Not Eating Please help!!! Piggy so sick after surgery

Thank you to everyone for all your encouraging words. Oliver was pretty sick on Friday night again so I took him in to the vet on Saturday morning. He was started on on a second antibiotic and a new pain med. We chose not to go with bupropion as it was making Oliver very groggy and then he wasn't really willing to eat. They started him on IV fluids also that I have to put under his skin on his back. I don't know if it was the IV fluids or the new antibiotic or the new pain med, but by Saturday night he was doing better!! Yesterday he started eating on his own again!! I'm soooo sooo happy!!!! I thought my boy was a goner, but it looks like we're almost done with all this mess. I don't think we're out of the woods yet, but we definitely can see some light now

This forum really is a godsend! All you guinea pig lovers out there that commented on this post really gave me hope when I was so depressed and felt like I was going to lose my boy. I want you all to know how much of a difference you made for me in going through this. Everyone around me in my family was telling me to just put him to sleep, I was hurting him, I was drawing out his pain, there was no point in dragging things out when he was going to die anyways... Then I came here and all of you wonderful people gave me hope again and made me feel like I wasn't wrong to keep fighting for my boy. Thank you all so so much!

Here's a picture of Oliver's first time eating again after all this ordeal. He's really going to town on all the veggies to get caught back up on his weight!!

I am so glad to hear he's improving! I'm sending good thoughts to you and your beautiful piggy

I'm delighted to hear that he's doing better! Have a long, happy and healthy life, Oliver!

Yay! Thats awesome. I love hearing stories of people and animals surviving even when the odds are against them. Here is my favorite quote that has gotten me through a bunch of tough times.

~Everything is okay in the end, if it isn't okay, it isn't the end~

Oliver has really lived this quote hasn't he?

The piggy hugs are still coming your way though!

I am SO happy to hear that he is doing better! Speedy recovery, Oliver

I am so, so, so happy to hear this!! I have been thinking of you and Oliver and was going to ask today how things were going. It'll be a long battle but what great news that is! You are so doing the right thing and I hope everything continues in this direction! Seeing the picture of him bright eyed and eating warmed my heart and put a smile on my face.

Everyone I knew thought I was crazy for doing everything for my Pickle too. I'm so glad I did though because really the whole ordeal, terrible as it was, bonded us so much more. He is the best little piggy I've ever had (though I love all my boys) and to think most would have put him down as soon as it happened broke my heart. He trusts me so much now anfter all his treatments I had to do for him, I don't think I've ever been closer to a pet before. Reading your story is just mirroring what I went through with Pickle and I am so glad Oliver is improving as well.

Here's to his continued improvement and many more happy years together!

I have pig who can't eat hay or pellets and is on critical care for the rest of her life. What I do for her is make the critical care a little liquidly and that seems to be easier for her to eat. I also puree fruits in a blender with water and mix it with the critical care. Critical care also comes in different flavors and it may just be that your pig doesn't like the one that you have. Also if your pig is having trouble eating the critical care comes in different size grain. Mine is extra fine because mine can't chew. I feed mine more than 5 cc three times a day. I try to feed her as often as possible. You should try and find a vet to sample the puss and have it sent to a lab. The lab can test weather the antibiotic is the right one for that type of infection.

I glad to hear that Oliver is doing better. The best pain med that I have noticed for a pig is Metacam. It is sweet so they eat it no problem and it doesn't upset their stomachs or make them groggy.

I actually work at an ophthalmologist for animals. Oliver will do just fine with one eye. We as humans have a harder time adjusting to disabilities than animals do.

I would keep then separated until the sutures are removed usually 2-3 weeks after surgery. I would not bathe until after that time as well. Just deal with a little smelly for now.

I wish I had advice about their behavior after this time frame but I am a new piggie mom so I am not experienced with that.

