Sick Orchid Update - Has Nature's Gift worked?

It's Crunch Time!

I've had a request for an update video of my very poorly Phalaenopsis orchid.

Orchid update - click the video at the bottom of this post

The story so far...

It was starting to struggle to stay hydrated, and only managed one flower this year, so I decided to repot. The roots were officially awful, rotten, mouldy and I ended up removing most of them, cleaning what was left with Isopropyl Alcohol and repotting in a clean pot with fresh medium watch that video here

Then I had a message from E-Coco Products UK, who had seen the vidoe and felt they had a product that might help cure the root rot. So I filmed another video which you can see here,

Three and a half months later, it's time to see if there is any hope for this orchid, are there any roots left in that soil?
Come and find out with me, keep your fingers crossed!

Enjoy
Rebecca xx

Sad News about Molly & Gastrointestinal Stasis

It's with deep sadness that I announce the passing away of my beautiful Molly.

Molly Mumma

Molly had been poorly for a couple of weeks, and though she fought bravely, and we did everything within our power to pull her through, ultimately we had to make the difficult decision to have her put to sleep.

To make something positive out of this sad time, I wanted to share what happened.

Friday 29th December 2017

We had all seven piggies out together for floor time. Mr PB wanted to FINALLY connect all the hutches up together, allowing them to access all the floors. It was a big job and would take 2 days. At the end of Friday we decided the piggies were safe to leave out in their floortime run overnight.

Saturday 30th December 2017

Everything went well, until during the afternoon we noticed Molly had tucked herself away in a quiet corner of the run. She wasn't coming out for water, or to eat from the bowls as she had been that morning. We tried putting ReadiGrass and hay right next to her, and she was eating small amounts. If you held a bottle for her she would drink from it, but she didn't want to move.

We noticed a very soft poop where she'd been sitting, but not as many poops as I would expect her to do, considering how long she'd been sat there for. Worrying that Molly was going into Gastrointestinal Stasis, we decided to start syringe feeding her.

Molly looks unimpressed by her syringe feeding

Syringe Feeding a Guinea Pig - Method

We always keep small (1ml) syringes in our pet first aid box, but didn't have any Oxbow Critical Care, so instead we soaked Burgess Excel Tasty Nuggets  in plain water, ground them to a watery paste with a spoon, and sucked the mixture up into the syringe.
Hold your guinea pig's head in one hand, insert the tip of the syringe into the guinea pig's mouth, immediately behind the incisor teeth. Slowly squeeze the plunger of the syringe to dispense a small amount of the feed into the guinea pigs mouth.
Allow the guinea pig to chew, then repeat the process. If you try to feed too fast, you can make your guinea pig choke.

We aimed to feed Molly 2ml every 15/20 minutes. That doesn't sound much, but it is.

When we weren't actively feeding her, we kept Molly on her own in a big box with a towel, some hay, and placed a warm hotwater bottle underneath the box. GI Stasis is very painful - imagine when you have an upset stomach, so the warmth is soothing, but your guinea pig should not come into direct contact with the hotwater bottle, and shouldn't be allowed to get overheated.

We were also massaging Molly's abdomen constantly. Later in the evening she began passing tiny round poops, and then later as more fluids entered her system, the small poops started joining together into long clumps. Molly would also strain her tummy while we massaged her, it was clearly painful, but an important step to kick start her system again.

We constantly cleaned poops away from her bottom, and changed her bedding every couple of hours.

It's not a pleasant operation, your guinea pig is unlikely to think you are helping them, but you MUST be persistent.

Sunday 31st December

Despite our best efforts, and working in shifts all through the night, Molly was looking weak. We continued through the day, trying to tempt Molly with little bits of romaine lettuce, celery and carrot but she wasn't interested.

She'd lost 80g in just two days, so we had a frank discussion about how long it was right for us to continue. Molly is an elderly guinea pig - we don't know exactly how old, as she is adopted. Maybe she had just decided that this was her time? But her eyes were still bright and shiny, so together we agreed to keep trying through another night.

Monday 1st January
Molly looked a little brighter, and she actually began eating hay

Friday 19th January
We'd used our last Critical Care yesterday night, but more was due tomorrow. Molly suddenly looked weak again, and her weight had dropped another 60g. We fed her with mashed nuggets again, but she seemed to be straining, and her poops were getting smaller and rounder again.
We booked her an urgent appointment at the vets.

So What is Gastrointestinal Stasis (aka GI Stasis)?

