[Gpdd] Health: Update on Angela

[Cuttlefish Arts]

It's been a while, but we wanted to update everyone on Angela, the GP who
had the mysterious eating, tooth, possibly connected with limping, etc. etc.
problems. 

With her weight hovering around 600 grams, we continued to syringe feed
Angela over the last month and a half. She would tentatively eat some
pellets and such and enthusiastically eat softer veggies and fruit, but
never seemed to eat enough to gain weight.

We separated her from her cage mate, leaving her tub side by side with his.
Her cage mate (a neutered male) hated it, but she seemed to be happy for the
solitude. She seemed to put some weight at this point, just by virtue of not
having to compete, and for a while we suspected some kind of subtle bullying
that we hadn't been able to detect. We left her in her own house for a
couple weeks. When it became apparent that it wasn't making any real
difference (she was still at about 600-620) we put them back together. She
continued to hold her weight with some syringe feeding.

About 2 weeks ago, she dropped a fair amount of weight and gave us a scare,
and we started doing a full syringe feeding regimen for a few days. Shortly
thereafter, she fought fiercely against syringe feeding, then she started
eating hay, and other food she had been ignoring, and then suddenly started
eating more or less normally. We stopped syringe feeding as soon as she was
able to maintain her weight from one day to the next on her own. She's up
from about 600 to about 710 grams over the course of less than 2 weeks. We
don't know why. Her weight has leveled off slightly, but she still seems to
be gaining, albeit much more slowly.

We don't know why ANY of this has happened, but maybe sheer
bloody-mindedness about weighing and feeding her just paid off, and we got
her through whatever it was that was ailing her -- jaw or tooth problem,
stroke, whatever. Maybe the separation gave her the convalescent time she
needed. She's still really small compared to her size before this started
(she was more like 900 -- 1000 g in the old days) and her back leg
hopping/stiffness is still with her. However, she now eats constantly, as
any healthy pig should, and her teeth seem fine, and she's much more sturdy
and able than she's been for some time; the legs don't seem to bother her as
much. 

I will continue progress updates to gpdd, and thanks to everyone for their
earlier help.