Piggie deaths

Question
QUESTION: Hello Pat. Not sure if you remember me. My Sister had the 4 piggies die between Oct 30 and Nov 8.

Today, Gabriels father Caramel died. Yesterday he was having pussy eyes. My sister thought he had "Pink eye". He was born same time as Munchkin and Zena.

My Sister did switch to piggie food and fed him greens. She used a bug bomb in the house a few days ago. But the two piggies and 2 rabbits were outside during it.

On a good note, Gabriel is doing fine since I brought her to my home back on Nov 8. Squeaking when I crinkle plastic. She is 7 weeks old I think. 11 month old Junior (Gabriles Grand father) is doing fine.

ANSWER: Bug bombs do leave a residue for a day or so. If I'm not mistaken the instructions tell you how long to wait before bringing small animals in the house. But that still may not be the problem.

Your sister doesn't by any chance have those plug in rodent chasers in the house does she?  They work by emitting an ultrasonic high pitched sound that we cannot hear, but rabbits, mice, rats, guinea pigs, etc do hear.  Don't put those anywhere near the pigs.  

If the problem was food related Caramel may have already suffered enough kidney problem from it to recover completely. There's a common denominator in the house somewhere. If there's a virus present you may need to completely decontaminate their housing by washing down everything with a bleach solution.

Guinea pigs don't get pink eye. If the eyes were runny it was something else. Usually the runny eyes are a result of illness and seem to come as the last and final symptom. Whatever has caused this it was strong enough to affect all the pigs.

Let's hope it's done and over with now.  

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

QUESTION: The bug bomb was a week ago. No rodent chasers.

Gabriel seems to be doing fine since I took her home with me.

If its a Virus, Wouldnt Junior be sick as well?

Answer
If there's a virus in the house it doesn't always get everyone. It's like the flu, some will get it and some won't. This has been such a mystery for all of us that I'm not sure we'll ever really find out the truth behind it. It's just one of those things.