). The slight pear shape and bulges at their sides were caused by poor muscle tone from lack of exercise. They were probably kept in very small cages. I'm not certain how active your pig is but if she has a large cage and moves around a lot it is most likely not sagging muscles.

[sophistacavy]

VoodooJoint: I'm so sorry to hear about your Dilly. I had a cavy named Lucy who suddenly had major pneumonia out of nowhere (we sort of found out why later on) and died within 24-48 hours. I was going to take her to the vet after school, but when I came home, my mom told me she was dead. We actually had a autopsy done on her, and the doctor said he found progressed pneumonia in her lungs, and that was defientely what had killed her. We sorta figured out that our cat, who recently recovered from tonsilitis, had somehow induced her pneumonia when we (without thinking) let them sniff each other face to face. How does pneumonia come from tonsilitis anyhow? , I still haven't figured that one out.

I wish you the best of luck with your guinea pigs's health. Noel is currently in an almost cramped Marchioro cage(not too bad, really) that is 38" long by 19" wide, but with 2 other sows. I am soon going to, in the very near future, switch them to this 2 grid by 5 grid C+C cage that I have sitting around. I am also going to be using the fleece bedding method from that point on, and eventually adding a 2nd story sized 2 grid by 3 grids. Noel won't have to wait too much longer, so don't worry.

Thanks so much for your story and other advice/info. I really appreciate it, and its helped too.

Everyone else: Thank you also, for your continued assistance. I will try to keep you updated.

Currently: Am taking Noel to the vet (Banfield) today at 5:00 pm. She is still acting perfectly normal, so thats good. She isn't showing signs of discomfort.