Excessive weight gain

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Kallie

Post   » Mon Sep 11, 2006 5:57 pm


Today Timmy did great, only 2 hay racks of Timothy hay, a 1/4 cup of Timothy pellets, his greens breakfast and dinner. I went and checked on his mid day and he seems to be starting to save some of his greens for later. Hopefully he'll continue to improve.

We had him out for floor time and he just sits there, so maybe that'll improve too once he doesn't spend all his time eating.

Tomorrow I'll cut his pellets back again.

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Kallie

Post   » Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:03 pm


I just wanted to update everyone on how Timmy is doing. Timmy came to us as a foster on September 10th and we instantly fell in love with him! We managed to tame his eating quite a bit and his weight is now stable at 1366 grams. We decided to make him a permanent part of our family and adopted him a couple of weeks later when we failed miserably at letting him be adopted out to someone else. Our home just wasn’t the same without him for a couple of days when Alice took him to be shown to a potential adopter.

Since then he’s become very spoiled, was neutered the end of October and now has become good buddies with our female Stinker. He loves to snuggle, read with my kids and gives kisses. Put him on the floor for play time and he instantly becomes this big goofball. He still drags his ducky everywhere with him, though we’ve managed to limit it to the cage now.

Alice, thanks for bringing Timmy into our lives, we couldn’t have asked for a better addition to our family.


Image

Talishan
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Post   » Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:05 pm


What a wonderful story. Thanks for the update, Kallie.

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whittibo

Post   » Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:20 pm


Ahhhh... what a GREAT story! And such a handsome fella!

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:39 pm


" He still drags his ducky everywhere with him," -- this is funny. I can't imagine a guinea pig doing this (though it sounds like he does!

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Kallie

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:02 pm


I think I spoke too soon about Timmy doing so well. We brought him in for his 3 week follow-up after his neuter. He’d been healthy all along, but the vet scraped off a tiny dried scab left of his healed incision. To our surprised, out oozed a bunch of yellowish thick puss. She managed to get most of it out, and he was put on Baytril for 10 days and we cleaned it out twice a day. No intolerance was shown at all to the AB.

We brought him back for another follow-up on Monday and also mentioned he hadn’t been eating, drinking or pooping the way he was prior. His last dose of Baytril was Thursday morning, his eating changed on Saturday. The vet confirmed the infection was fully gone, and checked his teeth.. she found his molars to be slightly over grown. We decided to leave him over night at the clinic where he could be started on Cisapride(?) and hand fed until morning when his molars would be filed down.

When he was under, the vet took the following images of Timmy’s mouth because she was totally shocked at what she found. Not only were his molars slightly over grown, but he had a wood chip lodged in his molars. The wood chip managed to lodge itself in such a way that it was constantly rubbing against his check and slightly stuck into the underside of his tongue.

Before:
Image

The left image shows the wood chip lodged in his teeth, against his cheek and tongue. Image two shows his over grown crowns.

After:
Image

The left image shows the ulcer caused by the wood chip. Image two shows his new pearly white crowns.

I’ve been hand feeding him both water and food, but is there anything else I can do to make him feeling more comfortable – other then the Metacam? He’s eating all of his soft greens, but still no carrot or hay.. and still hardly any water on his own. So it’s obvious he is still quite uncomfortable.

How long can I expect it to take before he starts to eat hay and drink from either a bowl or water bottle again? What should I look for in the terms of any possible complications? How long do I keep him on the Metacam at 0.1cc once a day?

Thanks for any help.

Talishan
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Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:21 pm


If you have the standard suspension of Metacam that comes in a purple box, 1.5 mg/mL, I would bump him up to 0.2cc once a day, or even 0.15cc twice a day for a day or two.

Does he still weigh over a kilo?

I'm thinking 0.1cc once a day isn't enough Metacam to help him feel better, given what's happened with his poor mouth. I am so glad you have a good vet.

You might also offer him some unflavored Pedialyte. Try it in a syringe first to see if he likes it; many of them do. If he does, you can put it, or a mixture of it and water, in his bottle.

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rshevin

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:27 pm


Wow, those images are kind of cool. Poor little pig though! I hope he gets to feeling better soon.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:32 pm


Great pics! Is it okay with you if I add them to the forum? I would copy them to the server and change the links (so they won't go dead in the future).

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Kallie

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:37 pm


Thanks Talishan,

As of tonight, Timmy's weight is 1277 grams after hand feeding... down from 1366 grams. Too much of a drop for my liking. (89 grams since Saturday). The Metacam is indeed the 1.5mg/ml as you mentioned , so I will up the dose for him. I gave him the 0.1cc this morning, so is it safe to give him another 0.1cc tonight, then start him on the 0.2cc?

I will go out right now and get him some Pedialyte to see if he'll drink that on his own.

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Kallie

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:40 pm


Lynx, absolutely, feel free to use them. If you need the images larger, let me know. I have them here and can rescan them if needed.

Talishan
You can quote me

Post   » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:58 pm


"...so is it safe to give him another 0.1cc tonight, then start him on the 0.2cc?"

I am not a vet, but I would do so if it were my pig. Run it by your vet if you want to be 100% comfortable. In our experience you can bump Metacam up even more than that, but only for fairly short (a couple of days) periods of time.

The NSAID's don't work 'linearly' in our experience. That is, a little won't necessarily make him feel a little better, and a lot makes him feel much better. You have to get past a certain threshold before they have any effect at all. I'm thinking that threshold is pretty high right now due to the trauma to his mouth.

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