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Bladder stones in piggies

~bailey~

Mama Doe
My friend has three female guinea pigs. One was being treated for suspected cystitis for about a week, then because she wasn't getting any better she had an x ray where they found a bladder stone. She had been trying to pass it, so it was close to coming out and the vet was able to remove it without operating. It was the size of an orange pip, poor girlie :( She was a bit sore, but shes now on the mend, to my friend's relief! However, the vet said that she will likely be prone to them now that she has had one and told my friend to feed a wet-only diet. I don't know anything about this really, but that sounds a bit weird to me? Does anyone have any advice? Obviously avoiding calcium rich food, but one vet said kale is good, and another said to avoid it :? Is there a low calcium dry food that she can feed them? They currently have some sort of muslie mix. Any advice would be great :D
Sorry if this is in the wrong section, couldnt figure out where was best to put it!
 
Found this article about bladder stones - The article says that increasing fluid intake can help, either syringing water, feeding wet, leafy veg, or even going to the vets twice a week for sub-cutaneaous injections of fluids - but I guess that would be just if they had a stone they were struggling to pass out of their bladder. I find that some of my piggies use their bottle as a mouthwash, and the bottle needs to be cleaned every couple of days rather than just rinsed and refilled. I shake all the dirty water out, refill with clean and put the top back on, then shake it very hard upside down - this flushes all the food bits out of the spout - then it all needs rinsing again, otherwise they can't get enough water out.

The other thing mentioned by the article in the link is to avoid feeding roots and fruits or seeds, as the seed bearing/propagating parts of a plant have to high a ratio of phosphorous to calcium - and most stones are made from phosphorous, although the vet needs to send it off for analysis to find out what mineral it's mainly made of. I feed wagg mix to mine, and there's a lot of seeds, peas and sweetcorn in it, which I guess will have higher phosphorous - so perhaps a pellet food would be better for her? Mine like the science selective for piggies, but wouldn't touch excel - oxbow cavy cuisine is really good I believe but with 18 piggies I can't afford it. http://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html
 
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Found this article about bladder stones - The article says that increasing fluid intake can help, either syringing water, feeding wet, leafy veg, or even going to the vets twice a week for sub-cutaneaous injections of fluids - but I guess that would be just if they had a stone they were struggling to pass out of their bladder. I find that some of my piggies use their bottle as a mouthwash, and the bottle needs to be cleaned every couple of days rather than just rinsed and refilled. I shake all the dirty water out, refill with clean and put the top back on, then shake it very hard upside down - this flushes all the food bits out of the spout - then it all needs rinsing again, otherwise they can't get enough water out.

The other thing mentioned by the article in the link is to avoid feeding roots and fruits or seeds, as the seed bearing/propagating parts of a plant have to high a ratio of phosphorous to calcium - and most stones are made from phosphorous, although the vet needs to send it off for analysis to find out what mineral it's mainly made of. I feed wagg mix to mine, and there's a lot of seeds, peas and sweetcorn in it, which I guess will have higher phosphorous - so perhaps a pellet food would be better for her? Mine like the science selective for piggies, but wouldn't touch excel - oxbow cavy cuisine is really good I believe but with 18 piggies I can't afford it. http://www.guinealynx.info/stones.html

Thanks very much for that elve :D The vet definately didn't send the stone off for analysis, my friend has it in a tube at home :lol: I'm going to read up on the different types of piggie foods, thanks for the names, I can google now :lol: Despite knowing lots of complicated things about bunnies, I'm finding it hard to find what I need to on this subject, so your reply has helped a lot :D
 
The article said calcium isn't the problem!- it's phosphorous being too high in ratio to calcium - there needs to be twice as much calcium as phosphorous, or nearly that ratio, in a food for it to be OK. Bear in mind too that brocolli florets, tomatoes, cucumber are all fruiting bodies of a plant, as well as what we commonly think of as 'fruit', so high phosphorous - and roots are as bad, so no carrot either.
 
lol, sorry, I know that article said that the ratio is the problem, but then other things I've read say to cut down on calcium too. I'm getting pretty confused now! I thought that you should reduce the amount of calcium, whilst keeping it at the right ratios? Because even in the right ratios, surely too much calcium is still a bad thing? Or am I getting it confused with rabbits too? :roll: :lol:

ETA: so kale is actually a good one to feed because it has a high Ca:p ratio? Or should it still be limited?
 
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I think that's why it recommends to have the stone analysed and see what mineral it's made up of - it did say though that it's phosphorous that lodges in the wall of the bladder usually, and then crystalises bigger over time.

I think the problem is mainly that we tend to feed piggies a lot more fruit, cucumber and tomato than we do rabbits, so they are eating more phosphorous, plus all the seeds and peas in a mix are going to be higher too as they're 'fruit' - I've never read about it till today and I wish I known as I had a piggie die last week and he was always very dry and clean - I'm now thinking he was TOO dry and I should have been worried he wasn't weeing enough to flush out minerals in his bladder - his brother died a few months ago and with it being genetic I'm wondering now if this is what killed them :?
 
I think that's why it recommends to have the stone analysed and see what mineral it's made up of - it did say though that it's phosphorous that lodges in the wall of the bladder usually, and then crystalises bigger over time.

I think the problem is mainly that we tend to feed piggies a lot more fruit, cucumber and tomato than we do rabbits, so they are eating more phosphorous, plus all the seeds and peas in a mix are going to be higher too as they're 'fruit' - I've never read about it till today and I wish I known as I had a piggie die last week and he was always very dry and clean - I'm now thinking he was TOO dry and I should have been worried he wasn't weeing enough to flush out minerals in his bladder - his brother died a few months ago and with it being genetic I'm wondering now if this is what killed them :?

Ah, I see, well she still has the stone, so maybe she can still get it analysed :? I'm sorry to hear about your boys :( I've found a good table for Ca:p ratios, I'll PM it to you incase you are interested. Can't post it here because its on another forum. Obviously its not just bunnies that are more complicated than they seem!
 
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