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Sick Bella lethargic

Artista

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Guinea Pig Papa

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Is it warm in your apartment, [MENTION=27627]Artista[/MENTION]?
 

Artista

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Is it warm in your apartment, [MENTION=27627]Artista[/MENTION]?
it's not bad. I use fans and ac as needed. But I'll turn on the fan to see. She's done fine in this temp before, like 75 degrees, and bianka is fine.
 

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Yeah, 75 should be no problem at all.

If she isn't drinking, you can syringe her water or feed her really wet stuff, like cucumber. After what happened to Scooter, pigs that don't drink voluntarily scare me.
 

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Yeah, 75 should be no problem at all.

If she isn't drinking, you can syringe her water or feed her really wet stuff, like cucumber. After what happened to Scooter, pigs that don't drink voluntarily scare me.

I put a chunk of cucumber in there. That's the only thing I haven't seen her do seemingly at all is drink water. Water level doesn't move and it's not clogged. I'm literally 4 inches from it on the sofa. Bianka though blows through 8 oz in 2 days lately.

Her poops are smaller too. Has been lime this for awhile. She ate a little hay, some of her yellow pepper, some cucumber but now is zzzzz.
 

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Small poops indicates she isn't eating enough. Simon lately has been blasting through 12 oz OVERNIGHT. He's backed off some and seems back to normal now.

At least she's eating but perhaps a checkup is in order.
 

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Small poops indicates she isn't eating enough. Simon lately has been blasting through 12 oz OVERNIGHT. He's backed off some and seems back to normal now.

At least she's eating but perhaps a checkup is in order.

Yeah. I'll call tomorrow. No vet on Mondays there but I'm sure they'll work her in for a fee. The 2 places I take them to are booked out about a month here. Crazy
 

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Small poops indicates she isn't eating enough. Simon lately has been blasting through 12 oz OVERNIGHT. He's backed off some and seems back to normal now.

At least she's eating but perhaps a checkup is in order.
I got a few ml in. How many oz should I give her since nothing on the water bottle?
 

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I would give a few mls at least every couple of hours. That's just me tho
 

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I would give a few mls at least every couple of hours. That's just me tho

Luckily she takes the water from the 1ml syringe albeit with a bit of a fight. She's eaten some hay, her carrot, bit of cucumber. No on zucchini and yellow peppers. She normally chows pellets down but seems she's had about a couple today. This isn't just today but for awhile now. I looked back in the bella bianka thread linked in here and saw it's happened before. My memory is shot from meds so having these threads for issues helps.
 

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So I took her on Monday as emergency work in. Here in ca can't go inside building. Respiratory system ok, no heart murmur. Okayed the full monte of xrays, labs, etc. Heart hasn't enlarged since last year. If I want details on it's function that'd be with the cardiologist. Still 1 uncertain mass on left and right, ovarian cysts. Weight was 8 gm less than when I posted this thread. So basically waiting on test results. $1000 later! Ouch! Insurance should cover some after it picks out preexisting stuff which I think here it's just the ovarian cyst part if vet mentions it. I told her nationwide considers what something could be as preexisting so because her partner mentioned it prior to Oct 2020, it was written down. She was surprised. Thought only if you give a diagnosis. Nope. So everything ovarian cysts and the small lump under a mammary gland that hasn't grown isn't covered.

Got critical care. Was told feed her 2 or 3 x a day, 12 ml each time. She drinks 0 water so syringe 50 to 80 mls a day. She eats a little hay, bits of pepper, bit of cucumber. She chows down carrot chips ( carrots that are sliced flat). She eats a large piece of lettuce. But like 2 pellets which she used to eat.

She stays only in her 2 tunnels, not often being uncovered. So everything is put there for her. She will no longer visit her litter box, where her water bottle is. But she's not weak. She's busy shredding her twig tunnels, moving them around. When she thinks I'm coming to get her, I get teeth chattering and bites, one time drawing a little blood. I also get the long aggitated noise too.

Feeding her is difficult. I've tried different ways. One problem is her fur making it hard to find the mouth. And it's squirming time. I put her in a rectangular Tupperware just her size thinking she can't really move, but she can still turn a little and move her head. I'm a mess, she's a mess. Of the 12 ml I have no idea how much she actually gets. Wish I had help in here. I wind up holding her head and hoping I find the mouth before she moves it again. With Mooshy I boarded her at the vet to do it. It was $50 a day back in 2012. I just spent 1K and insurance doesn't pay for that.

What I'm thinking is maybe the cysts are killing her appetite to where only her absolute favs are eaten, carrots and lettuce. Maybe she's overly hormonal. I have heard a few sneezes which I'm going to report as on exam her respiratory system was fine.

So waiting for lab results right now. And dreading each time I need to syringe her something.
 

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Have you tried wrapping her up like a burrito? It worked very well for Sly. It worked well for Punkin too until he became agitated. Scooter hated it so much that it got to the point where if I DIDN'T wrap him up like a burrito, he would sit and take his food like a good boy.
 

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Have you tried wrapping her up like a burrito? It worked very well for Sly. It worked well for Punkin too until he became agitated. Scooter hated it so much that it got to the point where if I DIDN'T wrap him up like a burrito, he would sit and take his food like a good boy.

Yeah, mine squirm worse. I use a rubbermaid rectangular container that fits her perfectly. But that doesn't stop her from moving her head around. It's hit and miss.

Vet called. Labs are fine except for a couple that indicate dehydration which makes sense as I got on syringing water after the visit. She may have a UTI. Waiting for urine culture to come in next week. I asked if ovarian cysts could be responsible. She said yes and recommended the abdominal ultrasound.

At their place it'll cost close like $760. I'd have to go there at 8:30 am and chill there until the tech gets there which is who knows as it's a travelling ultrasound tech.

