Not Eating Guinea Pig Stopped Eating - Maybe a Dental Issue? Not Sure

[cocosdad]

Hi all, I'm having some issues with my female guinea pig, Coco. She's about 2.5 years old and weighs ~900g.

The last couple of days, Coco seemed to be eating less timothy hay than usual, but we didn't think much of it because she was still eating some and she was still eating all of her veggies and pellets.

However, this morning (Saturday morning), we noticed that she only ate a tiny bit of her overnight veggies and didn't touch the pellets or timothy hay.

We immediately weighed her and she hasn't lost any weight as of this morning. She's still 909 g, which is pretty much normal for her.

However, she's now stopped eating pretty much everything. She does show interest in food but she doesn't really eat it. She has eaten a cherry tomato and some banana. She'll also eat some orchard hay and the timothy hay flower, but she won't eat the rest of the timothy hay. She also tried nibbling on a cucumber but stopped after a bite.

She's also not drinking water and when we leave Coco in the cage, she just sits in her hidey all hunched up. However, when she's on our lap she actually seems decently active,

We started syringe feeding her critical care as soon as we noticed she wasn't eating. We also got her into the vet today, but the vet couldn't find anything specifically wrong. We live in Vietnam so it's hard to find vets with guinea pig experience, but our vet was the best we could find and she does seem to have a decent understanding, though I'm not sure if she's as knowledgeable as a dedicated exotics vet you'd find in other countries.

Our vet did notice a little inflammation on the inside of Coco's mouth on the right side. I also noticed that when we can get Coco to eat the orchard hay she closes her right eye while she's chewing sometimes, almost as if she's in pain. She's also had some of the grooming liquid coming out of her right eye (but not the left).

So right now we're wondering if it's some type of dental issue or abscess on the right side of her mouth. It doesn't seem like bloating because her abdomen seems totally normal.

Our vet has prescribed her .16 ml of Metacam, but only once per day. I thought the normal dosage was twice per day? Could anyone share insights here?

The vet said to give her the Metacam once per day for four days and see if there's any improvement. If not, the vet recommended putting Coco under sedation to be able to look at her back teeth and see if there are any issues with her molars and so on.

Right now we're going to keep syringe feeding her critical care and water with vitamin C, along with the one dose Metacam once per day.

Is there anything else we should be doing or checking? And should we ask to do the Metacam twice per day instead of once per day?

Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

You're doing all the right things so far. I would however have a closer look inside her mouth. She may have an injury, overgrown molars, and possibly even elongated roots among others things. This can't be left to just improve on its own.

 

[cocosdad]

You're doing all the right things so far. I would however have a closer look inside her mouth. She may have an injury, overgrown molars, and possibly even elongated roots among others things. This can't be left to just improve on its own.

Thanks for your response! The vet tried to look inside but she couldn't get too deep. I'm hoping the metacam helps so we don't have to sedate her, though.

Do you know if it's normal for her poops to look weird as a result of changing eating habits? The last few have had a very odd shape with what looks like mucus and bubbles in them. I attached some pictures of what's going on.

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Yes. Those poops are consistent with a diet change, like feeding critical care. It's extremely difficult to get a look inside a pigs mouth without sedation, unfortunately. I've been there and done that. I'd get her in as quick as possible.