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Piggy Panic

elve_mk2

Banned
Poo vibes for Milo (in my avatar) please :wave:

He's had a real bad impaction for months now - has to have his poo scooped out carefully with an oiled q-tip every day - sometimes twice a day :roll: Lovely job if you like the smell of horse muck mixed with a bucket of sick :lol: Sometimes I nearly pass out with it :rolleyes: But anyway - other than that he's been fighting fit - literally - mind your fingers! :shock:

But past few days, in retrospect I've not been getting as much poops out with the gunky caecal poops (which some vets deny exists :?) - Milo is unfortunate in having a poo hole deep down into his bum bag/caecal poo area, so his normal poos come out sideways, get stuck and build up into one massive ball so he can't poo AT ALL any more :?

Hope no-one's eating tea :wave:

Anyway - I guess he needed cleaning out a lot more often than once a day, as yesterday he went off his food - due to a blockage I'm guessing, of old poo - I'm guessing his bowels are getting a bit saggy inside with the fact he's constipated a lot, so nothing's moving much :(

Anyway - he was all floppy this morning when I cleaned his bum out - I've been awake since 4am worrying about what to do for the best - which of course is something you never know except with hindsight :roll: so I arranged with ex to take us to the vets for him to be PTS as he was obviously suffering - looked so miserable and shuddering poor lad :(

Son was sad - he likes Milo :( Milo was the one I first fell in love with way back when I rescued them all - little 4" long ball of fluff he was :love:

Then son says awww poor Milo - look at him! And I put the phone down, having arranged his demise, and the fluff monster is attempting to groom himself! Then he goes to his bottle and has a big drink! :shock: So I grab a q-tip and some very teeny dry poops come out :p and his tummy does a big gurgle :p I laid him on my lap facing away from me and rubbed his tummy in a circular motion, and he laid his head down on my lap and drooled :lol:

Have got quite a few more misshapen poops out since - and he's EATEN every tiny dandelion leaf I could find (wrong time of year :roll:) plus half a slice of carrot and quite a few big stalks of timmy grass! :D Off to gouge some more poo out now - wish us luck! He's not dead yet - was fighting me like a tiger last time I picked him up, which was a definite improvement on this morning :)
 
Ah bless little Milo, didnt want to go just yet obviously and has decided to keep fighting.

Sending vibes for lots of poo to come out and for Milo to continue eating and pooing and being a little love.

x
 
hi sorry is he a ginnie pig if so i had to to the same with mine it made me feel sick but he was worth it. keep doing a good job. thinking of yous:D
 
phewww glad you didnt make the call.. lots and lots of vibes for him xxxx

not sure id be brave enough to clean out poop :shock::shock: you must love that little man a lot :love::love:
 
thank you peeps :wave: yes he's a piggy angelica - that's his funny face in my avatar :D He's had some more dandelions and brocolli - no more poo yet but I'll keep checking hourly - it's like having a baby all over again :roll: not sure which smelt worse though - it's been a while since I changed a nappy THANK GOODNESS :lol:
 
Guinea bums smell so bad! Benny likes to store things, like hay, up his bum. Whenever I have to give him a clean it always makes me retch :lol:
 
Guinea bums smell so bad! Benny likes to store things, like hay, up his bum. Whenever I have to give him a clean it always makes me retch :lol:

yes it's really awful isn't it :shock: I've got some more tiny missformed poops from Milo's bum, but he's refusing to eat anything except dandelions really - just had a nibble at the carrot and brocolli - shame it's the wrong time of year for greenstuff and no way can he go in the garden - it's freezing! :roll:

I was remembering too, his dad went the same way a couple of years ago - I spent a week feeding him dandelions then he died anyway :( I didn't know about how normal an impaction can look way back then though - you'd never even guess some boys have a problem till they stop eating, so maybe that was his dad's problem too
 
:wave: thanks everyone - Milo is fine today, although he looks 'old' :( He's eating hay and dry mix again quite happily, plus carrot and what grass and dandelions I can still find alive in the garden - so nowt wrong with his teeth yet (I say yet as the less he eats the more they grow :()

But he can't poo without my help - not at all - So I was up early and it needs doing every 2 or 3 hours, which is hardly realistic long term :( I'm hoping it will resolve itself but I know it probably won't - I'm sure he's suffering from megacolon, having just done a search on it. He's barely doing any poo - I think he's storing it all up inside until he's blocked up again.

So - he'll have to be PTS at some stage in the near future I guess, as his health will slowly decline with it, but at the moment he seems happy with life and as I'm home I can clean his bum every 2 hours for now - he's not crazy about that but is very well behaved so not a problem :)
 
Isn't there anything the vet can do to help him in the meantime? Even if it's just pain relief and something to help the gut to move?
 
Isn't there anything the vet can do to help him in the meantime? Even if it's just pain relief and something to help the gut to move?

he doesn't seem to be in pain now the blockage has shifted, and I wouldn't want an animal with a pocketed gut containing a large ball of poo to have a gut stimulant as that would rupture the gut. As far as I know from looking online, surgery is the only option, but it's not really an option for a guinea pig - just cats.

I've been cleaning out his bum daily for months now, but I guess it just slowly built up inside him even so, as they (male piggies) generally lose muscle tone in their guts when they are older.
 
I wouldn't want an animal with a pocketed gut containing a large ball of poo to have a gut stimulant as that would rupture the gut.

Glad he's feeling more comfy now :) I agree with that generally, but once the large ball of poo is 'out', might it help stop further ones from forming if it's used regularly? I don't know about guinea pigs but I know it's used in cats with megacolon for this very reason.

Has he seen a vet about it? Is it possible that it might be something else totally different going on in there and a vet might be able to palpate and see if he is in any pain that doesn't necessarily outwardly notice.
 
He's 4yrs old :) I'm sure of what's wrong with him Alison - I've had 21 pigs and watched most of them sicken from various illnesses by now, including bladder stones, cancer, tooth problems and other things - I know what Milo's problem is as it just started as a simple impaction, which all my older boys have suffered from - his has got worse because the opening from his actual anus is higher up inside the caecal poo bag area the boys have. I've seen enough piggy bums close up to know that much - I'm sure I've seen more than the vet in fact :lol:

Vets usually only see guinea pigs when they are dying, so they're not very experienced at diagnosing their initial problems. I had a boy who wouldn't eat and was confidently told it's always their teeth - although I suggested he maybe had cancer (which his brother had just died from). He had a dental but didn't recover - I'm sure I was right and the vet was wrong that time too.

Henry had an impaction but his has resolved completely with cleaning - he's got his muscle tone back - his anus is right on the edge of the bum bag (as I call that caecal pouch), so his caecal poos have never impeded his normal poos coming out.

My vet and I had a big argument about pigs producing and eating caecal poos last year - he said the country's lecturing vet on small animal care (all vets as you know have to go to annual conferences to update their scant knowledge on small animal care) - she had told the vets of the UK that pigs neither make nor eat caecal poo! Well I've seen them doing it countless times - so I printed him off some info from the net (which made me popular :lol:) - he has since been replaced by a new vet I'm glad to say!
 
oooh just cleaned his bum again and 2 NORMAL looking poos came out - first since Friday :D And he's eaten a fair bit of greens and grass, dandelions, hay and dry mix today, so that's good - here's hoping I can progress to just cleaning his bum twice a day - I don't think once a day was enough even though the other boys only needed it doing fortnightly!
 
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