Guinevere Wheeking Cavies

17/11/2024

Skinny colors

Credit to the Owner

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Guinevere Cavies Guinevere Wheeking Cavies

17/11/2024

Housing reference for our fur and hailess babies

15/11/2024

Vitamin C supplement, Is it necessary for our guinea pig?

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Why we don’t supplement with vitamin C? And why it may contribute to urinary stones.

This will perhaps divide some opinions but here we don’t supplement our piggies with extra vitamin c, and there a few reasons why...

Just like humans, guinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C in their bodies and therefore have an absolute need for it within their diets to ensure good health. Historically it has been mentioned that it is essential to supplement this vitamin within your piggies diet, however with a handful of good veggies you are very likely to be giving your piggies their recommended daily allowance which is 10mg per kg per day. So your average piggie needs about 9-12mg of vitamin C a day. Take this 10g piece of bell pepper as an example, doesn’t look like much does it, but it actually contains all the vitamin C your piggie needs that day. This doesn’t mean you only feed this amount of pepper a day of course but a couple of slices like this mixed with other veg is perfectly adequate for their vitamin C intake. High vitamin C veggies include - bell pepper, broccoli, spring greens, kale, parsley, dill and many wild w**ds as well as fresh grass which is abundant in vitamin C. Guinea pig pellets also have added vitamin C within them, so on a good diet of hay, pellets and veg and in the summer time, fresh grass there should be no reason why they should not meet their requirements.

So why would supplementing it be a bad thing or potentially cause urinary stones?

Athough we don’t fully understand the full reasons why piggies develop urinary stones, and although it is likely to be multifactorial (a combination of illness, bodyweight, bladder infections, diet, genetics etc) large levels of vitamin C may actually increase the risk of your piggie to developing stones or even just urinary sludge. The reason for this is how the body excretes vitamin C. When the vitamin is broken down and excreted from the body through the kidneys it does so mostly in the form of oxalate. Oxalate is actually a major part of one of the most common stones formed in the piggies urinary tract ‘calcium oxalate’ a combination of the natural calcium in the urine and oxalate. Yes we are aware that other stones are considered common too. Many studies in humans showed that men consuming nearly three times the recommended daily amount of vitamin C had a 31% increase in kidney stone formation and those having extra supplements had a 16% Increase of incidence. It would be fabulous if we had the chance to look at this further in piggies but it would be a huge undertaking. But we have certainly seen some anecdotal evidence for this is pigs too.

All this being said, don’t forget that vitamin C is vital to piggies so you should not restrict it too much, and for any guinea pig who is pregnant or unwell it is best to increase their daily intake to 30mg per kg per day. However have a little think about how much vitamin c your piggies are getting in their diet and weather supplementation is needed.

If you do choose to supplement then make sure it is with a powdered form ideally, sprinkled onto pellets/veg. Vitamin C is a highly unstable molecule and denatures in water and in sunlight making it pretty useless in water bottles. It also binds to the metal parts of the water dripper and can make water taste funny to pets, so can sometimes put them off drinking. If you still choose to add to water, ensure they have a separate water source which has no added supplements so they can choose to drink from either.

15/11/2024

Gorgeous designs, credit to the owner

12/11/2024

Head Tilt...😢





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Head tilts.

We haven't covered this topic in quite a long time and sadly one of our own piggies went down with a severe head tilt last week so it's probably a good idea to cover it again now more comprehensively.

Head tilts can come on very quickly in any species and piggies are prone to them once in a while. You may find your pig is fine in the morning but upon returning home have head tilt or in very bad cases be unable to stand. The tilt occurs due to the vestibular apparatus in the ear being disrupted or the brain signals being disrupted. The following things are the most common reasons for head tilts in piggies.
- an inner ear disease which is from the ear canal which has ruptured the ear drum and tracked into the inner ear
- a upper respiratory infection which has tracked up the Eustachian tube into the inner ear making an infection in the inner ear but keeping the ear drum in tact
- an infection of e.cuniculi, a common parasite which affects rabbits but has been documented to infect guinea pigs too, it affects the brain stem and causes a head tilt. It also causes kidney problems and cataracts if infected young.

Much less common reasons would be a head trauma, brain infection or a brain tumour, but thankfully these are not very common. Please note that strokes don't usually cause a head tilt, they would more likely cause paralysis of legs and inability to stand.

