Zebedee the guinea pig: Back from the brink

Recently, I thought Zebedee, my rescue guinea pig was dying. In my experience, once guinea pigs look like they’re dying, that’s what happens. We got Zebedee in March 2023 and he was always intended to be our final guinea pig. He’s aged somewhere between three and a half and four and a half, which means he might already be our oldest guinea pig ever. He’s lived on his own since Herbert died in January 2024 and he’s seemed to thrive.

On Saturday morning, he was fine. On Saturday evening, he didn’t eat his carrot. This was unusual. But he’d eaten his hay and the fresh grass I picked for him. (Most of our grass, including in his run, was completely dead. But we’d got a small patch of fresh green grass right next to the plants my husband had been watering. I’d put some of this in his run too and he’d enjoyed it.)

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I knew I had to weigh him. Weighing guinea pigs is the best indicator of their health. He’d only lost 20g, which is a fluctuation rather than a loss. Due to the hot summer and the dead grass, he’d been outside less than usual.

But I could see he wasn’t right. Poorly guinea pigs have a sort of flat appearance and their eyes look sunken. The carrot was still there, so I removed it. I gave him some hay and some more fresh grass, but he didn’t touch them.

I knew he would be going to the vet the next day. I was almost certain they wouldn’t be able to do anything, but I knew I had to try. A big part of me suspected he wouldn’t even make it to Monday.

When I held him, I cried because I was so certain I was losing him. Some of my tears were because I thought this could be my very last time of holding not just Zebedee, but holding any guinea pig at all. Even though I’d made that decision not to get any more guinea pigs, I knew I would miss having them in my life. They’re such cute and funny little characters. They all look so different and they all have such different personalities. Zebedee didn’t come to me as a baby, but he mattered to me just as much as all of his predecessors had.

I was scared of what I would find the next morning. Remarkably, Zebedee made it through the night. He’d eaten the one lettuce leaf I gave him on Sunday, so I gave him another three on Monday morning. He ate those and a bit of hay. He didn’t touch his dry food and I was concerned he wasn’t drinking his water.

The vet couldn’t find much wrong with him apart from an eye infection, but he said that was likely to be due to being run down from something else. It could be his teeth growing too long/ unevenly, which is a fairly common problem. To check that, Zebedee would have needed a general anaesthetic, which carries risks. We went through that with my old guinea pig, Cedric, and he didn’t recover.

So I opted for eye drops, painkiller and recovery food to see if they made a difference. The vet advised he be given food which encourages a grinding motion rather than a gnawing one, so leafy green veg and hay (he always has loads of that anyway) rather than carrots. He also said bags of dry food should only be kept open for about a month as the vitamin C guinea pigs need starts to degrade after that.

We’ve had the recovery food before – for Cedric, possibly my favourite of all my guinea pigs. It is really thick, sticky stuff and it blocked the syringe. Zebedee hardly had any of it. I went to bed worrying and woke up worrying. So I went to the vet to get another syringe first thing on Tuesday morning. We had slightly more success with it, but only slightly. I also tried to give him water by the syringe because I wasn’t sure whether he was drinking. But he seemed in much better spirits generally. He was moving around almost normally and was eating his hay and lettuce. He wasn’t keen on the spinach the vet had recommended though! Later in the day I gave him a couple of pieces of red pepper. It’s probably not what the vet would recommend, but I would rather he ate than didn’t eat.

I gave him water by syringe on Wednesday because he didn’t seem to be drinking it from his bottle. But maybe the reason he wasn’t drinking from the bottle was because I was giving it him through a syringe? I decided to leave him to his own devices on Thursday and it seems he drank a little bit. I also discovered he loves kale. He didn’t seem to be eating his guinea pig food, so I was topping up his hay and his kale four times a day to make sure he was getting enough food. But how much kale and hay does a guinea pig need to maintain his weight and stay healthy? His eyes looked clear and he had as much energy as usual.

On Thursday, I thought he was probably drinking his water and by Friday I was sure he was. On Saturday, he started eating his dry food again, although I kept giving him lots of kale and more hay than usual.

Was he actually recovered? I knew the true test would come when I stopped giving him the painkiller after a week.

The good news is, he seems completely back to normal. I’ve never had a guinea pig come back from being so ill before. I don’t know if he will have weeks, months or years left, but Zebedee is back from the brink for now!