Sick Advice for blood in urine, sludge, a lower calcium diet

I'm sorry your pig is having these problems.

You're already feeding a low calcium diet, so there's nothing to be gained there.

You could check your water filter specifications to make sure it filters out calcium -- not all do. Bottled water may be no better, and may actually be worse. You could try reverse osmosis water, available at many grocery stores. The one near me sells it for 49 cents a gallon if you bring in your own bottle. Don't use distilled water, as it can make the problem worse.

More water is definitely good. Syringe it to her as often as you can. Most pigs love the taste of pedialyte and will readily take it from a syringe. However, that stuff is born to mold, so don't keep it very long in the refrigerator. I used to freeze it in an ice cube tray and just thaw it as I needed it.

Unfortunately, there may not be anything you can do to prevent the problem. She may have interstitial cystitis, which is very difficult to treat. She may be a pig that's just going to have stones no matter what. I know of one pig that redeveloped stones within two weeks of having three removed.

One thing I know that will help is exercise, because it'll keep the calcium suspended in the urine and it can be more easily excreted rather than collecting in the bottom of the bladder.

I've also recently been reading about a chemical in cucumbers that may help. You might try giving a "wheel" of cucumber daily. You won't see any immediate effect, but over the long term, you might. Use the English cucumbers (usually wrapped in plastic) rather than the waxed ones that are loose in the vegetable bin. And start with a very small piece and work up to the larger one, paying attention to whether it causes her any digestive problems.

Another thing you might try is syringing her barley water. It's supposed to calm the irritated bladder wall, and a number of people with problems similar to this have had good luck with it. I think the usual recipe is one cup of barley to five cups of water, simmer for about 25 minutes. You can flavor it with something if it will help her drink it.

My stone pig redeveloped stones in spite of a pelletless diet and Oxbow urinary support tablets, so neither of those is likely to help.

My only quibble with the vet recommendations is the addition of extra vitamin C. It can actually contribute to stone formation if there's too much of it. If the veggies you feed her are fresh, and if she gets enough bell pepper, then I wouldn't give very much additional C at all, if any.

Good luck with her. Keep us posted on how she's doing.

Thank you bpatters! Those are great suggestions to try. I'm hoping that maybe we can at least make her more comfortable and control some of the bleeding. She's a pretty easy going pig and doesn't mind what we do. She easily will take whatever we offer in a syringe and will eat just about any veggie we give her. I think the vet was thinking to cut out pellets or cut them in half so the extra vitamin c was to make up for that. But for now I will make sure we are carefully measuring the amount and see if the other things help. The vet did say that sometimes pigs are just like this but I wanted to try everything we could to be proactive. Is it normal not to have problems until this age?

I do think it's normal that stone/sludge problems don't show up until the pig is two or three. I'm not sure why that is, but that seems to be the age.

We try to weigh our pigs at least once a month but I think we missed a few weights this summer. Should I be concerned about this amount of weight loss? I do see her eat her veggies, hay, & pellets.
5/7 1153g
5/28 1124g
8/14 1039g
8/21 989g

Yes. It's not a really sudden drop, but it's definitely going down, and you don't want that to happen with a pig that young. It's common, and natural, to some extent, in senior pigs.

But if you're limited pellets where you weren't before, it's understandable. My two sows hovered around 1300 grams as long as they were eating pellets. When I took them both off when one developed a stone, they gradually lost until both were around 1150 grams, and then stabilized there.

Her loss could have been caused by pain and/or infection. I'd keep a very close eye on it now. If she's stable, then don't worry about the loss. If not, there may be something else going on that needs to be looked into.

I haven't limited the pellets yet. Just being more careful to measure exactly. It is hard to tell with two in a cage who is eating more/less of the pellets. I will keep checking weight to see if it levels off but I have a feeling that she is in pain when she goes? I might put a call into the vet in the morning about the weight loss and the squeaking when going.

Just sharing some information that had happened to one if my piggies.he had an on and off blood in his urine each time they said just a uti have an antibiotic and it usually cleared up in a few days.the last episode he had I took him in this time they were leaning toward possibly stones and he was in some distress when he peed.they gave me antibiotics and an estimate for surgery if needed and set an appt to get xrays on Monday (this happened on thurs) and based on that also surgery if needed to remove stoned.Fri came home his abdomen was distended.he was in a lot of pain and discomfort.tried frantically to find an exotic that night but could only get him in early say morning.he ended up not making it but what had happened according to the xrays and ultrasound he didn't have any stones he had an absess on his bladder that had ruptured.

The squeaking is a classic sign of stones, especially if she's squeaking when pooping.

@mdodge, thanks for sharing, poor pig. It is not easy to see them like that. Sorry you had to go through that. I'm hopeful that my vet is running the right tests to know what is affecting Pinnie. I'm also hopeful that we can make some changes to help her. @bpatters, she is making a light squeaking but it seems to be when she pees. Pooping seems ok. She squeaks a lot louder when she thinks veggies are coming. Thanks for the replies to this thread!

bpatters said:

I've also recently been reading about a chemical in cucumbers that may help. You might try giving a "wheel" of cucumber daily. You won't see any immediate effect, but over the long term, you might. Use the English cucumbers (usually wrapped in plastic) rather than the waxed ones that are loose in the vegetable bin. And start with a very small piece and work up to the larger one, paying attention to whether it causes her any digestive problems.

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That's very interesting. One of my girls has a stone/sludge problem. I started giving both my of girls more English cucumber because of the high water content. I cut out some of the really watery middle part and watched them closely for bloat or other stomach problems. I've recently bumped them up to 1-1/2 wheels a day and I think I'll leave it there.

I recently lost my sow to a stone and it first started off the same way that you are describing with your piggy hope4piggies. Although, if you had an xray showing no stones that is good news. While I am not a long time member here, what we did to try and help flush out excess calcium was to add a second water bottle in the cage. Our vet suggested placing another bottle to keep our piggies interested and to encourage them to drink more on their own. In all honesty, it worked wonders for us even though it was something so simple.

@miniver, why are you cutting out the middle of the cucumber? The whole idea is more hydration, plus whatever there may be in cucumbers that helps prevent stones.

I am only cutting out a tiny, tiny little bit. The part that is really gooey. At first I was worried it would be too much liquid since one of my girls is prone to mushy poop but both of them are fine. Also, they seemed to chew around the goo and trample it into the fleece. I'll try leaving it whole and see what they do.

I'm sorry for the loss of your pig @Maria_143. We do have two water bottles in the cage but I was thinking of adding a third. I'm hoping she'll start drinking more on her own but for now we are still trying to syringe feed more water which seems to be helping. We do a full cage change on Saturdays and watched Pinnie for awhile this morning. I'm not sure if some of the changes we made is already helping or coincidence but we noticed today no blood in her urine. She also has gained 15g and is at 1004g. Not much but better than losing more. She still makes noises when going to the bathroom but otherwise seems "normal". Hoping to see more improvement over the next few weeks.

@Hope4piggies any improvement IS an improvement in my book. I am hoping and praying your piggy feels better <3

There's no need to trim out the middle of the cucumber. There's not enough liquid in it to cause mushy poop.