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kazmeyer posted:panicked because he thought he was being followed, and bolted all over the place.) You seriously tell the best stories.  Edit so I don't have to doublepost: Another day, another bladder stone. I'm seriously going to start a breeding program with the goal of developing pigs with urethras too wide to get clogged. Sadie you moron, you're maybe actually gonna live to see 8 years after all.  Edit2:  Lodged in her urethra. Vet managed to extracting by partial catheterization; squirting lube and lidocane around it till she could massage it out. Her bladder has a dozen or so pinhead size stones which she'll hopefully pass once I start overdosing her with fluids every day. alucinor fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Nov 24, 2010 |
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Nov 23, 2010 15:43
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It sounds to me like you have totally normal, well-adjusted, well-socialized, adolescent pigs. They'll get too lazy to run from you in a few years. I'm wondering whether maybe you've got a hypothetical image of what a "tame" pig should act like that isn't congruent with pig reality. Are you thinking they are going to stop running for cover when you walk by? - They will, but this takes 1-3 years and they'll still run 1 out of 5 times. Are you thinking they are going to sit quietly with you when separated from a cagemate and without any cover? - Possibly they might, but this takes 1-3 years, and 25% of pigs never out grow this. Are you thinking they'll squeak to be picked up like they squeak for veggies? - Aint gonna happen. Is there some specific behavior you want to see that you aren't seeing? If so I might be able to give some more specific conditioning tips. If not, trust me, you're doing everything right (and I don't say that often). It really does just take time.
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Nov 26, 2010 21:29
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Wheeking gently while being petting is definitely normal. It's not really fear, or even annoyance, more like a status report... HEY YOU'RE TOUCHING ME. For some reason, HEY YOU'RE TOUCHING ME is one of the most basic of pig communications. They do it to each other, too. Just keep on keepin' on. Eventually, the need to complain about being touched or about veggies being tragically absent is overridden by laziness. After about 3 years, most pigs will eat, complain for a few minutes, then go to sleep on you. They may or may not pee on you at some point as well.
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Nov 26, 2010 22:49
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Diogines posted:1. I feed them plenty of varied veggies daily but they VASTLY prefer the hay I give them to their pellets. They eat the pellets eventually, but not much of it. Nothing to be worried about, is it? Nope. Pellets are, in fact, merely compressed chopped hay, with some calorie-dense binders added. Therefore they're a good source of calories for young, breeding, or elderly animals, but otherwise the additives in them are undesirable. Many of us feed little to no pellets for healthy adult animals - say a half cup per pair once a week. Diogines posted:2. Guinea pig psychology question. Exactly. They've got a mental picture of "sky" of their world, and you reaching in interrupts the picture in a way that is instinctively reminiscent of condors. Outside, they're already at a higher level of alertness, and they don't have as fixed a pattern of expectation in their tiny little minds, so your movements aren't as startling. I have a pair of 4 year olds, born in the rescue. They have never endured any abuse and absolutely associate me with food. Any time I am near, they will come up to the grids and beg nonstop. I can put my fingers through and stroke their noses, and hand them treats, and they show no fear. But if I move my fingers up 2", so I am approaching over the TOP of the bars - all bets are off and they scatter. When they are being caught they scream like banshees - and as soon as they are in arms, they're totally calm and begging again.
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Dec 6, 2010 01:19
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Diogines posted:I just don't understand my pigs sometimes. Sometimes they freak out when I go over their cage. Yet if I spend 10 minutes hovering over their cage spot cleaning and at the very end replacing the hay, they often move around the whole time get really close to my hand, when I am at my most hovering-predator-ness. This is the delightfully entertaining thing about cognitive and behavioral psychology. It has to do with cognitive schemas: Predators come in overhead quickly. Trees are overhead too, and sometimes they move a little, but mostly they just stand there, so something that's permanently overhead isn't as scary as something that moves quickly. There was an interesting study several years ago showing that many prey birds (like chickens) have different reactions to a model when it is flown overhead in two different directions:  Fly it to the left, with the long neck leading, and it's a short-tailed goose; chickens don't give a poo poo. Fly it to the right, with the short head leading, and it's a long-tailed hawk, and chickens engage in all sorts of predator avoidance behavior.