Guinea Pigs have a very delicate digestive system, they are herbivores, but as one brand of pet food terms them, 'Fibrevores' may be more accurate. For good digestion and uptake of nutrients, they need to constantly eat long-staple fibre (ie long strands of hay). This fibre plus water feeds microorganisms in digestive system. The microorganisms then produce a type of volatile fatty acid. The fatty acid is what gives a guinea pig its appetite, and keeps its digestive system functioning properly. Any little blip in this delicately balanced system, in which the function of one part relies so heavily on another, and you would start to see symptoms of GI Stasis very very quickly. GI Stasis can lead to death in a matter of days. Early diagnosis and treatment are vital.

Symptoms of GI Stasis

The first thing you might notice is your guinea pig being quiet and not interacting with its cage mates or you.

You may notice it isn't drinking or eating as much as normal.

You may notice that your guinea pig isn't eating its caecal (pron: see kal) stools (the special softer poops that a guinea pig MUST eat to be healthy.

You may notice that your guinea pig is tired, eyes are dull, coat is puffed up.

You may notice that your guinea pig is passing very small, hard, or very soft poops, or worse still; isn't passing poop at all,

Any or all of these symptoms need investigating urgently. They could means any number of things are wrong with your guinea pig. If you are at all uncertain, then make an emergency appointment with your vet!

Molly's Final Trip to the Vet

Alex the vet listened to everything that had been going on, whilst checking Molly all over.
Eventually, he looked up and said "I can feel a mass in the left side of her abdomen".

This was a total bombshell.

To me it felt about 2.5cm long x 1cm, approximately torpedo shaped, hard and immobile.

Alex believed that this mass was probably the underlying cause of Molly's GI Stasis. He talked about the possibility of treating Molly with steroids to reduce the lump, but we knew it wouldn't be a cure, and besides, Alex's veterinary medicine handbook didn't give a steroid dosage for guinea pigs, so there was a strong risk of not giving enough, or giving too much.

Mr PB appeared to want to try, but I looked in Molly's eyes and said "I think it's time to let her go".
We shared a final cuddle with our gorgeous girl, and she snuggled in as close as she could.
Then Alex took her away to administer her injection.

We will be having Molly cremated, and keeping her ashes, like Pudding, there was something very special about her. In the 2 years and 2 months she was with us she touched our hearts very deeply.

I just hope she knew how much we love her, and that we gave her a happy retirement from her life as a breeding sow.

Sleep tight my Molly Mumma xx You are loved xx

Hetty Wainthrop - Rest in Peace

The Rainbow Bridge is calling you

Hetty Boom Boom RIP

Poor Hetty Wainthrop, our Lavender Splash Orpington hen has been very poorly.

She's always been the first to succumb to lice, red mite etc, I think it's because she is the bottom of the pecking order.

Add to that the fact that the breeder was trying to develop a new Orpington x Frizzle (which are not attractive BTW), and new colourways, I believe Hetty's genetics suffered as a result. Signs of this included some twisty twiddly feathers on her neck - a hint of the Frizzle genes, and her toes were twisted, meaning that we had to clip her claws regularly to keep them comfortable for her, as she couldn't wear them down naturally.

Last summer she was a big buxom beauty, inquisitive, happy, talkative.

Hetty last summer

This summer she was a shadow of her former self. She lost a lot of weight, hasn't passed a normal poop for a couple of months, had no energy and eventually was unable to stand up, let alone move around on her own.

She was eating and drinking (if you sat her right in front of her bowls), and everything was passing out of her crop into her digestive system, but after that, something was going wrong. Our vet Alex suspected Sour Crop (but admitted that didn't really fit her symptoms very well), or that her digestive tract had become damaged somehow, meaning she was unable to absorb anything from her food.

The first signs that something was seriously wrong came when we returned from holiday. It had been very hot and sticky, and she looked pale and tired. I looked for, and found, a big 'bloom' of red mite in the coop, so we emptied everything scrubbed it, cleaned it and doused it and the flock with Nettex Total Red Mite Powder.

Felicity and Jane looked fine, so we hoped that Hetty had just been the worst affected, and that with treatment she would recover. But she didn't. She got more tired, less enthusiastic about coming out of the run for a scatter feed of mealworms, and very unbalanced. She started using her wing to stop herself toppling sideways, and if you stroked her back she fell over instantly.

Treatments we tried:

NB: We did not use all of these simultaneously, they were administered carefully over Hetty's last two months with us, and according to the manufacturers' instructions. They were given alongside a well balanced layers pellet by Smallholders Range, dried mealworms, mixed corn and Hentastic Foraging Feast.

