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Paravati
I GAVE, dammit!

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:31 pm


Paisley, how many kids do you have?

Paisley

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:34 pm


Six - 5 girls, one boy.

Girl - 13
Boy - 10
Girl - 8 1/2
Girl - 7
Girl - almost 3
Girl - 10 months

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Paravati
I GAVE, dammit!

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:36 pm


My goodness. And I thought dealing with three was a bit overwhelming. Hehe. I'm 27, and Alex is 30, and we have three kids, 2 dogs, and 16 guinea pigs. Sometimes it seems a bit much, but I always wanted 5 kids someday. He was a steal because he already comes with 3. ;)

Paisley

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 3:40 pm


It's nice to have a large family, that is for sure. But, as with anything, there are "those days"!

I'm 39; husband will be 44.

2 piggies and 1 rabbit round out our household.

InkysMom

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:11 pm


Paisley, now we ALL know why you are the "Practical Organizer"... I feel like that's all I do and I only have 2 (human) kids! Also one 6 mo. old Eng. Springer Spaniel puppy-girl, and dear Inky, he of the recently broken-off tooth.

Para, I figured you kept busy enough with your rescue and didn't think you had any human kids. I'm impressed.

Wonder how Chary's doing today with those poor abcessed pigs?

Charybdis

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 4:22 pm


Relevant research information:

Healthy guinea-pigs housed with spontaneously infected ones in the same cage suffered from the infection, showing manifestation and pathologic changes similar to the spontaneous cases. Some of them, however, remained apparently healthy for about 2 months harboring the organisms in the conjunctiva or nasal cavity

Other than that, I'm running up against a brick wall. Found one article on MedLine that Pigglies is going to pick up at her library. The UC Davis medical librarian couldn't help me and I'm waiting for a call from UCD's small animal clinic.

Paisley

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 5:03 pm


Oh dear! That doesn't sound very good at all.

Charybdis

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 5:49 pm


University of Missouri:

Airborne: No.

Carriers: Yes.

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Zoe

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 5:54 pm


I'm late responding here. I seem to write this out every few months...

My Iris came to me with Cervical Lymphadenitis. I discovered it after 3 weeks of quarantine. I had her in quarantine with the pig I adopted at the same time who had been living with her. Both seemed healthy. Iris was smaller...

The other pig, Daphne, never got infected. They are both doing great now and that was a long time ago... 2 or 3 years now at least. Iris had surgery. She was quarantined in another room all alone after her surgery... for like 2 months.

Daphne didn't get sick, but my elderly lady, Zoe got it. How, I have no idea. I think they touched noses once. Being 6 years old we decided to quarantine Zoe, put her on Baytril forever and not do surgery.

When both Zoe and Iris were sick, I did a lot of syringe feeding. Iris didn't eat on her own for a couple of weeks after surgery. Zoe developed some absesses on her jaw and wouldn't eat either.

Iris is alive and well and very robust. Zoe lived over 1 1/2 years more... almost to the age of 8. Zoe didn't die of the Cervical Lymphadenitis.

I hope I never have to deal with Cervical Lymphadentis again. Poor pigs had a heck of a time. The syringe feeding was absolutely a life saver.

Seffy

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:35 pm


After reading this post, I too thought it sounded an aweful lot like Strangles in horses. I'd like to paste a very good article on Strangles. I cant link to it because you need a userid/password to access it.

One thing it does mention, in horses generally an early warning symptom is a high temperature. Maybe this is true in guinea pigs too? You might want to take your herd's temps.

Also this article states:

Environmental Persistence
Recent work on Strangles ability to persist in the environment has shown:
survives on wood for 63 days
survives of glass for 48 days at 68 degrees
survival time is affected by temperature
Phosphoric acid and chlorine bleach were poor disinfectants. Povidone iodine, chlorhexidine, and glutaraldehyde were good disinfectants. Perhaps the best choice for barnyard sanitization are the quaternary ammonium salts that are stable and relatively nontoxic to higher life forms. A-33 is one which is readily available from a veterinarian and has a good spectrum of activity.
S. equi may survive for several weeks in water troughs but dies quickly in soil and on pasture. Communal drinking sources play an important role in the rapid dissemination of infection because of contamination by nasal discharges. The organism will remain viable in frozen discharges. Otherwise, survival requires moisture and protection from sunlight and environmental microbial contaminants. With the exception of drinking water, the environment is probably not a significant source of S. equi except during an epizootic and for a few days thereafter.

From: http://www.horseadvice.com/advisor/messages/4/5402.html

Charybdis

Post   » Tue Sep 02, 2003 11:11 pm


Thanks for the info. Yes we are looking at Strangles in comparison to CL in pigs as they seem to have similar pathology.

Just got off the phone with Dr. K. She thinks the reports we're reading on the internet are not too authoritative, and mentioned that we don't really know what it is either. In addition to S. Zoo, she said, it could be Bordetella. Yuck. Pasteurella. Yuck.

Tough decisions. Dr. K thinks that she can take a swipe at Phyllis' lumps with a scalpel and get enough tissue for a culture. She says that a cytology alone won't show growth and may not give us a good enough idea of what's in there.

She also hasn't heard about it being airborne, although she agrees we may have a "nasty bug." She's a pretty educated vet, so I'm inclined to be swayed by her.

So, she's faxing a letter to UAN for a lifeline grant for us. And I'm calling her office in the morning to apply for a Care Credit plan.

If we can pull that off, we still have to see what's in Rowan's lumps.

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Pigglies

Post   » Wed Sep 03, 2003 12:01 am


Bordetella, as in kennel cough bordetella? Really? I would have never thought of that.

Sorry, the article was not at that library. The lady in the periodicals department said she worked there a long time and they used to get it, but not anymore and they don't have the old issues anymore either, or any issues of that one. Gave me a good exercise though with all that bike riding.

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