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Dec 10, 2010 16:19
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It's about 40% a space issue and about 60% a "teenage pigs are assholes" issue. Once they pass about 18 months their hormones will settle down and they're less likely to be dicks to each other. Have her read this for information on normal vs. dangerously aggressive dominance behaviors. In the meantime, I've found that for two teenage intact males, you need at LEAST a 2 grid by 6 grid (30" by 76", or 3'x6' if you're using closetmaid shelving) if you want a reasonable chance of giving them enough space to stop fighting. That's also big enough that you can divide the cage entirely if they just refuse to get along, but I have never had a pair of males that couldn't get along in a 3'x6' cage.
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Dec 12, 2010 23:19
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Diogines posted:I am happy to let them move it wherever they want to, I just thought it odd that it was moved out of a corner to someplace more exposed. How else are they going to explore, except by taking their safe house with them? I think if they could, they would evolve into turtles and take their pigloos everywhere with them.
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Dec 15, 2010 20:01
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Bastard Tetris posted:I've been looking at C+C cages since I'm moving and finally have more space for our pig, and I was wondering if there's a thing as too much room for a single pig? Nope! I've just recently gotten down under 10 pigs, so I as I was juggling the creation of new pairs and trios, I've had the opportunity to watch singles using full 3'x7' C&C cages. I've noted four things: 1) They still spend most of their time in front of the hay. However, with more space, I gave them several extra hay mangers, and they used every manger. 2) Most of the poops stay near the mangers, to the point that the back 1/3 of the cage still doesn't need poops removed after nearly a week. However, they used that rear space for sunbathing and running back and forth, so it was not wasted space. 3) I got way more zoomies in bigger cages, even from my old guys. There's nothing like watching an obese bug-eyed pig waddling with all his might, just for the pleasure of it. 4) When the cage had a neighbor, they spent 90% of their time next to the neighbor's cage. In one case the pig literally did not move more than 3' from the neighbor until I moved his pellet bowl over by the other wall. He helpfully moved it back for me. So, if you're cramped for size, a single will do fine in a 2by3 (28"x42") but if you can, go up to at least 2by4 (28"x56"). They really do use the extra. Years ago I saw someone who had just 3-4 pigs in something like a 4'x18' C&C. Anyone remember that? It was a guy who worked for Fark if I recall.
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Dec 16, 2010 16:19
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Sirotan posted:10% alfalfa If your pigs are under 4 years old and have no history of stones, it's probably OK. If they're older and/or have already had stones, I would not risk it. Since the total dietary proportions of calcium is as important than the actual intake, you can help reduce this as much as possible by reducing or eliminating calcium-rich veggies, and making sure their overall dietary ratio of Ca:P is within the ideal ranges. Use the charts on GL to select veggies in the range you desire.
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Dec 17, 2010 02:09
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Sirotan posted:Yeah so it turns out its all males and the woman sexed them wrong the first time. And I read over at Guinea Lynx that this "rescue" might be getting most of their babies from breeders in the area. Back to the drawing board... Goddamn. What about the girls over at Toledo? Surprisingly it's not that much farther.
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Dec 30, 2010 03:28
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Diogines posted:Does anyone have any tips on specific ways to feed your piggies/handle them, to help acclimate them to you? Unfortunately (?) you're doing everything right, already. There's no magic method of handling that you can use, the only thing that helps acclimate them to you is time. Pigs will *always* get more jumpy if given less handling, but they will also *always* re-acclimate to you with an increase in handling. You're not making them permanently unfriendly by being busy for a while, I promise. If you can go back to giving more time, like you were doing before, you'll see them return to friendliness quickly. If you can't, they'll *still* calm down and be friendly as they get older, it will just take longer. Remember that these are teenagers, they're gonna snub you and be weird until they grow up. 
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Dec 30, 2010 18:55
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Goddamn goddamn. I can hardly even parse that much less figure out what the hell she's trying to justify. It's a constant source of frustration for me that GPs are one animal where breeders and rescuers have been able to find zero common ground. Rats, dogs, horses, sugar gliders - all are animals where breeders are commonly heavily involved in rescue, and many are strongly active in policing and outing bad breeders. Why can't GP people play nice? The problem lies with rescuers as much as breeders - one very respected nationally known GP rescuer claims there is absolutely no way to responsibly breed GPs. I agree in principle that there are no breeders who could currently be considered responsible, but not in theory. If you show me a breeder who provides vet care including spay/neuter on every young animal before it is sold, who has a lifetime return requirement, who keeps lifetime health testing records on complete lineages and then removes lineages from her breeding program when sub-optimal health is demonstrated, who extensively educates and screens potential buyers - basically someone who doesn't in any way contribute animals to the rescue problem - I'd work with someone like that in a heartbeat. There are people who want to purchase an animal instead of rescue it, period. No amount of argument will convince them otherwise. If their choices are limited to idiot color breeders and pet stores, it's not helping us reduce the overall problem. We need to have some good GP breeders to offer as an alternative to those people. I guess my point, if there is one, is that if you're willing to go across states to find other pigs, that's awesome. But if not, and IF the rescue can prove that the animals you would be adopting are not from a breeder - I'd say it's no harm in considering it. They should quite easily be able to provide you with some pigs for whom they have a paper trail leading back to local shelters or owner surrenders or whatever.
