Poorly Guinea pig - syringe feeding/med tips please?

James_Lahey

Hi all,

On Saturday evening my son noticed Miranda (one of out beloved guinea pigs) eyes were not fully open and a little crusty. After returning from work on Sunday I noticed they were worse and that her breathing was slightly wheezy. Miranda is around 4 years old and has suffered from allergies before - namely hay and sawdust.

I immediately cleaned a large plastic container lined it and filled with dust free shredded paper (to rule out any allergies from Stevie, dust or her hay which is always kept in a feeding ball.) I then gave her a nice warm bath and a good towel down - this seemed to help and her eyes were fully open and breathing clear for the rest of Monday. I gave her plenty of fresh fruit & veg which she was eating (although not as enthusiastically as usual.)

After work on Tuesday I noticed her eyes were again getting rather gunky again, now knowing this was something potentially more serious than an allergy it became vet time.

We went along to the vets today who confirmed that she is suffering with a upper respiratory condition (this was my conclusion from the internet after googling her symptoms.) He gave her an antibiotic shot and provided me with some oral antibiotics + syringe, some bronchial powder to add to her food and a sachet of powdered recovery food to feed again via syringe.

I've used the powdered food before on our large English lop bunny - with him it was easy to sit him in my lap and rub his throat to aid the swallowing process. Miranda gets quite upset if she hasn't got her feet on the floor and when attempting to feed her by syringe earlier most of the solution ended up on the floor. This isn't a huge problem as she is eating food on her own anyway, I'm just a little worried that she won't take her antibiotics tomorrow.

Does anyone have any good techniques on getting her to swallow this essential medicine?

ljonski

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4352957