[Gpdd] MISC - blood on feet, has anyone ever seen anything like this before?

[Andrew]

Hello, today I sadly lost one of my guinea pigs.  He hadn't been too well for a few days so his passing wasn't too much of a surprise (we all know how quickly they can go downhill once something goes wrong).  However, something strange happened with him, something I've never seen in over 20 years of having guinea pigs.  When we found him and picked him up, mum said he had blood on his back feet.  I said perhaps he'd passed blood as he died but mum said that the blood had definitely come from his feet, not from any internal passing.  He didn't have anything wrong with his feet, no swelling and had been walking fine.  The only thing we can think is that the guinea pig he was with had been nibbling his feet either just before or after he passed.  He is rather a nibbler, he tends to nibble my clothes when I've got him out, so it's quite possible that he did nibble at the feet, but has anyone else ever seen anything like this?  It's not been a very good time lately, I've lost two!
  guinea pigs in slightly less than two weeks.  Almost 2 weeks ago I lost Fleckers, my dalmatian/roan.  He'd been off colour just after Christmas, not eating much and very quiet.  He seemed able to eat but just didn't want to.  If I put food in his mouth he'd eat it but didn't seem very interested in food.  After about a week of being quiet and having to be hand fed, his appetite picked up and he started eating normally again.  However although he was eating really well and seemed active, his weight didn't pick up much, before the illness he'd been a really big, solid boy but during/after the illness, although not thin, he was quite a bit lighter than he had been.  One morning when I went to feed him he was lying very still and I could tell he was leaving.  I don't know what the cause of his illness or passing was but I'm glad his appetite had at least returned to normal and he seemed happy, the night before he died he was shouting as normal for his vegetables.  Now today Gi!
 ng has gone too.  We're now down to 6 guinea pigs, the lowest we've be
en for years.  At the moment I'm not planning on getting any more but who knows in a few month's time.  Although I want to try and keep the number down a bit from what we used to have I think we'll always have to have a few of the little squeakers around, it just wouldn't be the same without them.