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Jan 3, 2011 19:40
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Yeah, that's a whole other issue. If someone is evasive with you, you can pretty much never trust them. At the worst, I'd say keep watching craigslist and/or Petfinder. There's always a slew of surrender requests in the weeks after Christmas, so it shouldn't be long before you're spoiled for choice. 
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Jan 3, 2011 20:00
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BoomtownRat posted:One, she likes to shred up her bedding (paper towels and wood shavings, which she does not shred) and put it in her food bowl, should I be concerned about this? She's making a nest. Give her a wooden cube house or another bowl and maybe she'll use one as a nest, leaving the food bowl alone. BoomtownRat posted:and secondly, should I be concerned about excessive squeaking when I pick her up Perfectly normal WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING ME behavior. Memo: when getting a pig's molars trimmed, make sure your vet takes down the incisors, too; and when getting incisors trimmed, make sure they plane down the molars. Long incisors lead to long molars and vice versa, because when either gets long, the mouth doesn't close completely and the non-overgrown teeth grow longer than they should. Tug had fairly extensive molar malocclusion which was planed down on Dec 23. Yesterday I noticed he was drooling, and realized his loving incisors didn't get trimmed when the molars did; they're not occluding properly anymore and the lowers are actually touching his upper jaw. This is the SECOND time I've forgotten to remind a vet to do both sets of teeth and had to go back within two weeks. 
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Jan 5, 2011 16:51
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Glasgow posted:Where's a good place to get quality shelves and ledges, either plastic or wood? http://www.simplychintastic.com/ledges.html are fantastic. However, you could certainly get a couple of bolts and wingnuts and some scraps of hardwood or untreated pine and build your own for far cheaper. There's also this rescue in Ohio which sells shelving and other accessories: http://www.forchinatechins.com/chincessories.htm. If you don't want to DIY but want to 100% support a rescue, that's how I'd go.
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Jan 10, 2011 15:43
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Merope posted:I want to be sure I will be able to sleep with them in the same room. You won't. They're most active at 4am and they will chirp, scurry, wheek, lick their bottle incessantly, and generally be pain in the asses just when you are trying to get that last precious hour of sleep. Also go read http://www.guinealynx.info front to back before you think you're set on pigs. Pigs require LOTS more care, and more complex care, than most people realize or than pet stores will tell you. You can't use a pet store cage, you have to build your own, and you can't feed plain pet store pellets, you have to feed unlimited grass hay and carefully nutrient-balanced veggies. Their medical care is also expensive as crap. Additionally, having hay in your bedroom is gonna give you allergies like you won't believe. I always thought "I don't have allergies, that won't affect me!"  I didn't have allergies, till I got pigs. My sinuses haven't been the same since.
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Jan 10, 2011 18:26
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kazmeyer posted:Have you tried the bluegrass hay from KM's Hayloft? Timothy hay makes me wheeze like I've got pneumonia, but since I switched to bluegrass, my allergies have been a hell of a lot better. That's all I've used for several years.  Although I have to say this last batch was very stemmy, not at all as soft as I'm accustomed to getting.To be fair, I have about a dozen more cages in my house than most people, so maybe it's slightly unfair for me to talk about allergies. But that's definitely a concern when pigs are going to be kept in a bedroom. Looking at my records, four of the last ten adoptions/foster placements where the adopter insisted on keeping in the bedroom, the pigs were returned.
