Guinea Pig - Watering Eye

Question
QUESTION: Hi, My guinea pig Rory has a watery eye (his right eye). It has been watering for a few days now but it is just the one eye. He is eating, drinking etc still being very normal, but there is water running down the front of his eye (by his tear duct part). I am using the same bedding as always which is just wood shavings, and i have been using straw in a basket bed which they have and hay on top of the straw. I have asked a question on here before about Rory, but later found out that my other guinea pig Harry was 'barbering him'. Not sure if Rory's eye could be scratched by Harry, but i tried to look at his eye and it seemed quite normal (apart from the watering). I am going on holiday on Friday (early morning 6:00am) so worried about leaving him. My nanna is looking after him but I'm not sure if it is safe to leave his eye to heal itself.

Thanks in advance for any advice
Bex


Eye infection  
Eye infection   ANSWER: Watery eyes occasionally happen. It could be something in the bedding or it could be just something in the air. Usually it's nothing terribly concerning and resolves on its own. If the eye were scratched you would see some kind of injury or redness, so if that's not present it's more likely to be a harmless thing.

Sometimes stray is dusty and that can cause a bit of reaction just as dust does to our eyes. Make sure he's not in a draft. If he is then give him something to shelter him. A simple oatmeal box is a perfect hiding spot. Cut the bottom out so he just has a tunnel to crawl into. Don't worry if he chews on the cardboard. It's not going to hurt him. If you can take the paper label off then do so. That way he won't be chewing on any ink.

I've used products like Visine eye drops for things like this and they worked well. It's not a prescription item and the brand really isn't important. It's just something to soothe and lubricate the eye. It may seem contradicting to put eye drops in a runny eye, but the eye is running because it's dry, so the body produces an overabundance of tears to help soothe it. The eye drops are absorbed into the tear duct and help resolve that inner dryness.

This doesn't sound serious and most minor eye injuries get better by themselves. The worst eye infection I ever saw in a pig was a friend of mine's boar. His was perhaps more serious then I've ever seen. He was a champion boar and had just won a big Best In Show two weeks prior.

She brought him to me and I treated him for a couple of weeks, but here's a before and after picture of what he looked like when I got him and what he looked like after three weeks.

I tried to get the pictures at the same angle so it could be seen just how much that eye bulged out. The second picture shows the eye not bulging at all and nearly as normal as the other eye.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for getting back to me. Your friends pig's eye looked so bad on the first image, and you can see a definate impovement on the second, did you use the visine for that? My pigs are inside, in my room, a while ago i had a fan on low, facing away from the cage, but maybe that could be what it was? although, i had it on about a week ago. I will definitely try the cereal box though, i think he will enjoy playing in that as well.
Thanks again

Answer
I used a couple of things on this particular pig. One was a short dose of Prednisolone to help reduce the terrible inflammation. And yes, I used Visine eye drops. He began to heal more quickly when I started using the drops.

The oatmeal box I was talking about is the Quaker Oats that comes in a round cardboard box. They're a perfect fit for a guinea pig.