All Hail The Magic Toothbrush

Greetings,


 I hope everyone enjoyed their May 4th. Before I begin my post Crippie wanted to pay tribute to the 4 students killed in the Kent State Massacre 42 years ago. May we never forget Jeffrey, Allison, William, and Sandra and may we never let it happen again.

Crippie's day was certainly interesting to say the least. The weather is changing again and that caused my hip to hurt a lot. I tried to sleep it off once I got home from work, it kinda helped. Crippie spent most of the night chilling cause I was achy. Pretty much a normal "its gon rain" night. Well, at least I thought it was.

I was getting ready for bed, just relaxing when all of the sudden I hear one of the guinea pigs crying. Their cries are very loud and you can tell that something is wrong when you hear it. At first Crippie thought it was Maggie, because she get can a little screamy when she's in heat. I went to check it out and much to my horror it was Mama Pig. Frida and Nellie were sleeping far away from her so they weren't harming her or anything. She was just sitting there crying. This is reaaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyyyyyy bad. It means that it is hurting her to pee and poop.

Crippie had to spring into doctor mode and fix Mama. First I gave her some pedialyte and then I observed her for a few minutes. She tried to wee and poop but she started screaming again. Next step was to get her to empty her bladder. Crippie did this by massaging her tummy with an electric toothbrush. I covered the toothbrush with a ziploc bag for sanitary reasons and I held part of the toothbrush to ease the amount of vibration she would feel. After about 2 minutes of massaging her tummy (with a focus on the bladder) she started defecating. Boy howdy did she ever need to poop. How do I phrase this lightly? Mama Pig probs got a little constipated by the meds. The pedialyte and toothbrush fixed the hard poop problem and once the poop was able to come out maaasssssssiiiiiivvvvveeeeee amounts of crap came out. Sorry if this isn't the most pleasant topic, but this kinda stuff comes with territory of pig ownership. After Mama passed the massive amount of crap she still needed to wee (to prove there is no stone blocking the path). All I can say is all hail the magic toothbrush. After a few more bladder massages she started weeing. Crippie continued the massages for two hours, periodically giving her water or pedialyte. Eventually massive amounts of wee and crap were freed from Mama's tummy. After that ordeal she was pooped (pun intended) so I put her back in the cage. Before I put her back I gave her some pain medicine. Metacam is also an NSAID so it should also help with any inflammation. Poor Mama Pig, as soon as she got into the cage she got comfy and fell asleep.

So yeah, Mama Pig is definitely not out of the woods. I'm gonna keep a super close eye on her for the next few days. If the medicine is making her constipated we'll just have to constantly keep her hydrated and keep giving her pedialyte. I don't think she'll object to that ;)

Crippie's Tippie - Electric toothbrushes can help save piggie's lives... good to know