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Jan 12, 2011 01:38
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kazmeyer posted:(And yeah, KM had some trouble with supply this season, it came down to selling some middling hay or not being able to sell at all. She's really good about offering refunds if you're not satisfied, but even the worst hay I've gotten from her has been better than 90% of the stuff I've seen from other vendors.) At the risk of starting a KM circlejerk, I just can't speak highly enough about her. She keeps track of what animals her clients have - this summer I placed a bluegrass order and she took the time to write and tell me there was a certain proportion of alfalfa mixed with it, and she knew that I had some stone pigs, and thought I might be concerned, so would I want to switch the order over orchard instead? No charge for the switch! I also referred someone to her to get a "sample" and she sent them like 10lbs - it made that person a regular customer.  Edit: the rabbits love the stemmier bluegrass so it's not going to waste at all. I just have the pigs on half blue and half orchard. Diogines posted:I've used a ceramic cooking bowl as my hay bin for my piggies for about 2 months. One of them has started to chew on it a bit. Should I be at all worried, could she hurt herself? Nope, usually that just means WHERE IS MAH PELLETS. It *is* possible for pigs to break teeth, but it's fairly uncommon, especially in young folks like you have. Just make it part of your weekly weighing ritual to open their mouths and inspect their incisors. That will also give you an idea of how normal incisors should look, so if they start to get long (which could indicate molar lengthening as well), you won't be unaware of the change.
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Jan 12, 2011 16:43
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cat with hands posted:How do you deal with pigs sharing the same cage but having different dietary needs? Separate housing is the only long term solution that I've found.  You can try putting up a divider for a half hour, 2-4 times a day, so the thin pig gets some alone time with pellets, and then not leaving pellets in the shared cage the rest of the time, but that usually doesn't result in nearly enough weight gain.
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Jan 19, 2011 02:07
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Don't be too surprised if it's longer away than you think. Back in 2004 I had a guy surrender me four gerbils whom he absolutely ADORED, but his company was transferring him overseas and he couldn't take them with him. They were all 4 and a half years old and he was heartbroken - literally crying as he dropped them off with me - that he was "abandoning" them right before they died. He gave me about four boxes of toys, special food, and a dozen pages of instructions about each one's favorite foods and favorite toys and turn ons and whatever the gently caress else. I was like, ok, they got what, 6 months to live? Nope. Three of them lived nearly two more years, one of those fuckers was SEVEN when he finally died. Adorable fun little animals. Quail Butter posted:When the time comes, I will absolutely check the Toronto Humane Society and petfinder, but most of the small animals there are guinea pigs and rats. Petfinder just "upgraded" their admin system, so now there's a glitch with searches unless you use EXACTLY the right search term. For example, you can't just type "gerb" any more, you have to use the full "gerbil". Turns out there's three here, three here, and more than a half-dozen here. So at least now you know that several local groups have them! Of course, these should all be gone by the time you get ready for more, but I'd recommend that you contact all of them, let them know you'll be in the market for gerbs, and can they email you when any come in.
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Jan 22, 2011 02:12
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It's certainly possible that he's depressed, and/or that a friend would improve his outlook and behavior, but skin and teeth may not be the extent of things to check before ruling out underlying medical causes. Are you weighing him weekly, and if so, how's his weight trending? Has he been checked for a hair ring?
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Jan 23, 2011 16:40
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As long as you feel confident that the vet check was thorough, that's fine then. Just keep an eye on his weight and if he starts trending downwards you know there may be an underlying issue. I just get nervous because I can't tell you how many shelter animals we've pulled who come with records from their vet check stating they are perfectly healthy, but when we get them, we find they have everything from mites to untreated abscessed bite wounds to cancerous tumors to late term pregnancy. I would certainly hope that it's nothing, but I'd also caution you not to discount your instinct when you feel that an animal "just isn't right". Quite a few early warnings can come from that instinct. It's not some hocus-pocus sixth sense or anything, you're just picking up on behavioral changes so subtle that you don't consciously recognize them as cues. A lady I've been working with up here had her chin neutered, and he was on the mend for a couple weeks then started to "be different". Vet looked him over, checked the neuter site, no problems - but the owner persisted in feeling something was different or wrong with him, and ended up going to another vet. Turns out he had a GIANT hair ring. We were baffled as to how the vet could have looked at the neuter site twice in three weeks and not noticed the giant stinky peen hairball.
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Jan 24, 2011 16:19
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cat with hands posted:gently caress It's far more likely to be mites than fungus. All pigs have an endemic mite load, just like we have a load of E coli without having an infection. As with E coli, random events (including stressors, changes in weather, etc) can lead to the population growing faster than it's normally able to be kept in check, and suddenly your pig appears to have caught mites out of nowhere. If it's mites, you need ivermec or revolution, not an antifungal. Can you post pictures of the spots?
