Hello!
My guinea pig Conrad has been having issues with his eyes. His eye has been irritated on and off for the past 3 weeks. The start of the day he will have his eye slightly closed and by the end it is back to normal for the next 2-3 days. This has happened to both his eyes. Once to his left eye and twice to his right eye. The first image is from before irritation occurred, second image is from yesterday with irritation and the third image was taken just now.
His eye was normal today but I still took him to the vet who found nothing wrong with his eye, no scratch or any hay in it. I showed him the first image and he said there was very obvious irritation and redness going on. He suggested to remove hay for a week to see if that is what could be causing the on and off irritation. (Conrad does like to shove his face into the hay.) I thought hay was a big part of their diet, wouldn't removing it for a week cause issue? I brought this up to the vet and he said I can just feed him leafy green vegetables such as bok choy in replace of hay for the week. I don't feel comfortable removing hay from his diet for a week and am worried he would begin to prefer the veggies to hay if I do so. Will he be fine without hay for a week? Is there anything else that could be causing this on and off irritation? I give Conrad timothy hay and just ordered some orchard hay to see if that would help. I also recently got a hay rack to prevent him from shoving his face into it again but the eye irritation still occurred.
Some other medical information just in case. He has ringworm and fungus infection on his ears. He has been taking 0.5mL Itrafungol every other week for 5 weeks now.
My guinea pig Conrad has been having issues with his eyes. His eye has been irritated on and off for the past 3 weeks. The start of the day he will have his eye slightly closed and by the end it is back to normal for the next 2-3 days. This has happened to both his eyes. Once to his left eye and twice to his right eye. The first image is from before irritation occurred, second image is from yesterday with irritation and the third image was taken just now.
His eye was normal today but I still took him to the vet who found nothing wrong with his eye, no scratch or any hay in it. I showed him the first image and he said there was very obvious irritation and redness going on. He suggested to remove hay for a week to see if that is what could be causing the on and off irritation. (Conrad does like to shove his face into the hay.) I thought hay was a big part of their diet, wouldn't removing it for a week cause issue? I brought this up to the vet and he said I can just feed him leafy green vegetables such as bok choy in replace of hay for the week. I don't feel comfortable removing hay from his diet for a week and am worried he would begin to prefer the veggies to hay if I do so. Will he be fine without hay for a week? Is there anything else that could be causing this on and off irritation? I give Conrad timothy hay and just ordered some orchard hay to see if that would help. I also recently got a hay rack to prevent him from shoving his face into it again but the eye irritation still occurred.
Some other medical information just in case. He has ringworm and fungus infection on his ears. He has been taking 0.5mL Itrafungol every other week for 5 weeks now.