Impaction Possible Impaction - Boar not pooing normally

[Mike221]

Hello all,

Need advice again from more experienced Guinea Pig lovers.

Last couple of days one of our boars started pooping very dry caramel color looking poops.
Some of them were completely dry, and some of them one side looking normal, while other side dry.
Poops did not dry out in the cage, they come out of him dry.
Today for the first time, we noticed bunch of tear-shaped half poops in the cage with tails.

For the last 2 hours we are watching them. They are both eating hay and veggies non stop.
Problem is that our other guinea pig pooped like 20 pops (nice shaped, black), while he pooped only 1 small half dry?!

Is he maybe impacted? Would those above be symptoms?
When we are looking at him, it looks like sometimes he is trying to poop, but nothing comes out...
We have mineral oil at home, should we perform Anal Sack cleaning? Does that make sense?

We are under extreme weather warning up north in Canada for the last couple of days.
It is -35 Celsius outside and the heat in the house is at maximum, so the air is very dry.
We connected his poops to the weather, so we gave him more water to drink + extra cucumber.

Problem is that we are not home most of the day, so he is getting extra water in the evenings/mornings.
He is not big drinker, he usually gets only a sip or two during the day, while the other guinea pig drinks all the time.
If we hold him the water bottle over his head, then he will drink like there is no tomorrow.

He is getting us concerned.
He eats mostly normally. Lots of hay and veggies, but stopped eating pellets (we got a new bag recently ?!).
He lost a bit of weight, but he is at his low average for the last 3 days (1080 grams).
For the last 6 months he varies between 1080 - 1120 grams.

 

[bpatters]

How old is he?

Is he neutered?

Are you regularly checking his anal sac?

 

[Mike221]

He is 1.5 years old.

He is not neutered.
We are thinking about it, as we had a topic here about him ejaculating all over his cage mate, but he didn't do it over a month.

Honestly, we don't check it probably as often as we should.
Last time it was checked couple of months ago while he was at vet's exam.

 

[Mike221]

Now he pooped couple of normal, black poops.
But we gave him lots of water to drink and some wet veggies.
He is peeing a lot now as well, it looks almost red pee, but he was eating lots of red lettuce.(hope that's the cause)

 

[bpatters]

You need to check him weekly, but only clean as necessary. You'll be able to tell if he's impacted by looking in the sac.

Try putting another couple of bottles of water in the cage, in different places, and at different heights. That may encourage him to drink.

 

[Mike221]

OK we checked his sack, and cleaned a bit with mineral oil.

Didn't really look too bad, a bit of hair and hay inside.
I guess we did alright for the first time doing it.

Yes we will try with more water bottles.
They have 2 atm.

 

[Mike221]

Our guinea pig still pooping half dry/ half wet poops. It seemed to be better when I forced him to drink, but now again some dry some wet poops.


I just weighted him and he lost weight. He is at 1049 grams , while for the last couple of weeks he was around 1080 grams, he never went under that.
Max he had in the past was 1120 grams.

This is now getting me really worried.
Now he is eating hay, but why that weight loss? He seems to be eating normally. He only stopped eating pellets.

I don't know, I am planning to get him to emergency vet tomorrow morning after I weight him.
If I make appointment, I will have to wait for days.

Is this 30 grams weight loss + dry poops a good enough reason to rush him to vet?

Thanks...

 

[bpatters]

Not really. A teaspoon of water weighs about five grams, so thirty grams isn't much -- a lot of it can be accounted by when he's last eaten/peed/pooped.

Most emergency vets aren't equipped to treat guinea pigs, and the better ones will just refuse to see them. Your pig isn't critically ill, so I'd get an appointment with a good exotic vet.

Have you tried giving him probiotics? Have his teeth been checked by a good exotic vet?

 

[Mike221]

Thanks for quick reply.

We haven't tried with probiotics. Is that something I can buy at a regular pharmacy or drug store or do I have to go through the vet?

His teeth were last checked couple of months ago by exotics vet and she said they were looking good.
We are up north in Canada, and there isn't lots of vets that specialize in guinea pigs and similar.
The ones that kind of do, we weren't really impressed.

 

[bpatters]

Bene-Bac for small animals is good, and is available from Amazon. Or you can use plain human acidophilus or kyodophilus.

