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Urine Intermittent pink urine

SomethingFunny

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Hi guys, I'm freaking out here and I could really use some advice. Every week when I launder my guinea pig bedding I line their cage with white towels. Last weekend when I was taking the towels out to put the fleece back in I noticed two little pink spots on the towels. Each spot was very faintly pink and located in the center of a larger urine stain. Each spot was less than the size of a dime and neither spot had soaked through to the other side of the towel. I have a herd of three and no one has been behaving oddly. Everyone's weight is normal, no weird noises or strange behaviors. I gave everyone a pretty thorough inspection and nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Since I couldn't figure out who it was, I lined their cage with fresh towels and separated one of them to a holding cage also lined with white towels (figuring that I could at least narrow it down). But then it didn't happen again. I kept them on the white bedding for three days with no more pink spots. At that point I hoped that maybe it was just an isolated incident and switched back to their regular fleece.

Then tonight after I washed the linens I found two new spots! Again, they're very small, half the size of a dime each. Neither soaked through the towel and they were both faintly pink. One was in the center of a larger urine stain, the other was actually off by itself (no surrounding urine stain). So now I'm flipping out again. Does anyone have any advice for me? Or suggestions for how to figure out which one is sick so I can take them to the vet? If any of you live in Maryland do you have a good vet you can recommend? I live a bit south of Baltimore (right next to BWI actually).

Sorry about the wall of text, I'm panicking a little bit here. Thank you all in advance for any advice.
 

bpatters

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Can you post pictures? Some discoloration can be perfectly normal.

Also, how old are your pigs?
 

SomethingFunny

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I'm not sure how old the oldest two are, I got them at the pet store (before I knew better) in October 2013. Neither of them were quite done growing yet, but they were already had adult proportions and their ears had already flooped forward. My younger one was born in late December 2013, so about a year and a half ago.
Intermittent pink urineIntermittent pink urine
These are the best I could do picture wise. I'm not sure if it's the lighting or my camera but the spots look a few shades redder in real life. Though I notice they have browned a bit, particularly the one that was inside a larger urine stain (second picture).
 

mdodge

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Could be possible uti possibly from stones.would recommend a piggy Dr visit to be on the safe side.I just went through a similar experience. had spotting took to vet they treated for a uti.it cleared but came back intermittent.for a few months took back vet said probably stones since symptoms hadn't really stopped. ended up wasn't stones had a cyst or a tumor on his bladder or urinary tract.the outcome wasn't good I lost him.that's why I would recommend a vet visit to be on the safe side.
 

SomethingFunny

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Update: I've figured out which pig it is. She's leaving spots on the bedding that are the same size and intensity as the pink ones, but without any pink anymore, just brown. I wouldn't be worried about them at all if I hadn't seen the pink ones.
 

SomethingFunny

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We're back from the vet! Apparently Hamlet has bladder sludge (no stones thankfully). They prescribed her Furosemide so she'll urinate more which will hopefully flush out the sludge. We have an appointment in two weeks for another x-ray to see if it worked. They also put her on Baytril (antibiotic) and gave us a big syringe of Bene-Bac (pro-biotic). And they let me have a copy of her X-ray, which is super neat!
 

SomethingFunny

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Behold the inner mysteries of the pig!

Intermittent pink urine
 
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