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Jan 27, 2011 17:58
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True that. I have seen cases of mites that appear to start in the whiskery area, especially when the rest of the pig is being bathed regularly but the head is not, so that's what I'm thinking when I hear "nose". But yeah if it's limited to the kissy part of the nose that's less likely.
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Jan 27, 2011 20:57
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cat with hands posted:Problem is that it started out a lot smaller and has grown a bit. The other two have similar but smaller spots, one on the stomach and one on the neck. That's a really weird set of locations. I can't see enough detail to tell whether there's flaking skin on the bare part and crusty exudate in the hair around the bare area, or if it's smooth skin up to the area where the hair starts?  Here is a not-much better picture of a pig with an advanced mite infestation. You can see the surface damage to the skin in the bare areas under her ear, and in the black area 11 o'clock of the wound you can see the white crusty exudate typical of a mite infestation.So if there's crustiness, it could still be mites despite the odd location. It's not unheard of that bite wounds can cause mite flareups that start as localized breakouts near the traumatized areas, but that's a fairly uncommon presentation. If it's just bare, dry skin, mites are less likely, but fungus can't be off the table. Really I'd get a vet to look at it so they can get a culture growing ASAP. There's nothing quite so frustrating as doing weeks of unsuccessful treatment only to find out from your belated cultures that it was something else entirely. He's a cutey, looks just like my Thor who was one of my first ever pigs. Serella posted:Well, I know it's not uncommon for females, but I'd never heard of it happening in males, so I figured it was about the same odds as breast cancer in human males. All the pig mammary tumors I've ever seen have been in males. It's definitely not quite that rare. Encourage your mom to weigh weekly! That's the best way to spot illness before it's too late. Cancers don't always have to be terminal, either. We took a mammary tumor off a pig and he lived another 4 years (6 total). Last year I took a thyroid tumor off a 4 year old and he's doing great, I'm hoping he'll give me another four years.
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Jan 28, 2011 16:26
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I've never met a hamster who could operate a binder clip, and they fit perfectly over those bars.
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Jan 28, 2011 21:49
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Pigs typically don't play with toys, especially ones marketed to piggies which are just repackaged rat or bird toys. They especially don't gnaw on wooden toys like parrots, rats, or hamsters, mostly because they didn't evolve in an environment where their food or nesting areas could be found by getting inside nutshells or tree stumps; their food and living areas (grass and rock piles, respectively) don't require that type of behavior to locate. Some pigs will learn to bop or nudge toys if it's reinforcing by their owner (a bop on a toy results in food and/or attention), but there's just very few objects which are themselves rewarding to pigs. The only ones I've found are foraging toys or hiding toys, which can all be homemade: * Wrap a baby carrot in a deep layer of hay, stuff inside cardboard toilet paper tube. * Fill a paper lunchbag or cardboard saltines box with hay, pigs will eat their way in and then sleep inside it. * Move the pigloos daily to allow them the novelty of re-exploring and re-learning their environment. Also try rotating between a half-different types of tubes, huts, or pigloos. * Remove their food bowls and only offer pellets scattered in the bedding, allowing them to dig and forage. * Tuck veggies on top of the pigloos, or under hay piles, or woven in the bars. Etc. Really, a bare cage is a good thing, because it allows plenty of room to run around and explore, which is the primary behavior pigs like to engage in. I doubt you need anything else in there.
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Jan 30, 2011 23:12
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Diogines posted:Is it safe to put a toiler paper tube in their cage? Quotin this again because it best illustrates the only real risk with TP rolls: kazmeyer posted:Sounds like you're doing a good job so far! The only thing I'd say is don't be upset if the stuff you got them to gnaw on and play with goes completely unused; guinea pigs rarely chew on what you want them to chew on and a lot of "toys" designed for them just freak them out. Best toy/chew ever = empty toilet roll or paper lunch sack stuffed with hay. (Just slit the roll lengthwise if your pigs are young enough that they might get their heads stuck in it. I had one of my girls get freaked out when she was a wee one, attempt to hide in the roll, and then run around the cage in terror with it jammed onto her head while I tried to stop laughing enough to catch her and extract her.)
