Guinea pig died - why?

Question
Hi, I hope you can help me. My daughter had Nibbles (her guinea pig) for almost a year. I don't know how old he was when I got him from the store. He had a cage to himself in her room. I had been using a combination of pine bedding and shredded corn cobs for a couple weeks. (Before that I used pine bedding with the "comfort" bedding.) He has always been fed guinea pig food and timothy hay. He has always been very healthy and made noises alot. Yesterday morning he was normal except my daughter said he had been doing some high pitched squealing a little bit in the past few days. (He has always been very verbal, so I wasn't too concerned.) When I returned yesterday evening from work, he was lethargic and seemed to have trouble breathing. He had a milky liquid that came out of both eyes. I couldn't believe the change in him in one day. I tried getting my vet but he wasn't home. (We do not have a vet in our town that sees guinea pigs.) I called the emergency # for a vet that sees guinea pigs, but they were 2 hours away and they couldn't really tell me anything over the phone. As I was frantically trying to call someone to possibly drive, we heard him squeal very loudly and found him on his back barely breathing. He took two hard gasps and died. What could possibly have happened? We are so sad. I don't understand how he could be totally normal that morning and be gone before night. The only thing I can think of that happened out of the ordinary was that he chewed some paper a couple days earlier that was on my daughters bed. (She was doing homework) I hope you can help us. He was my daughter's buddy and we just want to know how this could have happened so quickly. Thank you.

Answer
Hello Melinda,

I'm so sorry you lost your piggy. Milky white liquid in their eyes is actually a normal excretion that occurs when they groom themselves. I doubt the paper had anything to do with it. Unless laced with poison paper is pretty safe if they munch some a bit even if it's not recommended. So please don't let your daughter feel guilty for letting him get paper. It's difficult to say what killed him because it was so quick with so few symptoms. The one I can't shake from my mind when I read this though, is a URI. The noises your daughter reported a couple days ago and the problems breathing are typical symptoms of a URI. They usually take a bit longer to kill but they don't have to. It's also possible he had an allergic reaction to something, possibly his bedding (some rodents develop allergies to pine bedding over time, in some cases severe, I personally had one who couldn't be in the same room with it or his eyes would run and he'd get horribly ill and refuse food). Those are my 2 best guesses. My gut is still saying URI. I'm sorry I can't be of more help. My heart goes out to you. I know how it feels to lose a beloved piggy. I recommend the following website. It's for making memorials for lost pets. It may help you heal to make one for your dear piggy.

http://www.in-memory-of-pets.com

-kkat
www.geocities.com/abyssinianguineapigs