Mama (Pig) Drama

Ohai Everybody

Yup, it's a piggie post today... all about our attention whore Mama Pig.

Mama Pig recently turned the big 5, meaning she is now officially a "senior pig" (average life span of a guinea pig is 5-7 years). She takes her vitamins daily and is usually very spritely and evil in spite of her age. She has recently taken to eating the cage as a subtle way of saying "ADMIRE MY BEAUTY... or feed me. Either or really".

FEED ME

FEED ME

FEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Well, today she wasn't like that, at all. I came home from work to find a limp lil' Mama sitting on my grandma's lap. She had been extremely lethargic and uninterested in food all day. My first thought was "oh crap Mama's dying". Upon closer inspection I found crust on her nose, slightly labored breath, weight loss, and a bit of a puffed coat. This means one thing and one thing alone, an Upper Respiratory Infection (URI). My next thought was "If I don't get her to a vet she'll die".

The face of a sick little piggie :(

For those of you unfamiliar with URIs and piggies... they can kill a pig... very, very easily. If I did nothing about this Mama would probably be dead within the next 48 hours. Definitely be dead with 72.  Time is definitely an important factor when treating URIs. If you think your pig might have one (and it's pretty obvious when they do) GET THEIR LITTLE PIG ASSES TO THE VET ASAP!

Naturally it was later on the day when I found out about Mama, we called our local exotics vet about her hours. It was 5:50 and we found out her shift ends at 6:00 (CRAP) but luckily for us our vet is AMAZING and was willing to wait for Mama. So we rushed her to the vet. The vet totally agreed with my diagnoses of a URI. She had to give Mama some fluids via SubQs (they injected saline into a pocket in her skin to keep her hydrated, it buys time for the antibiotics to work). Mama was a very good girl for most of the visit, except for the whole "THE THERMOMETER GOES WHERE?!?!" thing. The vet said she wasn't running a fever nor was her breathing terrible, so hopefully we caught it in time *knocks on wood*.

Unfortunately Mama has to be on antibiotics again, I don't know if y'all remember the last time Mama was on antibiotics, but she got reaaaaaallllllyyyyyyyyyy sick from them. I mentioned this to the vet. She told me to keep Mama ridiculously hydrated. Let's hope it keeps her healthy.

Tomorrow I'm gonna start Mama on "Critical Care" feedings to make sure she's getting all of the nutrients she needs and then some.

So yeah... Mama requests ninja vibes.

Crippie's Tippie - VETS... TAKE YOUR PIGS TO THEM