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Jan 31, 2011 15:49
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Bastard Tetris posted:We bathe Carl probably three times a year at most, but this will be the first time I clean his butt. I don't think he'll like me much afterwards. Bad news: If you have a male, you should do the butt and sheath cleaning like once a week, maybe once a month at the very least. I've rescued pigs who were only cleaned once a year, and they ended up with giant golf ball size poo impactions and giant gross pimples of penile smegma.Interesting (?) pattern I've noticed: Neutered males tend to have filthy sheaths and clean anogenital pouches. Intact males tend to have clean sheaths and filthy anogenital pouches. I'm not sure which I hate cleaning more.
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Feb 2, 2011 15:24
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Diogines posted:At some point in the next month I may have to leave my home at literally a moments notice, well with a little notice but only an hour or two. I won't be back for three days. I have two young adult female piggies. There isn't a timed food dispenser that would work for pigs, I would discourage you from even considering that as an option. What if it jams on the first day? For the same reason, you don't want to place all your trust on just one water bottle because what if they get a bit of hay jammed in the nozzle and it gets blocked/all leaks out? And what if one pig leaps out of the cage and ends up trapped on the floor for three days with no food OR water? (I've seen all of these things happen.) I was in a similar situation last year (grandma in the hospital, needed to jump on a plane at an hour's notice) and this is what I did: I found a reputable bonded/insured petsitter through these guys, interviewed someone, had her come over and meet the animals and go over their needs, and gave her a printed set of instructions and a copy of my key. So when I needed to rush out, I just had to call her and she was able to start coming over that same day. Next best option would be to make a similar arrangement with a tech or someone at your vet clinic. Just leave them a key at the clinic, and you can do all the instructions by phone if need be. If you really feel that you can't do this, your only option is to put like 3 water bottles and half a box of hay in the cage and hope for the best, but I've seen that go wrong many, many times. You've taken so much care to do right by these girls, I'd hate for you to draw the unlucky number this one time, and end up with a tragedy despite doing everything else right.
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Feb 6, 2011 17:20
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Diogines posted:I am trying to find someone who will be able to come but I want to be set, just in case. Leaving multiple water bottles and a ton of hay and pellets in the cage would be better than trying to use an autofeeder which might get stuck and leave them without food at all. If you go that route, you're mostly only looking at normal health risks - keeping in mind that daily visits could prevent those from becoming fatalities. I've seen pigs ending up without water for a week because the nozzle got stuck and the water couldn't get out, or because a bit of hay got in the nozzle and drained it all out (I can recall at least seven cases of this, one fatality). One lady came home to find a pig leapt out of the cage - a pig who had never done ANY escaping - and spent a weekend on the floor without food or water and with a broken leg (eventual fatality). One pig who got her head stuck in a hay manger trying to get the last little bit of hay (fatality). Two occasions where the owner was away for a week at christmas and the power went out, and the heat didn't come back on, so the house was <32 degrees - in one case the owner said there was ice in the water bottle (surprisingly no fatalities). One pair of pigs who had a tiff while the owner was gone and one pig ended up with his lower incisors pierced through his lower lip - he couldn't eat the whole time they were gone, and his owners didn't notice for several days after they got back (eventual fatality). A dozen or more cases of "I just came home and he's DEAD" that were probably stasis or stones, given the absence of poops/presence of bloody urine in the cage. Only in two cases could I do a necropsy; one was stones and the other was inconclusive because it had been too long, but stasis was not ruled out. God I'm depressing myself now. I'll admit this is partly selection bias - nobody ever frantically calls me on Sunday night to tell me that their pig had a great time with the petsitter and is doing fine. As long as you know the risks going in, just leave multiple bottles and lots of extra loose hay and a big bowl of pellets and they'll probably be fine. Maas Biolabs posted:As it happens, I opened this thread to ask about Degus, so I have a couple of questions for you Putinontheritz: I fostered degus for three or four years and in my experience they crap just as much as any other rodent. They definitely crapped ALL over the playpen when they were out to exercise. Also they liked to pee down the back of my desk. That was fun to discover.
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Feb 7, 2011 16:26
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alucinor posted:One pig who got her head stuck in a hay manger trying to get the last little bit of hay (fatality). Rodent Mortician posted:- Pig with head in hay rack choking to death (my husband heard her rasping at 3am). God, that reminds me of the time I found a pig INSIDE the hay manger. I was convinced she had escaped, and after looking in the pig room for like an hour I decided she must have somehow climbed the stairs. Just before heading up to search I decided to top off the manger and felt movement under the hay. I have no idea how she got in, but she could never have gotten out by herself. This is also why I remove all hay mangers before leaving them with the petsitter. If you can kill yourself in a pile of loose hay, I really can't help you.
