Urine There was a white paste surrounding female guinea pigs poop/pee area.(Picture)???

[2piggies1]

So, as i was spot cleaning this morning on my fleece liners i notice that one of my pigs poops were completely colered in this paste like white substance. I'm not sure if it was from her pee or poop, but my guess is her pee.

I know of calcium deposits but my pigs are on a low calcium diet so I do not understand if this is from too much calcium or another issue I should be concerned about.

Her diet consists of

1/8 cup of oxbox adult pellets daily
Unlimited oxbox timothy hay
Vegtables( medieum size of green leaf lettuce, less than a quarter of cherry tomato, baby carrot, and less than a quarter of a green bell pepper.

If anyone could please help me it would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[wigglemish]

That does look like calcium to me. Has she been drinking plenty? When you say green leaf lettuce, what type do you mean? I know romaine has quite a high calcium content.

I wouldn't be immediately worried. Perhaps try a different type of lettuce, like a curly leaf. It should just clear up on it's own.

Also, maybe someone could weigh in on the Oxbow Pellets? I don't use them, here we have Burgess Excel, which is known to contain lucerne, Aka alfalfa, and they are pretty high in calcium, so portion control has to be carefully observed. Are oxbow perhaps a little high on the calcium content?

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Not sure if this is high or not, but my bag of Oxbow Essentials Cavy Cuisine states:

Crude calcium minimum 0.35%
maximum 0.75%

 

[2piggies1]

Green leaf lettuce is just a lettuce, I didn't know that either until research. I switched to green leaf from romaine a while ago. I also give my pigs bottled water because I don't have a Brita filter. Also i change their water bottles at least once a dah and Yes she does drink plenty! I'm just concerned because of the possibility of bladder stones

 

[wigglemish]

Ah, your bottled water could be the culprit! If it's a mineral water it may well be fortified with calcium, just doing a quick google a lot of them contain 10mg per 100ml!

 

[2piggies1]

I never thought of that being it since it's bottled water and not tap, I'll definitely check it out right now. Thank you for the help!

 

[wigglemish]

No problem, I hope we've figured it out

 

[2piggies1]

So I just checked and I use Berkley and Jensen bottled water. It says that it has 0mg of calcium. So I have no idea what else it could be because her diet is low in calcium. I'm just worried about bladder stones

 

[wigglemish]

Huh that is odd.

I really wouldn't worry at the moment. Keep an eye, it could just be she's eaten something in her regular diet that has had an unusual hike in calcium. It might be she's had a day where she's not drunk as much as usual. I would be willing to bet money this will resolve itself within a day or two.

My girlies have had white pee -many- times. Even though they are fed low calcium veggies and timothy hay and their pellets are weighed to within a gram. It appears and then disappears again. Touch wood, we have never had a bladder stone or sludge.

It sounds as if you're doing everything right, and it's great you're being vigilant. But I wouldn't panic.

 

[bpatters]

Clarification about romaine lettuce -- it's no higher in calcium than any of the other lettuces. But in some pigs, it causes excess urinary calcium that you can see by the large amounts of white powder/grit where the urine has dried. Other pigs can eat it with no problems. Nobody knows why this is, but it's obviously something about the metabolism of some pigs that causes it.

 

[CavieGuy]

Some piggies can eat Romaine and Green leaf lettuce with no problems but some of my girls can't. Since the switched to red leaf lettuce I no longer see frequent calcium discharge, I'm also on KMS pellets

 

[Soecara]

Have there been any other white spots in the cage or is it only this bit on the poop?

It is possible it may have been her mucus plug and not calcium. It is very uncommon to find the mucus plug from a sow in the cage but it does sometimes happen.

 

[2piggies1]

There have been some from time to time but not as much as from when I was giving her romaine