new to the forums

[spikeandkiller]

Hello everyone!
My name is Michel and I am the proud mommy of 2 boars. They are half brothers that I took in from an irresponsible friend of mine who brought a male into her female cavy family (the one male impregnated both her females within weeks!) She has since remedied the problem by having the young male fixed. Fortunately, she did find good adoptive homes for all of the "accidental" babies and all are doing very well. My two babies are Spike and Killer Bee. Spike is the orange/brown and Killer is the black/calico. They get along very well together for both being males since they were born within weeks of eachother.

They are going to the vet tomorrow for the first time together. I'm starting to suspect a possible mite infestation because Spike has been digging at his rear end an awful lot these past couple of days and there seems to be some hair loss in the area as well. If that is the case, I really want to get them both treated before either of them end up in too much agony! My poor babies! But because of this site and cavyspirit.com I know all the questions to ask my vet and the things that I know he should be doing. I feel so prepared for this visit now... Thank you to everyone involved in these sites!

[PiggieMom]

Thanks for saving your babies and fixing the problem with your friend! Welcome to the site. When you go to the vet, don't let them do a skin scrapping. It's painful and most times it comes back negative even when there is a mite problem. You can treat for mites as a precaution anyway, so just ask for the treatment. Just in case you didn't know already!

[jdomans]

Welcome to the group. We look forward to pigtures and hearing more about the boys. What a great mom you are.

[spikeandkiller]

Oh, boy! The vet visit today was quite the adventure with the boys!!! They were mad at me in the first place for putting them in the carrier together and then since my car is older and has absolutely no a/c they were all grumpy when we got to the vet's office. Then we had to wait almost an hour in the waiting room with a bunch of really loud barking dogs. They were so good for the vet once we got in the room, though. I was really amazed! They usually squeel and put up a fuss when strangers try to hold them but their vet was so gentle and kind to them! The only time they cried or anything was when she was giving them their injections of ivermectin. But as soon as she pulled the needle back out they both just relaxed and drank some water. It was actually kind of cute because Killer went first and he is smaller than Spike (almost a full pound difference) and when I tried to pick up Spike to get his shot, Killer tried to keep me away from him! It was like he was telling me "Oh, no! I'm not letting you hurt my brother now! That stuff HURTS!"

Anyway... the vet was really great about everything. She really listened to what I had to say about the mites. When she took a good look at Spike she said I was more than likely right about it. She just sort of used a little piece of tape to remove some of the flaky skin around the abrasions on his rump (I don't even think Spike noticed what she was doing!) About a minute later she came back and told me it definately looked like mites and said she would administer the injections right away. PLUS when it was all over, she only charged me $23 for full exams on both piggies and both of the injections!

Overall I would have to say that this vet visit went very well!
(sorry this ended up being such a long post! I get so darned long winded when it comes to my lil babies!)

[SugarSpice]

welcome to the site , glad to hear everything went fine .Sounds like you or should I say your pigs got a really great vet .

[jdomans]

THis is great!