New baby guinea pig seems sick, bought at Petsmart, please help

[Mappertreasure]

In fifteen minutes our veterinarian's office opens and I will call to make an appointment with him. However, I don't know what time I will be able to get in on the Monday after Thanksgiving. So if you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know.

This little piggie had a scab on his back, and he feels very thin, even though he has a round tummy. He has not been eating or drinking or pooping much. We can feel his hip bones, which we have not felt in a long time with our other piggies. The scab came off easily when my dh inspected it and the skin under it is smooth. There does not appear to be an abcess that we can find. My instinct tells me that the piggie is not doing well, but it's hard to tell since our other two pigs are the picture of vibrant guinea pig health.

We bought the piggie yesterday afternoon at Petsmart. You can see below for the story. If you have any advice about what to do, please lmk. I think I am going to order some Critical Care and find some local beneback just in case. Thank you in advance for any help or advice or support you can give us.

We have two adult one year old female guinea pigs who are big and healthy, thanks to lurking on these forums. They get regular fresh fruit and vegetables, have their food and hay and vitamin C shipped in from Oxbow, and they have a gigantic cage (I'll go check the cube grid sizes as soon as I post this, yikes). Our 7 year old is obsessed with guinea pigs and has read every juvenile and adult book on guinea pigs at our local library in addition to those we purchased on our own. She holds the piggies gently for one to two hours a day, just sitting and stroking them. She also reads these forums, but we don't let her post here.

So -- I knew better than to buy a baby guinea pig from a pet store. In my defense, we held off on buying this piggie for an entire week and only relented in the face of our 7 y.o. daughter's tears for the entire week. She felt a soul connection with this piggie. Maybe on some level she knew it needed us, I don't know, but we have it now. Maybe I'm just making excuses. But it doesn't matter now -- the piggie is home with us.

PS: I am Treasuremapper, but I could not get my password to work.

[starshine123102]

Since it is from a petstore it could be mites, especially since you said there are scabs on his back. The vet will most likely do a skin scraping. You could try dosing your piggie with ivermectin, but make sure he weighs enough to do so. There is a dose calculator on guinealynx. Guinea Lynx :: Dose Calculator

Good luck with you new piggie. I hope all turns out well.

[Mappertreasure]

We got an appointment for one hour from now with a new vet. Our regular vet cannot see the piggie until 5pm tonight, and that will be an insane rush hour journey, plus I don't want to wait that long. The appointment is at 9:40 this morning, just a little over an hour away.

Is there anything I should ask or some way to tell if this is a good piggie vet?

Thank you for the suggestion of mites. I'll look for them. This was one big scab, not lots of little scabs. Does that make a difference?

[starshine123102]

not all pigs that have mites have scabs and you usually can't see them. Giving them Ivermectin if they don't have mites won't hurt them. The only thing is is that I think they need to be a certain weight, but I don't remember what it is.

There are questions to ask your vet to make sure they are safe. If they can't answer them correctly, don't let him/her treat your pig. Read this link and ask the questions they have on there. Especially the questions about the antibiotics. If they don't know this they can easily kill your piggie.
Guinea Lynx :: Finding a Veterinarian

Good luck!

[breezy2]

I would say, if you think it may be mites, skip the skin scraping and just have her treated by the vet with ivermectin. I am not sure if mites would cause her to be thin though. How many guinea pigs was she in with? It could have just been hard for her to get her share of food, if she is small and maybe young. Speaking of being young, any idea how old she is? Could it just be that she is very young and really shouldn't even be away from mom yet? I know some petstores have a reputation of selling sick, pregnant and too young guinea pigs.

Guinealynx is a great medical forum, where they may have more answers for you. But i think the best answers will come from your vet. Good luck.

[hueyeats]

Wow great story write (I am bad at grammar & spelling sometimes).

Hello & welcome to GPC.
I am a newbie more so that yourself as my pig-xperience only dated back to 9 weeks & like you, I lurked around this forum for quite a bit and am a guilty party to the "should know better" but still commit that sin of buying a store bought piggie.

My buy wasn't the tears of a 7 years old & without that pressure as well... Mine was my own heart that got melted by a very beautiful but skinny abby originally named (Coconut Pudding; melts heart), then Tofu & dubbed Snoopy by DH & finally she is dubbed "Diva" (she is a very picky eater & loves the most colorful & most beautiful of foods). She still only responds to, "Hi beautiful" though... hence "Diva".

She is a very skinny abby when I bought her off the petstore (like you said, could feel her hips & spine). My whole mission was just to fatten her up which I did. She is also a young pig at 4-5 months old when I got her.

I agree to why so many here oppose to buying from Petstore even when I am a guilty party... but she is my 1 only Piggy bought compared to the rest of my gang. I have a total of 4 (3 adopts, 1 "Lucky" added recently) now & may add 2 (older pigs) more adopted to my pack.

P.S. I do not know much if your new addition pig needs critical care as regular food intake is part of a healthy pig; other members will be better answering that. One thing I know we as pig parent should do is when in doubt, always consult your vet. I am lucky that my vet is a family member, all my pets are pre-checked by her (yes, I did troubled her even for Thanksgiving (me bad) for my new addition), except for my turtles (she do not do reptiles; more farm animal oriented).