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Feb 7, 2011 19:24
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Kaz you REALLY have the best stories.cat with hands posted:Now what I might be able to do is get some kind of ivermectin or similar product from a bulk pack made for horses or livestock. How would I go about to safely apply this to the tiny furry cows in my cage? http://www.guinealynx.info/ivermectin.html Specific dosing information from the links on the left. Good luck!
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Feb 8, 2011 15:36
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cat with hands posted:I forgot to mention that the medications I've seen seem to have a higher concentration, can it be safely diluted for easier dosage? Yes, just dilute with water, but double and triple check your math. Keep in mind that the undiluted dose for an average sized pig is something like .02 mL which is basically like the size of a small drop of water, so your calculations should give you something even smaller before dilution. I find topical dosing works better than oral or injection, in my experience, so don't dilute too much or it will all run off.
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Feb 8, 2011 15:59
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No, because they don't lose salt to sweat like people do.
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Feb 24, 2011 15:14
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cat with hands posted:Indeed, but it's a new behavior (specially the licking hands part) I haven't noticed before. Thought I would ask just to make sure. I'm sure, and I've also seen way too many stones to ever endorse mineral/salt supplementation apart from what they get in a good and varied diet. I posted somewhere (upthread or in the rabbit thread maybe) several links to peer reviewed articles about salt intake in small animals. You feed a good diet, that has all the salt they need. cat with hands posted:
HA! This pic didn't load for me the first time, that's awesome.
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Feb 25, 2011 16:29
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I'm sorry to hear about that. Since gerbs can easily make 4 years or older, I agree that one and two years old is way young for two to die at the same time of old age or chronic illness. So my first guess would be environmental. Unfortunately that adds more possibilities than it excludes. Was their water bottle nozzle plugged? Did they get any treats while you were gone? How long had they been eating this bag of store-bought food? Was it a new bag or a very old one? Is it musty smelling or is there any sign of damp/mold in the container? Did your power go off and they got too hot/too cold? Do you have a carbon monoxide detector or any risk of carbon monoxide in the house? Did your landlord spray for pests while you were gone? Etc etc. Have you considered getting a necropsy done? That could certainly set your mind at ease.
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Mar 2, 2011 16:00
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Nope, unless she has a history of being difficult with younger pigs. I've regularly shuffled and reshuffled my old singles in with younger pairs, with no problems. An extra large cage should make it even easier for them to come to an agreement. She's a cutie, I have a soft spot for himi PEWs. Diogines posted:she started to quiver which I had never seen her do before. I've seen pigs do an all over body quiver which I'm almost convinced is a sub-audible vocalization. I've always assumed it was an annoyance behavior rather than a fear behavior. I doubt you traumatized her too much. Pigs have incredibly short memories, especially if food is given immediately afterwards as you did.
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Mar 24, 2011 21:27
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Bastard Tetris posted:I can finally get a bigger cage for my pig (time for a friend!), but the rescues we're looking at have neutered boars, and Carl is intact. Do intact and neutered boars have any issues getting along? The rescue descriptions seem like they keep trying to pair them with girls. I've never had any issues with this type of pairing and I've had a score or more of them. The neutered male usually gets humped more than if he was intact, but that's all. The only thing I've noticed is that intact males tend to have gross anogenital sacs and clean sheaths, while neutered males tend to have clean sacs and filthy sheaths.  So you have to pay attention to what each needs and be sure to clean appropriately.PIG rear end: NOT OKAY
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Mar 26, 2011 15:30
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ChadBroChill17 posted:It's hard for me to not give her what she wants because she's so stinkin cute but I don't want to harm her in the long run. Anyone have any advice for my situation? Thanks in advance! She can definitely be harmed by excess pellets: obesity, bloat, stasis, bladder stones, dental problems, the list of problems they can cause is nearly endless. The only prevention is you just have to harden up and only give the recommended amount of pellets per day. If you absolutely MUST feed her a treat every time she begs, splurge on a variety of grass hays (orchard, bluegrass, oatgrass) or fresh herbs (cilantro, basil, dill; or parsley in small amounts due to the calcium content). You can also feed unlimited strips of sweet bell pepper (any color) as treats. It's basically a perfectly balanced food.
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Mar 27, 2011 19:20
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