PiggyLove1 said:

He's not blind, he's one eyed. And he wasn't born that way either. He got his eye removed, and that is harsh even for a human! Plus, this isn't about your blind guinea pig, it's about Oliver, and when I said the thing about putting him down, it was to let him/her know that no matter how much you love your piggy, sometimes it's what needs to happen. @Melissa123

Click to expand...

That was VERY rude. She was just trying to she the OP that things will get better. How would you like it if someone told you to shove off, your piggy doesn't matter? Please pay attention to what you say and how you say it. Thank you.

@D_inski, YAY! I am SO happy Oliver is doing so much better! My girls will be wheeking for his fast and speedy weight gain! lol Keep us all posted on how the little guy does, I'm sure we would all like to know!

Hi everyone!

Thanks again for all the good thoughts and well wishes Oliver is still improving daily. He's soooo much better! His eye (or eye socket I guess lol) is nearly healed, I'll put up a picture when I get home.

He still isn't getting along with my other little girl piggy but they both seem to be happy and we've been working on having them spend small amounts of floor time together and then they go back to their separate cages. My little girl isn't the problem, she seems to miss Oliver and is very happy to see him whenever I put them together, but Oliver is horrible! He's very very aggressive with her now and if I separate them, he actually tries to chase after her to attack her. I'm not sure why he's like this as he is so sweet the second I pick him up.

Anyways, apart from the little problem with my piggies getting along...the main reason I'm writing again is that I need help with figuring out what to feed Oliver to help him gain some weight back. Throughout the whole surgery/infection/healing he has lost right around 100 grams and though he is eating now, he doesn't seem to be gaining any weight back. He has a great appetite though! He's really eating like the little piggy he is and drinking normal and pooping like crazy, but he's still sooo bony! You can feel his spine, ribs, and hip bones very prominently. He doesn't seem to be suffering really apart from I think he gets a little cold but he just really seems like he needs to put a little weight back on. I was thinking I could start out by switching him to alfalfa, isn't that supposed to be higher in fat than timothy hay? The vet's office receptionist told me to give him some yogurt but I thought he couldn't have dairy... So any ideas?

His current diet includes: timothy hay (unlimited), pellets (not sure on the brand but they are one of the more expensive ones from petco, I'll look at the exact brand when I get home and post it), fresh veggies daily, and I'm still giving him a little critical care mixed with baby food and vitamin C daily but only like 5cc a day. Keep in mind he's eating a LOT and he's eating on his own just fine so he doesn't really like me to give him the critical care mixture anymore and spits it out a lot.

So what does everyone think? How can I plump up my little pirate piggy??

Thanks in advance!!

Continuation to the "piggy not eating after surgery" saga....

Hi everyone!

Just as a quick background for anyone who doesn't know Oliver's story...

I was away for a couple days and my piggies were left in my roommate's care. When I returned my male piggy, Oliver, had a very swollen eyeball. Long story short, he ended up having to have the eye removed. He did well for about a week after the surgery, but then a bad infection returned in the eye socket. He was on a bunch of medications, we went to the vet about a million times (for a million dollars haha just kidding!), and he stopped eating through the whole ordeal. Eventually they put him on daily IV fluids and I had a whole concoction that I was feeding him as much as I could every day, but he still lost 100 grams after it was all said and done. He's sooo sooo much better now woohoo!!

The reason I'm writing is because he doesn't seem to be gaining weight back. He's eating like a champ now, but he's so skinny I can feel his bones very prominently all over him. He seems to be normal in every aspect; in fact he's even more perky than he was before this whole thing (or maybe he seems perky to me because he was on his "death bed" for so long). I'm worried about him still. I don't know how to describe how skinny he is, but it's really bad. When I feel the back half of his body, I can clearly feel every bone in his hips, his spine, his legs, etc. I know he'll probably gain weight back more slowly than he lost it, but should I do something to help him along? Is him being this skinny putting him at any risk that I need to be worried about?