I do hereby wish you luck with the new addition.

[Mappertreasure]

Thank you for your help. The veterinarian found additional scabs and said it appeared the piggie had been fighting. His office handles lots of small exotic mammals at Westgate Pet and Bird in Austin, Texas.

He had all the Oxbow products on shelves in the waiting room and he said that although he has frequently used Oxbow Critical Care, our new piggie is just stressed and needs some rest and observation. Interestingly, the piggie pooped and peed all over his box, which was reassuring. Unfortunately he was temporarliy out of the Oxbow pellets for young and nursing piggies, so I may have to order that online.

The vet gave us several handouts on guinea pig care, including dietary guideilnes that seem consistent with those on this forum, so that seemed like a good sign. The vet tech made me feel comfortable when she told us she weighs guinea pigs all the time (I expressed concern that the piggie would jump from the scale to the floor, but they had it set up so that was impossible).

So even though we paid fifty seven bucks for the exam, we would have had the piggie examined anyway as a new pet. I will be checking out guinea lynx some more.

This forum is great, thank you again.

[Mappertreasure]

I found this information from one of the links above. I tried to edit my post but could only reply. We saw Dr. Brand. Apparently he is a guinea pig expert, so I feel pretty confident about the examination and following his recommendations.

Drs. Harry Miller, Paul Brand, and Rick Lusk, DVMs
Westgate Pet & Bird Clinic
4534 Westgate Blvd. (at Hwy. 290)
Austin, Texas
(512) 892-4463
Recommended by: Kelly Wagner
Comments: All three vets at this clinic were trained at Texas A&M, especially in exotics; they work with all kinds of exotic animals but rabbits and guinea pigs are some of their biggest volume... They also take phone calls from out of state vets for consultations.

[rabbitsncavyluv]

I"d still treat him for mites. Often people mistake mites for war wounds. Keep in mind mites makes them irritable and they squabble.

Pet stores pigs often have mites, URI, fungus and other issues.Get some vit C and supplement him. He likely has had a poor diet and may have scurvy issues too.

Submit your vet bill to Petstupid and make it unprofitable for them to sell animals.

I'd also recommend staying out of pet stores that sell animals if you can't say no.

[Mappertreasure]

Hm... still treat him for mites? I wonder if I can get the vet to give me some ivermectin. Thank you for the suggestion! We have Oxbow Vitamin C supplements downstairs and I offered him one but he was not even tempted. Our other piggies love them and snarf them down (I tried one out of curiosity and cannot understand the appeal).

Petsmart made me sign a contract saying that they would not pay any vet bills.

I really don't know what to say about the staying out of pet stores if you can't say no remark, but, I'm going to try. There are no pet stores in our area that don't sell animals. We go to Petsmart because it is the most responsible of the bunch. I order from Oxbow, but Oxbow is not selling online anymore (I'm going to check into kleenmama when we run low on our latest fifty pound box of hay). We do buy pet food for our other pets and various supplies at pet stores. We homeschool our children and my dh works long hours, so when I go to buy animal supplies, our children go with me.

I wrote a long post explaining my past history as a vegetarian and a former rescuer for dogs, cats, and rabbits, but I'm not going to post it. I do get your remark -- but if I did not have that former animal rescuer history, my feelings would have been hurt and for what?

We all know that there are animals who desperately need rescue and there are indifferent breeders and pet stores who cynically trade in animals for profit while rescuers spend their last penny and forego their own personal needs to help these sentient beings. We know that people want babies and discard the adults when they are no longer as cute. We know these disgusting facts, and yet, there is no way I am going to burden my seven year old with this information which is crushing even to me.

So - on rare occasions, even the most dedicated rescuers will sometimes make exceptions in individual situations for individual animals. I'm no longer a dedicated rescuer, but I do care and I do understand the issues. But please be gentle with me, I am in a different place in my life and it takes courage to come here and admit my failure to a group of guinea pig rescuers.

[AnimalHouse36]

Yes. Treat him for mites it can't hurt. And you can get ivermectin at your local feed store since it's for cattle.

Petsmart made me sign a contract saying that they would not pay any vet bills

*Snort* Sound like Petdumb to me.

Petstmart is probably the least responsible with there trade. I'm sure you know about the cavy mills? I once read a PETA diary of somebody under cover working there. It put me in tears.

[plopper]

Just curious, you use "he/him" in your posts and I am thus assuming you have a boar, Is he to live alone since he can't interact with your two sows ?

[breezy2]

I have never heard of petsmart having you sign a contract for medical expenses. Do they always do that, because I know of people who have said they have had them reimburse them for medical expenses. If they don't always, maybe they knew the piggy has some underlying illness? Anyway, goodluck with him. Post some pigtures, if you get time.

[Mappertreasure]

Yes, I know he can't be in contact with our females. We do not intend to breed -- plus, the females are almost one year old so we cannot take that risk! We had a rescue rabbit die from a neuter right before we were going to adopt him, so we are reluctant to have him neutered.

[Mappertreasure]

I saw some youtube videos of cavy mills that sell to Petsmart.

[AnimalHouse36]

Horrible suff eh?

It's very rare to have a healthy animal die from a nueter. Did you have a savvy vet?