General Potential Guinea Pig Diarrhea?

[ihrmaniac97]

Hi, I have recently made a post about my guinea pigs meeting, and they are now perfectly happy with eachother, popcorning a lot and talking to eachother I have read up and looked at pictures of guinea pig diarrhea to see what it looked like, and I'm quite sure one of mine doesn't have diarrhea. They have one corner they tend to poop in, and I was thinking it's diarrhea, but after studying a bit it seems not to be. It looks powdery and theres no moisture, and theres lots of normal poop around there. I checked to see if it was sticky or anything, and checked, and it does stick to things. I'm not sure what this is. I also have read about people feeding their pigs two stalks of lettuce a day, I feed them a little over one stalk each, they have plenty of hay, and they also have plenty of pellets and water, both eating and drinking as they do every day and I'm entirely confused. I feed them exactly the same daily, exact same amounts, and I have had them for two weeks and fed them the same for a week. I am cleaning the cage today when I have someone to hold them while i do. Should I clean it out and see if it happens again in the future and visit a vet if it does? Or should I stop feeding them their leafy greens tomorrow and then feed them small amounts each day after until I get back to how I was feeding them?

 

[bpatters]

It sounds perfectly normal to me. The white powdery stuff is probably urinary calcium, which you may or may not need to worry about. How old are your pigs?

What were you feeding them before this? And why did you stop?

 

[ihrmaniac97]

It's brown powder, they're both 4 and 5 months old. I have been feeding them the same the entire time, I'm just wondering if I should stop feeding them what I have been feeding them currently for a day or two and then slowly get them back to a normal diet. I don't really feel any worry, maybe they urinated on their poop and then it became mushy and squished up and maybe became a brown powdery substance?

 

[bpatters]

I'd just keep the cage very clean for a few days and see if you see any more of it. You can put pads down where they pee and poop the most and just remove those as necessary so you don't have to clean the whole cage so often.

 

[ihrmaniac97]

alright, thanks for the info. where can i get some pads for them at?

 

[bpatters]

You can use unscented puppy pee pads, or put some fleece over a towel. Most people make their own.

 

[ihrmaniac97]

I have no idea what it was, but I cleaned the cage and it's been normal since. Even showed the vet before I cleaned it, she asked if I fed pellets, I said yes, and she said it could've been them spreading the powder around the cage from the bottom of the bag that came along with some of the pellets, and possibly sticky because they urinated in the powder. So I guess it was nothing to worry about