Or

Go to the place I've been before 1 time where there is also a credible exotic vet There it's $260. They have onsite ultrasound.

So I guess I'll just go there for the ovarian cyst/mass stuff as insurance won't cover that? They marked it preexisting. I feel guilty though. I wouldn't tell my vet I guess where I've always gone to for years. Ugh.
 

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I just went through a week of syringe feeding and watering, so I empathize. Maybe try mixing the CC with a little fruit juice. I mixed the Apple Banana flavor with Pedialyte and juice from watermelon. She was reluctant but took it okay. For dehydration I also syringed Pedialyte and watermelon juice mixed, and that she liked.

The CC may be more palatable if it’s a little more watery. I think 12 ml in one sitting is a lot. I was doing 6 or 9 ml every 4 hours or so which was an all-day job.

I hope you get her eating on her own again. Syringe feeding is the pits.
 

Artista

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I just went through a week of syringe feeding and watering, so I empathize. Maybe try mixing the CC with a little fruit juice. I mixed the Apple Banana flavor with Pedialyte and juice from watermelon. She was reluctant but took it okay. For dehydration I also syringed Pedialyte and watermelon juice mixed, and that she liked.

The CC may be more palatable if it’s a little more watery. I think 12 ml in one sitting is a lot. I was doing 6 or 9 ml every 4 hours or so which was an all-day job.

I hope you get her eating on her own again. Syringe feeding is the pits.

Her vet said 12 ml 2 or 3 x a day is fine. I use the scoop provided and get it to smooth consistency. It takes about half hour to feed her that amount. I give her a little time to chew and eat but if I wait too long it's hard to get her going again. I give 1 or 2 12ml water at a time for a total of about 50 ml a day. I'm just going by what my vet says. She ate 2 large wetted down red leaf lettuce so that helped. Other veggies no except carrot which she loves. Pellets are a couple maybe. Hay has increased some. She's less lethargic as she's busy moving her twig tunnels around and chewing them. She came to her water bottle which I thought yay but left the kitchen like a tease. She's seems more responsive than Mon, just wish the poops would be larger and she'd ear enough and drink on her own.

I think the only time my gps would down 4 oz of water in a day is when it's very warm. Even Bianka averages 1 or 2 oz on a regular day, sometimes less and she looks fine in every way.
 

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Have you asked about sub q fluids (Subcutaneous fluids) if she is dehydrated? You can administer those at home fairly easily (just have the vet show you how) and it really helps. I know I was a bit nervous about this at first, but it does get easier.

Also, a game changer for me was a recommendation I think I read from [MENTION=3221]GuineaPigPapa[/MENTION] in another forum post...take a 10-12 ml oral syringe (the kind with the curved tip) and cut the tip so that a 1 ml syringe attaches to it snugly. This allows you to get better placement of a smaller syringe in the mouth and it stimulates them to chew & swallow more of the critical care.

My current one who is being syringe fed critical care also is picky and prefers the papaya fine grind critical care. She gobbles that one up when she fights me when it comes to the apple banana or anise flavors.
 

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How is she doing, @Artista?

Yeah, the trick with the 12ml syringe into a 1ml syringe was a lifesaver for me. I don't even remember how I ran across that, but Scooter was such a bad pig to force feed. He and I wore more CC than he ate until I figured out that little trick. I had a nickname when I fed him CC for awhile. I would call him Goober. He literally frustrated me to tears more than once because I was desperate to get him well and couldn't stand to lose him too.

At first my wife didn't want to try it. She felt it would take MUCH longer to feed the pigs that way. Turned out to be the exact opposite, and if you fill the syringe right there is much less waste when you put the plunger in the 1ml. A 1ml syringe for me was two mouthfuls for the pig. I could get the 1ml tip EXACTLY where I wanted it, far back in his mouth where I could feel his molars bite down on the tip. As soon as I felt him bite down or felt his teeth, he got half a syringe worth. Cut my feeding time in half.
 

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@GuineaPigPapa...I can't thank you enough for that suggestion with the syringes!

It used to be a struggle. They hated the short tip of a 10ml syringe and it's impossible to get it where you need it in their mouth, but the 1ml which they preferred took FOREVER with filling and getting it in the right spot over & over.

I especially appreciate this tip on mornings I have to rush to get to work. Literally a half hour struggle is now less than 10 minutes! Certainly makes it easier to get over 100ml of critical care IN the pig successfully. Both pig and I are happier! Thank you!!

And [MENTION=27627]Artista[/MENTION]....how is Bella?
 

Artista

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She's doing better. Eats a few pellets, some hay. Her poops are looking better, they'rea little bigger but one end is pointy. I've cut the critical care down to about half since she eats some on her own. I'm thinking she starts fighting when she's full. She took a little drink from her water bottle once but that was it. So I'm syringing since she's also diagnosed with dehydration. Her behavior is back to normal. I just don't get what's up with not drinking water on her own.

I don't get how the 1ml connected to a 12 ml syringe makes it easier? Bella doesn't have dental issues.

Thanks for caring guys. I think she'll be ok. Still waiting on the urinary culture results and have an appt with another exotic vet for ultrasound on 8/13 since it's $400 cheaper than my vet.
 

Guinea Pig Papa

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It doesn't make it easier to feed because the pig has dental issues, [MENTION=27627]Artista[/MENTION]. It makes it easier because shes a guinea pig who hates being fed! You don't actually leave the two syringes connected. You just fill the 1ml from the 12ml repeatedly.

I'm glad to hear she's doing a little better. The small poops with points are indicative of not enough food and dehydration.

Keep us posted on how shes doing. Fingers are crossed that she's feeling herself in no time!
 
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