I have Oliver in a separate cage than the little girls. He's very anti-social since the surgery/sickness, but also I'm worried about him getting hurt. They're still in the same room so hopefully he can talk to them haha and get socialization somehow

As far as Oliver's diet, it is as follows: fresh veggies every day, alfalfa hay and timothy hay (I just started the alfalfa hay hoping it would help), pellets with 18% protein, and fruits a couple times per week. Like I said before, he eats a lot! He gets a little less veggies than my two girls and he finishes it by himself. He's pooping normally, drinking a good amount of water and peeing well, and he has a great energy level. Maybe I'm stressing unnecessarily, but I'm very protective of my little boy after everything we've just gone through. I almost lost him and I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to help him get back to 100%.

I want to thank everyone in this forum again. I had really almost lost hope with my boy and you all gave me the push I needed to keep fighting for him. I appreciate all of your comments more than you can know.

I've included pictures of the cage set-up, some new pictures of my pirate piggy "Oliver" and how he's healing, and then a couple of my girls.

Thank you everybody!!

Re: Continuation to the "piggy not eating after surgery" saga....

@D_inski, please do not start another thread on a pig that already has a active medical thread. It makes it much harder to keep up with a pig's history if one has to chase down other old threads. I'm merging this with your older thread.

Re: Continuation to the "piggy not eating after surgery" saga....

Thank you! Sorry about that, I wasn't sure how to do it.

You just find the old thread and add another post to it

I did that, but wasn't sure if people could see it as a new post so that's when I made the new one. Sorry again! I'll make sure to just do posts on my old threads from here on out

He is looking great! So thrilled to hear how well he is doing I was really hoping you'd have a happy outcome! I love the picture of him eating, so cute!

Do you track his weight? If not I would recommend getting a kitchen scale and weighing him daily for the time being so you can see the progress. Personally I would skip the alfalfa and stick with just Timothy hay. What brand of pellets is it you are feeding? As long as he is eating and defecating regularly I would think you're ok. Tracking his weight is probably the best starting point for this. I have also heard canned pumpkin is good for helping gain weight, though I personally have never used it.

@Agrimony Thank you!! I will get a little scale and track his weight like you said. I figure it would be slow coming back; it worries me with how bony he is. I was using pumpkin for him when I had to do the critical care so maybe I'll buy another can and mix in the rest of the critical care that I have to help supplement things. Thanks again

No problem! Also as far as him living alone, my Pickle lives alone now too. Now he picked on his cage mates prior to surgery, he got along with one but fought wit the other (which was actually how he lost his eye). Since the one he fought with has since passed away I tried getting him to live with the other boy who was lonely. It did not work out at all. He has gotten better with people since surgery but worse with other pigs. He fought a lot with him even though he hadn't before.

Because of the limited vision as well if he's touched on that side of his body suddenly he startles and bites. He has almost got me a few times when I forgot/was being careless and he got the other pig too many times, so they share a cage but are separated by grids now. I don't know if you will necessarily have the same issue since mine was already a bit of a bully before hand, but tha'ts my experience.

@Agrimony My Oliver also was kind of grumpy with other pigs prior to his surgery and now he refuses to tolerate them at all. He especially doesn't like Pammy Jo my female who is about his size; he will tolerate the baby Carmella for a short period of time before he starts teeth chattering at her. I feel like he's happy with the cage arrangement because he can still wheek at the other pigs, but doesn't have to put up with having them in his space.

So all the pigs had to go to the vet last night!! The baby Carmella has an eye infection :O I guess what the vet thinks happened is that Oliver still has a small bit of infection in his eye and because the baby doesn't have a strong immune system yet, she contracted the infection to her eye. I was so scared because of everything I've just gone through with Oliver. They both got a topical gel that I have to put on their eyes (Oliver and Carmella), luckily Pammy Jo doesn't seem to be affected. I've separated the cages so that everyone is by themselves for now.

At the vet I had Oliver weighed and he's lost even more weight! Prior to surgery he weighed in at 918grams and then after all the infection and everything he was down to 816grams...well last night he's now at 786!! Why is he still losing weight?!? I don't understand