Chloe's discription

Chloe, our new guinea pig, is very sweet. She has dark spots around her eyes, one light and one dark colored ear, a reddish ridge on her middle back, and a white face, belly, and bottom. All of her feet are lightly colored. If you are getting a guinea pig for the first time, check out How to Care for a Guinea Pig, my first post.

Chloe and Guinea pig head tilts

Chloe is our new guinea pig. After Heidi passed away from a sickness, Belle was lonely, so we got Chloe. Signs of the illness Heidi had are little weight gain ( for young, growing pigs), weight loss, a head tilt, not eating what they usually eat well, or the pig not being as active as they usually are. If this happens, immediately get your pig to the vet. Heidi could not be saved, but your piggy could be, if you hurry them to the vet after any of these symptoms. Save your piggy, even if mine couldn't be saved.

Poor Heidi

Heidi passed away from the sickness. We have only had her for 27 days. I will always love her. I will always love all of my pets.

Heidi and Belle

The new guinea pig's names actually turned out to be Heidi and Belle, not Radish and Pepper. Heidi has been sick for a few days now, but she seems to be getting better on the antibiotics the vet prescribed for her. Speaking of medicine, guinea pigs should never have penicillin, even if a vet prescribes it, because they may not be a guinea pig expert, and won't know that penicillin is toxic to pigs.

Poor Mr. Pickles or Make Sure your guinea pig gets enough vitamin C

Poor Mr. Pickles passed away.

The last time the veterinarian saw his teeth were broken off, it was from an incident. This time though, there was no incident, his teeth just broke off as a result of a lack of nutrients. The vet said that this was a bad sign, so we had to put him down.

The good news is that soon after this tragic event, we got two new guinea pigs, Pepper and Radish. From now on I will be posting on Pepper and Radish, with a little bit of posting on Mr. Pickles sprinkled in. If you have a guinea pig, make sure they get enough vitamin C so the same thing doesn't happen to them.

Guinea Pigs and Vitamin C

I cannot stress it enough how you must give your guinea pig vitamin C. My guinea pig Mr. Pickles got scurvy because he did not get enough vitamin C because I did not know that pigs needed more vitamin C than drops in their water. He first stopped eating. We took him to the vet and they said that he had pancreas levels that were well out of the range of a normal pig's levels. Our vet said that he would call an expert on pigs and that she should be able to tell us what was wrong. She said it might be Pancreatitis, but after a second consulting, she told us it could be scurvy. The scurvy caused his teeth to overgrow (as pig's teeth always keep growing because the pig normally files them down on a wood block or stick an their food (for the right kind of stick see My first post)) and they trapped his tongue. She filed them down but said they would never be normal again and if we wanted him to stay healthy we would have to come back and have them filed every week or two. We fed him mushy foods that he could swallow without chewing and he was okay until his teeth grew back. We had them filed by our local vet and they got them finally back to normal length. The problem now was that his jaw could not close because his teeth had prevented it from closing, and even after the filing, his jaw was stuck in the position that it had been locked in for so long. Unfortunately, with his jaw locked it was hard for him to swallow, so he may not make it for much longer. :(

What Not to feed Guinea Pigs

Don't feed pigs "human treats" ( like the ones listed in my first post ) even once. They will become addicted, like some humans are addicted to cigarettes- they can't stop. Your pig could become sick from these such "treats"- or even worse.