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For Small Furries (Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, Rodents)
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#1
07-16-2010, 07:20 PM
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For Small Furries (Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, Rodents)
The following is a product from
It's a blend of herbs that I have found really improves my pets' health. The idea of the blend is that the pets aren't getting the many different minerals vitamins and micronutrients from the pellets that they would get from eating all of the different plants they might find in the wild (ie in the hedgerows).
It might be pretty expensive to ship overseas (it wa $40 to Canada - but you can check with them in case it's different for your area) and if it turns out to be expensive, see if you have a store near you - eg health food store or herbalist or even on online where you might be able to get the herbs individually. In which case, you can just ask for 1oz of each of the herbs (you'll end up with about 19oz) - put them all in the same bag even - and it's much cheaper than shipping from overseas. Note - I haven't added the kelp into the mixture of herbs I've purchased and my pets are still benefitting immensely.
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Last edited by Freesia16 : 07-19-2010 at 08:33 AM. 
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#2
07-23-2010, 07:06 PM
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Ways to keep small furries cool.
There’s a few ways I have tried to keep my guinea pigs cool in the heat. Most of these date back to BC – meaning "before conditioner" as in "before the air conditioner"!
I tried to be environmentally friendly and not by an air conditioner but I live in an apartment without a cross breeze facing west - and while I will gladly, stoically suffer the heat – I realized I couldn’t ask that of my pets. In anycase, if you don’t have an air conditioner, or fans, to cool the air around you – here are some things that could help. Your pets might like it anyway – even with an AC. Freeze a small water bottle and wrap it up in a towel. The pigs, in theory, once they get over their timidity (mine never did), will cuddle up to it and keep cool. I believe this might work well with brave piggies and probably with rabbits who are much braver than pigs anyway, in my experience – and mice and rats – they are definitely braver too, I think. Put a tile, brick or some linoleum down at the floor of the cage – it’s somewhere cool for them to lie. I actually haven’t tried this – but my pigs – well, they are spoiled babies – and if they don’t have a soft place to lie they feel like their world is about to end and they let me know it – but I think it is a good idea that could work with less effete pets. Make little popsicles for them – dilute pure fruit juice – and freeze it – they will happily lick the ice and cool down. Or, alternatively – make yourself little popsicles of pure fruit juice – I’ve tried a banana orange mix and orange and pinapple juice blend – and then feed them little slivers. Guinea pigs, I know, shouldn’t have too much fruit – but this is one I have tried and mine sure do like little slivers of fruit ice on hot days – even with an air conditioner. Did I mention they were spoiled?
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#3
08-04-2010, 08:50 PM
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Supplementing your pet's diet when they are sick
When your small furry is sick they may not eat very well. Sometimes, with guinea pigs and I imagine other pets, they will seem to stop eating and pooping over night. It’s very important to keep a guinea pigs digestion going. This is because they are grazers and usually, when healthy, they eat and poop all day long and if they stop, they quickly have a build up of toxins in their systems and fall into a state known as ketosis – and that can kill them even if they may not have died from whatever made them stop eating in the first place.
This sudden stopping of eating and pooping is called stasis – and I will write something about it later as I have recently had that very situation with one of my pigs and it was down to finding a very useful article about bunnies and stasis on the internet (to which I hope I can provide a link) which let me know how to treat it and get her eating again. But right now, I’ll just mention a product that is very helpful for small furries whenever they are not eating well. I imagine people may have heard of this product from Oxbow Hay – it’s called "Critical Care". http://www.oxbowanimalhealth.com/ve...s/critical_care This product is usually only available from a veterinarian so you may only be able to purchase it after the veterinarian has seen your pet. However, it’s worth asking the veterinarian if you could buy this from him before your pet falls ill in case you can’t get to the veterinarian right away and need to supplement your pet’s food so that they don’t fall in to ketosis or become weaker and unable to fight off their illness as well. The product will keep for a year once opened (there’s a due date on the package) and even if your pet doesn’t fall ill within the time frame (which would be great!), you could feed it to them before the due date as a treat – oddly healthy pigs love it while sick pigs need a bit of coaxing but that’s probably because the sick piggies aren’t feeling well. It’s a really good addition to the "first aid" kit. One thing that Critical Care has in it is acidophilus – that’s one of the good bacterias for digestion. This really helps while a small furry is sick – because if the veterinarian gives your pet antibiotics, this is going to destroy the good bacteria in their intestinal tract and acidophilus can help supplement the good bacteria, help their weakened digestion and help them avoid diarrhea. Critical Care is mixed up with water and fed through a syringe. I have found I can ask my local pharmacy for syringes as well as my vet. The ones from the pharmacy I might have to cut the tips off of but they are just as good and sometimes better. If you don’t have Critical Care, and your pet falls ill, you can make something similar by soaking the pellets they normally eat with warm water and blending it up to make it even finer and easier for them eat and you can syringe feed your pet that. If you want to get the benefit of acidophilus, you could use the capsules that are designed for people and empty the contents of one into the mix. Or, a traditional way to help a guinea pig’s digestion, at least, is to take 2 or 3 poops from healthy pigs and add those to the mix. This actually really helped one of my pigs – it was only after that that she started eating better.
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#4
08-25-2010, 09:43 PM
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Keeping the Water Tube Clean
I have always tried to keep my pets water bottle clean. I have the plastic kind of bottle with the metal tube that hooks onto the side of the cage. Because I don’t like using bleach in the water due to the sensitivity of the guinea pigs system, I’ve been soaking and washing it with soap and water then soaking and rinsing it vinegar which kills bacteria naturally. Sometimes I might also rinse with a dilute solution of hydrogen pyroxide (3 % solution) and water.
I wanted to post this note, however, because I wanted to make sure no one was overlooking – as I have been – cleaning the metal drinking tube. I thought that soaking the tubes and shaking some soapy water then vinegar through the tube would be enough to clean it. The other day, however, I noticed something in the water and I couldn’t figure out where it came from as I had just cleaned the bottle. I took a closer look and poked into the tube with a Q-tip to see if anything had lodged there. I expected if there was something lodged there the Q-tip would push it out – instead, the Q-tip came back dirty from the slimy gunk that had congealed around the inside of the tube. I was very shocked to realize my washing routine hadn’t been cleaning this properly. So, for anyone who has a water bottle out there – remember to clean out the tube! If a Q-tip won't fit, try wrapping tissue around a tooth pick or rolling some tissue up like a pointy tube to poke down the tube. I’m not sure what the slimy gunk was – but it’s definitely better for our pets to have water as clean as possible!
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