Impaction Possible Impaction - Boar not pooing normally

You're likely not holding him properly. Put a towel on a table that's at a comfortable arm height for you. Put him in the crook of your arm, and snuggle him to you. Hold his head FIRMLY between your thumb and forefinger, just about the level of his jaw. Slide your hand over his face until his eyes are covered.

Put the syringe into his mouth from the side, behind his front teeth, in front of his back teeth. Turn the syringe toward his throat, and insert it a little less than half an inch. Squirt about 1/4 cc. of Critical Care into his mouth. If he's chewing, he's swallowing, and it's probably not necessary to withdraw the syringe.

Thank you both for the advice.

After all day battle, we finally figured out a way to do it.
My wife is holding him wrapped up in a towel and covers his eyes, and I open his mouth and inject the syringe between his front and rear teeth, just like you said.
Works pretty good. We just did around 15 small syringes without even making a mess.

We will do it again in the night and then again in the morning.
He eats by himself a bit of hay and lots of veggies. So I guess we don't have to go with the full dosage like it says on the package.
We weight him couple of times per day, and the weight seems to be stable for now.

Mike221 said:

We just did around 15 small syringes without even making a mess.

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You are going to drive yourself crazy doing it that way!

Go to almost any pet store and ask for a "small pet feeding syringe"........should be about 30ml. I promise you it is not too large for a cavy. When your CC is still somewhat thin, pour it into the syringe and it will continue to thicken there. That's SO much better than trying to draw up 15 syringes! By pouring it in the syringe, that enables you to also mix some tasty baby food with it to provide variety. Beechnut makes an organic line that I particularly like......as do my cavies. They have some rather strange mixtures so I generally buy those that are just a single flavor like carrot, pumpkin, squash, etc.

When my Chester wasn't eating after his multiple teeth planings, he would sometimes consume two 30ml. syringes at each feeding.

Yes, I will have to find a bigger syringe, but again with nice small tip so I can get it in his mouth.

We got a 50ml syringe as well, but can't put it in his mouth.

Baby food with taste sounds like great idea. I will try finding carrot taste. It would be awesome if he would enjoy his feeding time.
He hates CC with banana taste. I tried spraying some over his veggies this morning, he just turned away and started teeth chattering.
As soon as I rewashed the veggies, he ate all

Mike221 said:

We got a 50ml syringe as well, but can't put it in his mouth.

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I suspect that a 50ml syringe may well be too large. I find that the 30ml is just about right no matter the size of the cavy.

I'm not surprised about the banana spray. None of my cavies have ever liked banana.

spy9doc said:

I'm not surprised about the banana spray. None of my cavies have ever liked banana.

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I've heard other members say the same. Neither of my younger boars really like banana, but Sly goes absolutely NUTS for it. He gets a small piece from time to time, and he'll only eat the apple banana CC.

Guinea Pig Papa said:

Neither of my younger boars really like banana, but Sly goes absolutely NUTS for it. He gets a small piece from time to time, and he'll only eat the apple banana CC.

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Just goes to show you......cavies are as individual as we humans are!

Most definitely, wouldn't have it any other way!

Hello,

Here is the update.

Cupko finally came back from hospital.
I think vets there did a pretty good job.

Strangest thing happened. And I am so happy it did.
They got him ready for a bladder stone surgery, shaved him and just before starting they did one more x-ray.
And there was no stone anymore.
So they did ultrasound to confirm it. All they found was bunch of small crystals or pieces, I'm not really sure.
They catheterized him and flushed his bladder several times. There was no need to operate.

We picked him up today, but unfortunately the vet got sick so didn't come to work so we couldn't talk to her in person.
I spoke to her yesterday over the phone. She was very surprised as well, as the stone was too big for him to pass it !?
So it probably split in half, or shattered, I have no idea.

For now he is on metacam, as I can see he is in pain while peeing, which is probably normal after all that.

Also his urine was sent for analysis, and we are waiting for results. If there is UTI he will get antibiotics.

He lost almost a 100g since we left him 2 days ago, but we will get him up there soon. He seems to have appetite.

Sounds like improvement to me! Yay for no surgery!

Yes )

Also we will try to keep him on 0.4% Calcium diet.

We will stop feeding him:

Parsley (he had it maybe once a week)
Cilantro (he had it several times a week)
Romaine Lettuce (several times a week)
Oxbow Vitamin C tabs ( he would get just a small piece daily as a treat to keep him high on Vit C, as he had problems with runny nose and sneezing and it helped)

I was thinking of ordering KMS pellets instead of Oxbox pellets, as I've read there is no calcium carbonate as calcium source.
Also I will be buying Reverse Osmosis Water and still run it through our Brita filter, that should hopefully get us calcium free water.
We will syringe him extra water couple of times per day + let him run around each day for at least half hour.

How does this sound?
He will mostly eat lots of peppers(green, yellow, rarely red), green and red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, baby carrot few times a week.
And of course timothy hay and kms pellets.

Also I was able to find Demineralized Reverse Osmosis Water with added Ozone in Walmart.
Would that Ozone be potentially bad? I couldn't find any info on that. I know it is used to keep bacteria and viruses from bottled water.

There's no calcium carbonate in either Oxbow or KMS -- Oxbow recently changed their formulation to take it out.

I don't know anything about demineralized reverse osmosis water. Sounds like a marketing ploy to me, but then I'm a cynic.

Hi,

Cupko is doing really good after he came back from the hospital.
He is back to eating normally and lots.

Only concern we have is that he is not gaining weight.

Like I mentioned before, before his illness he was always around 1080g - 1120g.

He came back from hospital at 1020g. And now 10 days later he ranges between 1020g - 1050g.
We didn`t hand feed him with CC since he came back, because he really eats and poops all the time like he should.

What would you advise?
Is this now his "new normal" weight or should we hand feed him a bit to get him up?
He looks a bit skinny.

Thanks

It takes a long time for an adult pig to gain weight. As long as he's not losing, I wouldn't worry about it. You could throw a few more pellets in his bowl if you want, but don't overdo it. He should slowly inch back up toward his normal weight, but it may take months.

OK thanks, we will keep watching him and go from there.

Just 1 more question.
Boys were not separated for 2 weeks, each in his own cage.

Do we now need to do introduction like in the beginning or do you think they know each other?
They lived 1 year together, but never really got along.
We will also combine old 5x2 cage with new 3x2, so they will have much more space.

Any time they've been separated for longer than a day or so, you need to do full reintroductions.

Ohhh ok.. not to happy to hear that )

We will have to do it on a day we are both off work I guess...