Help me please!

Question
My daughter's guinea pig, sweeney, is very sick.  He has an URI (sneezing, crusty nose, dull eyes, wheezing).  We have been giving him Baytril by medicine dropper 3X a day for 2 1/2 days and he's not getting any better. We bought a "Vicks warm steam vaporizer" and that seems to be helping him breathe, but we are beside ourselves with worry.  He barely eats, and I just force fed him 2 tiny bits of strawberry to make sure his digestive tract doesn't' shut down.  I'm trying to do as much research to save him as possible.

Isn't there anything else we can do to make him get better??  

Before he got sick he was the smartest, feistiest, and most fun piggie ever!  (He is our 2nd piggie, our first one had no health problems and died of old age - 8 yrs, a month ago.  That's when we bought "Sweeney", the one who's so sick now.)
When we first brought him home from Petco, he sneezed a little occasionally(we didn't know what that sound was). Then 3 days ago when we took him out for daily play time we noticed he made a funny sound when he breathed. He had no other symptoms at the time.  We took him into Petco after calling around from vet to vet and being told they didn't take "exotics". The manager was quite the expert (and a guinea pig owner himself) and gave us a bottle of Baytril and told us what to do.

Sweeney is just a baby. I'm not sure how old, but she's only about 5 inches long and definitely weighs less than half a pound.

Please help!
Adelle

Answer
Hi Adelle,

I have no specific experience in treating a guinea pig with this illness, so I probably won't be able to help you as much as you were hoping, but I can give you some general advice.

Firstly, take Sweeney to your nearest specialist small animal or exotic pet vet. If you can't find one listed, try calling general vets near you again, as most surgeries will have one vet who is especially interested in small animals. These vets will be much more successful at diagnosing and treating guinea pigs. Although the Petco manager may be a guinea pig owner, if he is not a qualified vet, he will be advising you based on experience, not vetinary training. If you are in the UK; contact the Cambridge Cavy Trust; you might want to consider taking Sweeney there, and they can also put you in touch with a local rodentologist.

It is most likely that Sweeney caught his URI from Petco. If they are anything like Pets At Home, the guinea pigs are kept in poor conditions and cared for by inexperienced staff. Search the internet for 'Peter Gurney' and you'll be directd to his health pages; these have lots of helpful suggestions for treating your guinea pig at home with herbal remedies.

Try not to worry too much. Although guinea pigs can go downhill rapidly and dramatically, if Sweeney's condition is unchanging rather than worsening, he has a good chance. The most important thing with a sick guinea pig is to remind him that life is worth living. Treat him like a human with a cold by keeping him warm (consider investing in a heat pad made for puppies; wrap a towel round it and put it in Sweeney's cage for him to snuggle up to).

It is imperitive that you get Sweeney eating again. Offer him his favourite foods and try giving him fresh parsley; as well as having natural medicinal qualities, it is also loved by most guinea pigs. Try foods he won't need to chew too much like green grapes and cucumber (and strawberry). Give him lots of cuddles, and make sure he always has a supply of hay in his cage. As he's not eating very much, I'd recommend you get a vitamin supplement to add to his water (they sell these at most pet shops; check the dosage) so that he still produces and injests his "special poos".

Sweeney's age will hopefully work to his advantage, as he'll have lots of energy to fight off his illness. However, in the wild he would have his mother and lots of other guinea pigs to snuggle up with when he's feeling under the weather, which is why you need to dote on him even more than usual.

You're doing all the right things. Keep doing them and cross your fingers. Search the internet for Peter Gurney; his health pages may shed some more light. If you can, get your hands on a copy of his book Piggy Potions; it's full of remedies for treating Sweeney at home. I'll have a look in my copy later on, and if I find anything that matches the symptoms you've told me, I'll send you a follow-up.

Hope some of this helped.

Best wishes,
Jenny.