ThePigSlave
Well-known Member
Cavy Slave
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2012
- Posts
- 210
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2012
- Messages
- 210
My guinea pig Grace has been experiencing some serious problems lately. I have never seen anything like this, and the condition has been continually manifesting and changing symptoms. I know that seems odd but she is going through phases which have been leaving me wondering.
Some Info On Her:
Grace is a tri-color female guinea pig. She is about 4 years old (we don't know her exact birth-date). She lived with a senior guinea pig, Bella, until Bella passed of old age. Up until the condition started, she had been living with a younger piggie (Pumpkin). The two are now separated, and Pumpkin has been showing none of her similar symptoms. Pumpkin has lost no weight, and other than being kind of upset by her sudden separation from her best friend, she is acting like her perfectly normal self.
Symptoms:
At the beginning of the condition, Grace became rather bloated. We were suspecting bloat and scheduled an appointment with the vet. Shortly before her vet visit, she...deposited...an enormous ball of feces about 1 inch in diameter. It looked like a bunch of her normal feces pellets all mashed together into one big ball of feces. She went back to normal weight. She slowly regained her bloated form, only this time she pooped a long, thick piece of feces that was about 4 inches long. We found it curled into a spiral within her hidey hut. After that, we cut out everything extra from her daily lettuce, save her usual portions of green leaf. The condition only got worse. She went back to normal weight again after that last "unloading". She, yet again, became bloated again. This time she began expelling pellet stool again. However, it wasn't like her normal feces. Each piece had a little tip that stood off of the feces, pinched off at the ends if you will. This stool was also very soft. However, she wasn't getting better. After the long string of poop as recounted earlier, she was put on a prescription of Albon to be taken once a day for a 10 day period. Therefore, we thought that the medicine was doing some help by giving her back her relatively normally shaped stool. She will be receiving her last dosage on the second. Today, I came home from our Easter dinner to find she had created quite the mess of her cage. She had pooped a huge, sloppy mess of soft stool which she had trampled into the fleece. The underside of her belly was coated with runny feces, and it was all over her feet and the underside of her chin. I supposed she slept in the mess and I hadn't gotten there in time. We changed out her fleece, sanitizing every bit of her cage, and giving her an emergency bath until MOST of the feces was out of her coat. It was impossible to get all of it, and she was already thoroughly traumatized. We held her and dried her, trying to sooth her as she was really shaken up.
She has experienced no other issues. Her eyes, ears, and nose are free of any crust, and look perfectly normal. She has maintained healthy eating habits, and has shown no habitual/personality related disturbances other than her issues with excrement.
Does anyone have any ideas? We are clueless and our vet (our only option in my area, unfortunately), has been of little to no help. She just gave us the antibiotics and set us on our own without any direction. I am willing to answer any questions about her living conditions upon request through commenting on this thread. I figured that this was already too long of a thread to include that information.
Thanks,
ThePigSlave
Some Info On Her:
Grace is a tri-color female guinea pig. She is about 4 years old (we don't know her exact birth-date). She lived with a senior guinea pig, Bella, until Bella passed of old age. Up until the condition started, she had been living with a younger piggie (Pumpkin). The two are now separated, and Pumpkin has been showing none of her similar symptoms. Pumpkin has lost no weight, and other than being kind of upset by her sudden separation from her best friend, she is acting like her perfectly normal self.
Symptoms:
At the beginning of the condition, Grace became rather bloated. We were suspecting bloat and scheduled an appointment with the vet. Shortly before her vet visit, she...deposited...an enormous ball of feces about 1 inch in diameter. It looked like a bunch of her normal feces pellets all mashed together into one big ball of feces. She went back to normal weight. She slowly regained her bloated form, only this time she pooped a long, thick piece of feces that was about 4 inches long. We found it curled into a spiral within her hidey hut. After that, we cut out everything extra from her daily lettuce, save her usual portions of green leaf. The condition only got worse. She went back to normal weight again after that last "unloading". She, yet again, became bloated again. This time she began expelling pellet stool again. However, it wasn't like her normal feces. Each piece had a little tip that stood off of the feces, pinched off at the ends if you will. This stool was also very soft. However, she wasn't getting better. After the long string of poop as recounted earlier, she was put on a prescription of Albon to be taken once a day for a 10 day period. Therefore, we thought that the medicine was doing some help by giving her back her relatively normally shaped stool. She will be receiving her last dosage on the second. Today, I came home from our Easter dinner to find she had created quite the mess of her cage. She had pooped a huge, sloppy mess of soft stool which she had trampled into the fleece. The underside of her belly was coated with runny feces, and it was all over her feet and the underside of her chin. I supposed she slept in the mess and I hadn't gotten there in time. We changed out her fleece, sanitizing every bit of her cage, and giving her an emergency bath until MOST of the feces was out of her coat. It was impossible to get all of it, and she was already thoroughly traumatized. We held her and dried her, trying to sooth her as she was really shaken up.
She has experienced no other issues. Her eyes, ears, and nose are free of any crust, and look perfectly normal. She has maintained healthy eating habits, and has shown no habitual/personality related disturbances other than her issues with excrement.
Does anyone have any ideas? We are clueless and our vet (our only option in my area, unfortunately), has been of little to no help. She just gave us the antibiotics and set us on our own without any direction. I am willing to answer any questions about her living conditions upon request through commenting on this thread. I figured that this was already too long of a thread to include that information.
Thanks,
ThePigSlave