To diagnose what the problem is you can do several things, however in most cases treatment is started straight away to give the best chances of recovery. If no improvements are seen on drugs then the following tests can be performed:
- an X-ray to look at the bullea (inner ear) or more ideal a CT scan, this is far superior to X-rays as you can image the inner ear in much more detail to establish where there may be infection, a CT will also image the brain too
- a blood test to check for an e.cuniculi infection
- general bloods to see if there is an infection present in the body

Treatment involves (depending on the cause)
- antibiotics (strong antibiotics like baytril etc are necessary in these sorts of cases), often several weeks of this is needed to pe*****te the inner ear, a short course is not appropriate
- a course of panacur to treat an e.cuniculi infection
- anti vertigo drugs such as stemitil to help with any nausea should they feel it and disorientation
- anti inflammatories like metacam to bring down any inflammation in the ear or brain
- surgery to remove infection from the ear canal and/or bulla
- supportive care in the form of syringe feeding and pro kinetics if needed
- severe and long term cases will need physiotherapy to help them get up on their feet again.

These cases have mixed outcomes depending on what the cause of the head tilt is, but getting treatment quickly will help increase chances of a good outcome (depending on cause). It can be distressing to care for a patient with a head tilt, some cases cannot walk or will roll over due to being disoriented and dizzy. Gentle handling, soft bedding changed regularly and patience is what is needed as it may take several weeks for signs to really resolve.

Here's our lovely Mumma pig, we're keeping our fingers crossed for her over the coming weeks.

12/11/2024

Dealing with bar biting

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https://www.facebook.com/1646716445601480/posts/2385921141681003?sfns=mo

Bar biting.

This behaviour can be a challenge or piggie owners. Most of the time it can simply mean 'HURRY UP' As piggies will often do this behaviour whilst veggies or pellets are being readied for feeding time. Many owners will put up with it, and may consider it cute, but it can be disruptive and in some cases it can result in broken front teeth.

If the behaviour is around feeding time and you want to try to reduce them bar biting then it is best to prepare the food firstly. Then you need to wait for your piggie to stop bar chewing and step away from the edge and then feed them a piece of food. By waiting until they have stopped you are rewarding them for not chewing. If you have several piggies who do it it may be that you have to wait patiently for all of them to stop before actually feeding. Don't leave the food too close by as pigs will smell it and it will only exacerbate the behaviour. Continue the above every single time it's feeding time and you should see results.

If a piggie is chewing to get to another it may mean they want to be in the pen with them, want their food, or want to fight. Males (particularly unneutered) will often desperately try to chew the bars to get nearer females. If this is the case move them much much further away as it will be causing distress to the boar having sows housed next door. Boars must wait 6 weeks after neutering surgery to be allowed in with sows.

If bar biting is happening at random times of day or you are seeing the hutch being chewed excessively and it is not associated with other piggies or food times it may be that they are bored. It may be even as simple as they have too smaller space, a common problem with pet shop bought cages and hutches. If boredom is the case, try to provide your piggies with more enrichment into their enclosure. This could include adding more hay for natural foraging behaviours, giving plenty of hides, toilet rolls to chew and hide food into, tunnels, beds, wooden chews, platforms and archways, hanging parrot toys, fleece forests, cosies, living herbs/edible plants, more vegetable/herb/wild w**d variety in their diet, ensuring they have a companion, giving them floor and/or grass time outside (when weather permits) spending more time with them and/or giving more space/a bigger enclosure.

02/11/2024

31/10/2024

Guinevere Bryce at his juvenile age.

He has random white hairs in the face (white blazes - white stripe down the center of the face) or the so-called White Spotting and this is due to White Spotting (WS) gene, this gene is incompletely dominant trait.

About White Spotting https://www.facebook.com/share/wXTJ2KoPVJkXSkpq/
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Guinevere Cavies Guinevere Wheeking Cavies

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27/10/2024

For those who love Californian, you can use this copy of standard from British Cavy Council for reference (credit to BCC).

Highlights:
***Californian (White, Cream, Buff, Golden, or Red body, with Black points and dark eyes or with Chocolate points and ruby eyes).

***The Californian is a smooth, short-coated cavy with s**t, ears and feet of one colour and body of a different colour, the PATTERN of markings being similar to those of the Himalayan cavy.

***The Californian is a MARKED PATTERN cavy and, as specified in the weighting of the breed points, preference should be given to markings over type.

***Californians may be exhibited in the following colours:
ESCC Red, DE Golden, Buff, DE Cream or DE White (with corresponding eye colour), and with either Black (black) or Chocolate (rich milk chocolate) points.

Note: Californian Standard credit to the owner

Guinevere Cavies Guinevere Wheeking Cavies