General How to clean the anal sac

[Snoopy_298]

Hi,
I have never cleaned my guinea pig's anal sac; he's just 9 months old and has been with me for 6 months. However, recently there some hay that had stuck to his sac and when I removed it, I saw that his sac had some gunk and was quite stinky. I looked up videos on how to clean it and when tried, he wouldn't stay still. He didn't let me touch his sac. The moment I tried to put a q-tip dipped in warm water, he just jumped and didn't let me. I tried 2 more times, but it didn't work. Any tips on how to do it without hurting him? Since I'm doing it for the first time, I feel nervous because I don't want to hurt him and I am a little scared doing it because I think the q-tip cleaning might hurt. The moment I touch him, he keeps moving and squeaks. What should I do and how should I do it? How to keep him calm? Also, cleaning won't hurt him right? I would be grateful if someone could guide me and help me out?

 

[bpatters]

You could look in the Medical and Veterinary forum on this site and find an excellent video on how to do that. There's all sort of reference material here for almost anything you want to do for a guinea pig.

Just click on Forum and you'll see a list of all the forums.

 

[Snoopy_298]

Okay, I will check! Thank you so much!
So, I checked and I am unable to view the video. It says it is unavailable/private. Could you help me please?

 

[Snoopy_298]

Okay, I will check! Thank you so much!

So, I checked and I am unable to view the video. It says it is unavailable/private. Could you help me please?

 

[bpatters]

No idea. That's the first time it's ever happened.

I know we reference it a lot over at Guinea Lynx. I'll check it over there and see whether it's the same.


Edited to add: Here's the main GL reference on impaction: https://guinealynx.info/impaction.html

It may be a YouTube problem -- a lot of videos are marked that way. Check again in a little while and see if it still says the same. I'll keep looking into it.

 

[Snoopy_298]

Hey! Thank you so much!
Yess, I will check the YouTube link again. Thanks for the link! It was helpful for understanding

 

[bpatters]

YouTube still wasn't working this morning. I've emailed the person who created the video, but she hasn't responded yet. The email hasn't bounced back, but I'm not sure she's still getting mail there. I'll let you know what I find.