Ivermectin Spot-on Drops
Flubenvet Poultry Wormer
Farm and Yard Remedies Wormwood
Beryl's Friendly bacteria
Chicken Lickin Poultry Drink Concentrate
Verm-X Poultry Zest
Global Herbs Loose Dropping Formula

Plus we bought The Chicken Vet Poop Sample Kit, and sent a sample off to them. It was tested for a range of worms and coccidia infection. All the tests were negative - possibly because the other treatments had killed off whatever was there, or it wasn't a parasitic problem or infection at all.

When she reached the point where she couldn't stand or move around, Mr PB finally agreed with me that it was time to take her to Alex the vet one last time. Alex agreed to put her to sleep yesterday evening, and let us stay with her until she passed away. She has been cremated.

We believe we did everything possible to save Hetty, except catch her symptoms sooner.

Hetty Wainthrop xx

Sleep tight Hetty Hetty Boom Boom, we love you xx

Saying Goodbye to Pets - How to deal with grief.

Saying goodbye to beloved family pets is one of the hardest trials life can throw at us.

Minky
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

We have just had Minky our Russian Dwarf Hamster put to sleep by the vet. She was 2 weeks away from her 2nd birthday, which is very good going for a little Russian Dwarf, but overnight she became poorly, bleeding from her back end, and one eye was closed. She was still her feisty little self, but weak, unbalanced and falling asleep mid-activity.

Many people can't understand others feeling grief and loss for an animal. Others can understand it if the animal lost is a dog, cat or horse, but not a 'small animal'. They assume that small animals have no personality to become attached to, that they are emotionally 'disposable'.





I hope that through this blog I can help reverse that view.

Be kind to yourself. Take time to grieve, you have lost a family member.

Allow children to grieve too. I've met many parents who refuse to allow their children to have any sort of pet, because they don't want to have to deal with the upset of that pet becoming ill or dying, and their child's subsequent emotions and questions.

It's a real, genuine shame, because experiencing the loss of a pet will help a child learn about the circle of life, and make dealing with the death of a relation or friend a little easier to cope with. I'm not suggesting that you have a pet solely for that purpose, that's not right at all, but to grow with a pet, form a bond, let that pet go physically and emotionally, and then learn to celebrate the joy it brought you is a very healthy, normal process. Don't deny a child that just because you don't want to deal with it.

When the time comes, options open to a small pet owner depend on the situation:

Natural death:

If your pet passes away in it's sleep it's probably easiest to bury it in your own garden, providing you have the appropriate place to do that. I tend to wrap my little friend up in a compostable bag, with a 'nest' of paper bedding. It makes me feel better about the process. Make sure you bury the parcel deep enough, ideally with a stone laid on top of the soil so a dog, cat or fox doesn't try to dig it up. It's also worth marking the grave somehow so it doesn't get disturbed when you're gardening.

Vet assisted death:

If you and your vet agree that the time has come to put your pet to sleep, the veterinary practice will have several options for you.

• You can take your pet home with you for burial
• You can opt for a communal cremation - no remains are returned to you
• Or a solitary cremation - where you will receive ashes in a canister that you can scatter or keep.

Poppy and Coco
Photo by Pumpkin Becki

Some practices may offer to dispose of the body for you, this was certainly offered to me years ago, but is not something my current vet practice does.

We have taken all three options with various pets.
Twinkle and Minky were both brought home and are buried in the flower garden
Coco and Poppy were cremated with other people's pets, and the remains disposed of by the crematorium.

Pudding
Photo by MrPB

Pudding...Now Pudding (aka PudPud, Pu Bear, Bumble) was a VERY special guinea pig. She touched our hearts in a way that I don't think will ever be equalled.

She passed away in MrPB's arms at home, but we took the decision to take her to the vets the following morning and have her cremated on her own, so that we could have her ashes back.

We keep them in a little blue and white china ginger jar on our sideboard. No, it's not weird or morbid, we just couldn't let her go completely, and when we disagree on something we still refer it to PudPud for ultimate adjudication.








Obviously there is expense involved with any vet assisted death. You will have to pay for the appointment and method of dispatch. Burying at home is free, but the cremation options increase the cost dramatically, with solitary cremation and ashes being the most expensive.

Plan for this expense!

If funds are an issue, then start a 'pet fund' as soon as you get your pet (if not before), to give you a buffer from unexpected expenses like vet care. It's the only responsible course of action, an animal cannot suffer because you don't have the funds to offer it a pain-free death.

Pumpkin Becki xx