Mysterious, Possibly Food-Related Deaths??
Hi guineapeeps, I'm here with a heavy heart and some serious concerns.
Before this all started, I had 4 guinea pigs, 2 cages with 2 in each, and one rabbit with his own cage all in the same room. They all eat timothy hay and timothy pellets from KMS Hayloft--we have been feeding exclusively their products for at least 2 years.
So about two and a half weeks ago, I started noticing that one of the pigs was wheeking a lot, as though he needed food or water, but everytime I checked, there was plenty of pellets, water, and hay. I rinsed the water bottle numerous times, but he was still squealing. He seemed active and normal, though, and the food and water were going down at a seemingly normal rate (hard to tell who's consuming what in a cage of two, though), and so I didn't think too much of it.
After a couple days of this, I heard a scuffle in the cage, so I went to check and saw him spasming on the ground, trying to get up and falling over. We brought him to an emergency clinic, and the vet said that although his teeth weren't growing super unevenly, they did look a little abnormal and they were probably hurting him and causing him not to eat. She said that we shouldn't be concerned about any sort of contagious problem and gave us Critical Care to feed him in the meantime til we could get him to our normal vet to get an opinion on his teeth. When we got home, I tried to feed him the Critical Care but my boyfriend and I could not induce him to swallow it at all, and his condition worsened until he died that night. Taking the vet's words to heart, I assumed that this was a personal tooth incident and that I didn't need to be too worried about the other pigs.
About a week after that, however, I noticed one day that my rabbit hadn't touched his food or water. I tried to entice him with his favorite veggies and he would not eat them. Panicked, I fed him the Critical Care that I had left over from the pig, and I did get him to eat it and he luckily recovered. Now, however, instead of being the crazy pellet-hound that he was before, he's all about eating hay. This is really strange as my rabbit HATES hay--I've even had to restrict his access to pellets on numerous occasions just to make sure that he eats enough hay. But now, it seems to be all he's particularly interested in eating.
Fast forward to last night, when I was checking on my guinea pigs in the other cage (where there were still 2), feeding, medicating one for a chronic condition...and I found the other dead in the cage. Unlike the last time, I did not hear any distress nor was there any sort of indication that anything was going on with that pig.
But, there is definitely something going on, as I have had these pigs for 3-4 years without major incident, only to have two die within a couple of weeks of eachother. I would think maybe it were a virus, but there has only been one pig in each cage affected so far, and it's affecting both pigs and rabbits, so something doesn't click. The rabbit's behavior is definitely odd and makes me think there is something up with the pellets. Hay and pellets are the only things really shared between all three cages, also.
So finally, after all that, on to my question: has anybody else been experiencing anything funny or unusual with KMS Hayloft pellets? I think we got this shipment of pellets 3ish months ago, in the same large quantity we always get, and we have never had any problems with the end of the batch producing any problems or being less enticing to the pigs.
As things are, I've been thrown into total reaction mode. I did a thorough cleaning and disinfecting on one of the cages, bathed the two survivors, and put them in there, where they seem to be getting along and will hopefully work well as permanent cagemates. I bought some different brand hay and pellets which I am giving to all the animals now as I refuse to take any chances, though at least in principle I think KMS Hayloft is more nutritious...? :\ I don't really know what else to do except to monitor everyone carefully...I'm so heartbroken by what is happening and I really just want to get to the bottom of this. I'm thinking I will also bring the pigs to the vet next week to get them checked out.
Do you think all of this could be related to their food? Or, if not the food, does anyone have any other idea of what might be happening to my animals?
Thanks so much for your time <3
Before this all started, I had 4 guinea pigs, 2 cages with 2 in each, and one rabbit with his own cage all in the same room. They all eat timothy hay and timothy pellets from KMS Hayloft--we have been feeding exclusively their products for at least 2 years.
So about two and a half weeks ago, I started noticing that one of the pigs was wheeking a lot, as though he needed food or water, but everytime I checked, there was plenty of pellets, water, and hay. I rinsed the water bottle numerous times, but he was still squealing. He seemed active and normal, though, and the food and water were going down at a seemingly normal rate (hard to tell who's consuming what in a cage of two, though), and so I didn't think too much of it.
After a couple days of this, I heard a scuffle in the cage, so I went to check and saw him spasming on the ground, trying to get up and falling over. We brought him to an emergency clinic, and the vet said that although his teeth weren't growing super unevenly, they did look a little abnormal and they were probably hurting him and causing him not to eat. She said that we shouldn't be concerned about any sort of contagious problem and gave us Critical Care to feed him in the meantime til we could get him to our normal vet to get an opinion on his teeth. When we got home, I tried to feed him the Critical Care but my boyfriend and I could not induce him to swallow it at all, and his condition worsened until he died that night. Taking the vet's words to heart, I assumed that this was a personal tooth incident and that I didn't need to be too worried about the other pigs.
About a week after that, however, I noticed one day that my rabbit hadn't touched his food or water. I tried to entice him with his favorite veggies and he would not eat them. Panicked, I fed him the Critical Care that I had left over from the pig, and I did get him to eat it and he luckily recovered. Now, however, instead of being the crazy pellet-hound that he was before, he's all about eating hay. This is really strange as my rabbit HATES hay--I've even had to restrict his access to pellets on numerous occasions just to make sure that he eats enough hay. But now, it seems to be all he's particularly interested in eating.
Fast forward to last night, when I was checking on my guinea pigs in the other cage (where there were still 2), feeding, medicating one for a chronic condition...and I found the other dead in the cage. Unlike the last time, I did not hear any distress nor was there any sort of indication that anything was going on with that pig.
But, there is definitely something going on, as I have had these pigs for 3-4 years without major incident, only to have two die within a couple of weeks of eachother. I would think maybe it were a virus, but there has only been one pig in each cage affected so far, and it's affecting both pigs and rabbits, so something doesn't click. The rabbit's behavior is definitely odd and makes me think there is something up with the pellets. Hay and pellets are the only things really shared between all three cages, also.
So finally, after all that, on to my question: has anybody else been experiencing anything funny or unusual with KMS Hayloft pellets? I think we got this shipment of pellets 3ish months ago, in the same large quantity we always get, and we have never had any problems with the end of the batch producing any problems or being less enticing to the pigs.
As things are, I've been thrown into total reaction mode. I did a thorough cleaning and disinfecting on one of the cages, bathed the two survivors, and put them in there, where they seem to be getting along and will hopefully work well as permanent cagemates. I bought some different brand hay and pellets which I am giving to all the animals now as I refuse to take any chances, though at least in principle I think KMS Hayloft is more nutritious...? :\ I don't really know what else to do except to monitor everyone carefully...I'm so heartbroken by what is happening and I really just want to get to the bottom of this. I'm thinking I will also bring the pigs to the vet next week to get them checked out.
Do you think all of this could be related to their food? Or, if not the food, does anyone have any other idea of what might be happening to my animals?
Thanks so much for your time <3