 

[Mike221]

Thanks. Appreciate your advice as always

 

[spy9doc]

Bene-Bac for small animals is good, and is available from Amazon

With regard to Bene Bac, don't buy the little tubes as they are almost impossible to administer and virtually useless. Buy the larger 15gm syringe which is infinitely easier to administer and has guidelines for measured doses. You can buy a single tube......or order a three pack. They are eligible for Amazon Prime shipping.

https://www.amazon.com/PetAg-Bene-Bac-Pet-Gram-Syringe/dp/B0002ASS0W/ref=sr_1_5?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1515080715&sr=1-5&keywords=benebac

(broken link removed)

 

[Mike221]

Thanks for the tip, but I already ordered small tubes

Our piggy is not doing better.
We tried giving him acidophilus, cleaning his anal sack again and monitored him closely.

He is losing 10 - 15 grams per day.
Also every couple of minutes he stops, and looks like he is trying to poop and nothing comes out.
He basically poops couple of pellets per day only now.
He has appetite and is active like usual.

We decided to take him to the vet.
Went through emergency, but arranged for an exotics vet to see him.

After thorough exam, she suspects possible bladder stones.
That is her 1st possibility. She said could be the infection as well or something in his tummy.
Lately he eats his ejaculate after mounting other guinea pig, I mentioned that as well. Maybe that got him impacted

His teeth look great, anal sack is clean, temp is good.

So we are doing x-ray, if it shows nothing then they will do blood work.

 

[Mike221]

Just got a call from Vet hospital, Cupko has bladder stones.

We are going to pick him up later today and we are seeing the vet to talk .
Then I will get all the information

I will definitely start researching everything about that and recovery process.
Yeeezz, we are really trying hard to make sure they drink only filtrated water, we mostly feed them non high calcium veggies...
Lately we are giving both of them green/yellow pepper treats through the day, to make sure they are high on vitamin C, just because they were both sneezing and had mild discharge from nose. And it seemed to help with that problem. I hope we didn't do this to him...

 

[bpatters]

Stone issues are mostly genetic. I had two GP sisters from the same litter, both fed the exact same diet, one had two episodes of stones, the other lived to be over six and never had them.

You do want to avoid high calcium stuff -- only Oxbow or KMS Hayloft pellets, no or very limited kale/spinach, only very occasional small bits of herbs as a treat, etc. The best thing you can do is keep them up and moving so the calcium in the bladder is suspended and expelled when the pig pees.

 

[Mike221]

We used to have them running almost every day in their play pan, but now both wife and me come home late in the evening, so we had them running maybe once - twice per week.
Cupko is the piggy that's always active, walks around the cage and can't stand still. And he got the stones. While Misko, the other piggie, is a lazy one. Cupko makes him move, otherwise Misko prefers chilling

We booked in a surgery next Thursday.
Until then Cupko was sent home with following:

Metacam 0.5ml twice daily (which comes to 1.5mg in 24h)
Tramadol 0.2ml twice daily (comes to 20mg in 24h)
CriticalCare 2-3 times daily to prevent further weight loss

Tramadol dosage seems as per GuineaLynx guide.
Metacam dosage is much higher than recommended there (0.2mg/kg).
But again, I don't want him being in pain until the surgery. Not sure what to do here.

I will also build him a small C&C cage to make sure he pees and poops.
I was told in case he stops peeing, the stone can get stuck and than it is an emergency.

Here is the stone:

 

[bpatters]

There's a range of dosing for Metacam, so it doesn't sound like too much to me. But, both tramadol and metacam are given for pain, so I'm not sure I'd start him off with the full doses of both. You don't want to zonk him out. You could call the vet and ask about that. But I'd start him on one or the other and see how he does, and then add small amounts of the other one if it's needed.

 

[Mike221]

OK Thanks...We will give him some Metacam and small dosage of Tramadol.
Vet said we can play with dosage on Tramadol, since than one could make him sleep.

He is not making problems. We just put the dosage on the cucumber and he eats everything.
We'll see how it will go with critical care.

 

[Mike221]

We are having so hard time feeding Critical Care.

Last night we were able to put it on his favorite veggies, and he ate all.
This morning it didn't work that way. We are trying to syringe feed him, and were able to give maybe 5ml all together in couple of hours.
He is eating veggies by himself, but hay not really that much. He eats a bit only, so I know we need to force him with Critical Care.

But there is absolutely no way we can put 50ml into his mouth per day.
He fights, and struggles, and bites, etc...
It's not like on videos I watched where piggies comply after some time.

I don't know, if we try mixing it with just a bit of water, than it will be much less quantity, but it won't get sucked into the syringe...

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Try mixing the critical care with some baby food. Pumpkin, or some other veggie that pigs like. He may like that better.