Gorgeous Guineas Blog

1) Try everything to bond a pig with another boar before resorting to neutering – I did get in touch with 4 rescue centres and none of them wanted to take it on. One rescue much further away does boar bonding, but I live out of area for the pre-adoption Homecheck.

Guinea pig rescues will usually do their best to help you to find a suitable friend for your piggy, but sometimes they may not have a guinea of the right sex / age, or be very experienced in matching up boars. Always bear in mind that even when boars are successfully bonded, there are no guarantees that they will live happily ever after in peace and harmony. Last year Reading Guinea Pig Rescue took in two boars that had been living together for 2 years but started fighting all of a sudden. They were separated, castrated and successfully rehomed with sows. It is important to note that castrating guinea pigs does NOT change their behaviour and make them less agressive as with other species such as cats and dogs.

The only reason to have a boar castrated (unless there is a medical condition involved) is so that he be paired up with a wife (or two) without the risk of producing Mini-Pigs. Often the only way rescues can find Forever Homes for boars is to have them castrated and pair them up with sows. Failing this, they would spend most of their lives in the rescue waiting for a partner.

2) I did exactly what everyone says to do – I asked local rescue centres for recommendations of good Vets. I then spoke to the Vet on the phone and asked about how many neuterings they do, what the success rate is and what gas they use. All of the answers were satisfactory. What I didn’t ask though and this is important… what do you use to stitch up the pig, what is their after care system and what dosage of antibiotics do you give? As soon as I picked Cakey up, I suspected that things weren’t right…..he hadn’t eaten and they hadn’t given him any Oxbow Critical Care, plus he had a huge amount of faeces sitting in his anal sac and this made me suspect that they hadn’t even looked at him, let alone cared enough to clean him up.

The most important piece of information that you need is which specific Vet at the recommended practice is good with guineas. Within a Veterinary Practice there are usually several Vets, so you must know which one is being recommended. When you take your guinea in for a pre-op check, make sure that you ask all the questions that need asking and satisfy yourself that everything is in order before booking your guinea in for the operation. Vets operate on different days of the week, so make sure that your guinea is booked in on a day when the Vet of your choice is operating. When you drop the guinea off on the morning of the operation, check again that the Vet you think is operating actually is. You can also write on the consent form “only to be operated on by xxxx”.

Isoflurane / Servoflurane are the safest gases to use for guinea pig anaesthetics. Combined with a pre-op injection of Rimadyl (an anti-inflammatory / pain relieving drug), no other drugs are usually required. Once the anaesthetic gas has been switched off, guineas are flushed through with Oxygen and start coming round. They will usually be wide awake, back on their feet and eating again within 10-15 minutes. If they are reluctant to start eating, a Nurse should step in and start syringe feeding them within an hour to ensure that their intestines keep on working. If this doesn’t happen and the piggy is not pooping, you have another completely different set of problems on your hands.

Catgut should NEVER be used to stitch up guinea pigs. It can cause an allergic reaction resulting in an inflammatory response, leading to a lot of pain and a worse scar. Vicryl is the material of choice for stitching up guineas as it is slowly absorbed by the body. If the suturing is all done internally, there are no stitches to remove and nothing for the guinea to pick at. Unfortunately for Cakey, he was stitched up with Catgut and had a bad swelling in the area of the incision. Most reactions occur within 2-7 days of the operation. The Catgut was subsequently removed and replaced with Vicryl. Some of his stitches were external, and he picked at them, opened part of his wound up, and needed some Skin Glue (like Superglue) to hold the skin together while the top layer healed.

3) Cakey was looked after at the Vets the weekend after his operation. They assured me that there was a Nurse to look after him. When I picked him up on the Monday, his poos were the size of mouse droppings. It was 9:30am and I asked the nurse how he was. She said she hadn’t looked at him since 10:00pm the night before… in my care he would have had at least 3 syringe feedings in that time.

Although Vets have an on-call system, it doesn’t always mean that a Vet or a Nurse will be in attendance throughout the night / weekend. Always check before leaving your guinea in there overnight / over a weekend. Guineas can get stressed on their own and in a strange environment, so if possible, always take them in with the partner that they usually live with.

4) Get some Oxbow Critical Care before the op – I went to 4 Vets in London to find some and none of them had any. Better to get it before you need to start syringe feeding your guinea if they are not eating properly after their operation.

5) Feed up your pig before an op!! Better to have some weight to fall back on then starting out skinny and losing even more if things go wrong.

6) Travel to a guinea-competent Vet rather than risk a not-so-good one. The time taken to get your pig back to health if things go wrong is a hundred times more than a 6 hour round trip to a good Vet.

During the week after his op, Cakey’s lovely Human spent a lot of time looking for a guinea-competent Vet and found 3 within the Active Vetcare Group (Jenny / Hannah in Tilehurst and James in Maidenhead). Cakey was subsequently seen and treated by these 3 Vets and is on the road to recovery. He still isn’t out of the woods and is on a hefty dose of Baytril (antibiotic) for the next 2 weeks to keep any infection at bay.

If this article saves just ONE guinea pig from going through what poor Cakey has endured over the past couple of weeks (not to mention his Human’s stress and bank balance!), we will be very happy.

Information contained in this article is for guidance only and is no substitute for proper Veterinary diagnosis and care.