Compared to other pets, guinea pigs are very fragile pets and prone to illness. I have outlined the most common health problems your guinea pig may experience.
Runny Nose and Sneezing
Is your guinea pig sneezing? If you have noticed your guinea pig sneezing a lot lately, then it may be allergic to its bedding.
Quick Tip: Change your guinea pigs bedding and see if that solves the problem. Further action would be to remove him from the area for a few days and see if that helps.
If you notice your guinea has a runny nose or rubbing her nose a lot, you should bring her to the vet immediately to get it checked out.
Coughing
Coughing is a serious condition especially when combined with wheezing or heavy breathing. This could be an infection that will need to be looked at by your vet.
Wheezing and Heavy Breathing
Like coughing, wheezing and heavy breathing can indicate a serious health problem that should be looked at by your vet. Wheezing could indicate congestion in the lungs that could become pneumonia.
Scratching
If you notice your guinea pig scratching more than usual then it might have lice or some sort of fungal infection.
First, brush through the hair slowly and look for any small bugs, these could be lice. Your vet can provide medicated shampoo for your pet. You should also clean and disinfect your guinea pigs home.
Milky-White Urine or Sludgey Bladder
Guinea pig urine normally has a slight milky color to it. If you notice extremely white or even clear urine, this could mean that the calcium level in his diet is too high. Thick urine is also a symptom of this.
Pink or Red Urine
If your guinea pig has pink or red urine you need to take him to the vet immediately. That is blood in the urine. One cause of this is bladder stones.
Again, a trip to the vet is necessary at once.
Excessive Diarrhea
Diarrhea can be a serious condition for your guinea pig. Excessive diarrhea can lead to death within hours.
Usually diarrhea in guinea pigs is just because he has eaten too many wet foods or veggies. Increasing hay intake can solve this issue.
Lactobacillus acidophilus is another option to help. You can get it over the counter in capsule form.
If your guinea pig has excessive diarrhea, contact your vet.
Guinea Pig Hair Loss
There can be more than one reasons why your guinea pig is losing hair.
Any time there is a wound the hair will fall out until the area has healed.
Mites and ringworm can cause massive amounts of hair loss all over the body. Ovarian cysts can also be a cause. In short, you should visit your vet any time there is extreme hair loss from anything other than a cut.
Watery Eyes
Allergies, dust, and dirt can be causes of your guinea pig having watery eyes. Your vet can provide instructions on how to best rinse your pet’s eyes.
If you notice sores or little cysts around the eye, you will want to visit your vet to have them removed. These can be very painful and should be dealt with immediately.
Stiff Joints
Scurvy is the most common cause of stiff joints. A lack of vitamin C and calcium can cause this. You should visit your vet at once to start treatment.
Tilting Head
Have you noticed your pet having issues walking or constantly tilting her head to one side? This could be a middle-ear infection and affecting her balance.
This should be treated at once by your vet to prevent any hearing loss or worse.
My Guinea Pig is Having Seizures
If you notice a seizure where your piggy has his head straight in the air, NOT tilting at all, this is a sign of mites. Mites can affect the nervous system by burrowing under the skin.
Seizures where the head is tilted to the side can be caused by any number of issues.
Either type of seizure needs to be treated immediately. Your vet may want to conduct blood tests as well to find the cause.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
hello i have swine flu myself, i have noticed that my female guineapig has a little bit of a watery eye, and keeps closing it, i also noticed this morning that she has i think been sneezing or has a runny nose , as i noticed some dried up fluid by one of her nostrrils, i wont handle them at the minute as i am un well, so my son does this, i get him to bathe her eye in cool boiled water, her eye does not seem to be sore, she is still up and running around, her brother that is the same age as her , he is just fine, they are both 5 mths old approx, could my guineapig have caughjt something from me before i was confirmed as having swine flu, the last thing i want is for my little piggie to die, as i love so very much, could you please help on this matter, many thanks from rachel
Hi, my guinea pig is constantly itchy but I have found no mites or lice or dandruf but he is constantly scratching him and It is worrying me.Not to mention he has moments where he randomly running around and he seems upset but shows no direct signs of wanting food or needing something is that normal?
Hi. I just purchased a guinea pig three days ago. I felt i needed another guinea pig to acompany my first guinea pig, so the day after i got my first one, i went to a different store and got another guinea pig. They’re both males. We put the newest one in the cage with my first one and they got along fine for the first couple hours. They were even snuggling in the same dome. But a few hours later the first one i got started chasing and pulling my other guinea pigs fur. We seperated them. The next day we went out and bought a little kiddy pool and bought another dome, we thought this might solve the problem. We put them in both at the same time but the first guinea pig I got would go into my other guinea pigs dome and attack him. I felt really sad and seperated them again. Later my mom called her friend who has a lot of guinea pigs and knows a lot about them told me to put them back together in the kiddy pool. I did so but the same thing still happens. Over night it has gotten better. If the fighting continues should i seperate them again?
I have 10 guinea pigs, 1 boar that has been castrated and 9 females, all from the age of 4 years of age to about 8 years old.
they live outside in a big run that is secure there is one cage for sleeping in etc and 1 dog kennel for eating in.
i feed them guinea pig muesli and loads haylage, hay with fruit and veg, when the weather is good then they run about the garden freely and are locked back up when it gets dark, lately i havent been able to clean them out as much as usual ( about every 5 – 7 days) due to illness (its been 10 days) i have had and i have 1 guinea pig with a sore looking eye, it has a light grey skin flap that has been pushed to the middle of her eye and very red looking, i cant afford to take her to the vet as i have not been working as i have shingles, what advice do you have
thanks Lizzie
Guinea Pigs- they will try to assert dominance and may appear to be “mean” to one another when this is natural. They will chase each other, nudge each other in the butt or nose, chew on each other (not leaving marks), and jump in the air. These are all normal. If they start rumbling very loudly, chattering their teeth very loudly, or rear up on their back legs while approaching the other pig than the fight is on. Use a towel to separate the two. I have recently gotten into Guinea Pigs and feel very privileged to have a friend that works with an exotics vet.
My question is this- I have a guinea pig that urinates every 15-20 minutes while the other will wait hours to urinate. All of the information I have points to problems. Does anyone else have a piggy that waits a long time to urinate?