PREGNANT GUINEA PIG SUDDENLY DYING

Question
I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU COULD TELL ME WHY MY GUINEA ALL OF SUDDEN JUST DIED AND NEVER EVEN GOT TO DELIVER HER BABIES SHE DIDNT SEEM SICK AT ALL I LEFT AND CAME BACK A FEW HOURS LATER AND SHE WAS DEAD SO IF YOU KNEW WHY I SURELY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THANK-YOU

Answer
Hi Tomekia,

I am so sorry that you lost your guinea pig.  I know you must feel terrible.

There is a very common condition that can strike pregnant guinea pigs.  It is called pregnancy toxemia and is not curable.  What happens is that the guinea pig's liver degenerates (shuts down).  Toxemia can be devastating, and can happen within a few weeks of delivery or a week or so after delivery.  

The first symptoms of pregnancy toxemia are a decrease in food and water intake and general depression.  The condition happens more during hot weather.  While there are a few treatment options they don't usually work.  I've had some success with carefully monitoring water intake and at the first sign of a decrease I begin to offer all of the fresh greens she will eat - concentrating on fruits and vegetables with very high water content like leaf lettuce (not iceberg lettuce) and melons.  This is not a scientifically proven method of treatment, only what I've had some success with.  It has been several years since I lost a guinea pig sow to pregnancy toxemia.

The fact that this condition is common in pregnant guinea pigs is something I ask people to consider when they become interested in breeding guinea pigs.  It is something every guinea pig breeder faces at one time or another.  I have lost several sows to this condition, especially when I first started to breed guinea pigs.

There is one other possibility - you don't say how old your guinea pig was, but if she was over a year old her pelvic bones may have fused together.  If she went into labor she would have been unable to deliver her babies if these bones were fused.  She would have needed a C-section.

I wish I could tell you that this was a preventable death, but experience tells me that you probably didn't do anything wrong and couldn't have saved her.  I'm sorry.

Annie