[Gpdd] [BEHAVIOUR] Guinea pig eating cagemate's poop

[warmbreath at comcast.net]

Hi Sarah,
I have never heard of poop stealing especially drive by or sneaky poop 
stealing.  But lets try to figure it out

Do you know that piggies make 2 kinds of poops, fecal pellets which are the 
ones we see everywhere, and cecal poops which are made differently, have B 
vitamins and other nutrients, and are eaten by the producing pig as they are 
produced directly from the bum. Its so fast allot of people dont even know 
it's happening.

So your girl stealing poops makes me think she may be stealing cecal poops 
and fecals aren't eating, and why would a piggy steal cecals unless she cant 
make any or enough, she has some sort of deficiency, or it is some kind of 
very aggressive behaviors.

Hopefully someone else has had experience with this and can advise you from 
that experience, but while we try to sort this out I suggest that unless she 
is hurting the other pigs that you let her continue since a piggy cant 
continue without cecal poops. They are an absolute must, in fact, a piggy 
who has had a bad case of diarrhea, is often advised to be fed another pigs 
cecals but we are at a bit of a loss as to how to do this as the producing 
piggy eats them so quickly, pulls them right out of the source that access 
to them is problematic.

 I suggest you check another link www.guinealynx.info and Peter Gurney's 
piggy health pages avail from any search engine like Google (must close 
message now or I  would look it up)

So I dont know if this is a behavioral/ dominance issue, some sows insist on 
being boss pig, since the male is neutered if she is a boss pig she will 
most likely retain leadership, it would be interesting to know if she isn't 
the boss sow and still does this, as it would seem to me to mean that it s a 
nutritional need, do any of the pigs object, does she take (hopefully) take 
from all so that there is enough for everybody?  If this is nutritional she 
will steal from anybody she feels she can get away with it and may even try 
with a piggy who objects.

I think a vet should be consulted. We can help find a specialist of you dont 
have one, they dont cost much more and you save money by getting true 
answers. If you have a exotics vet or rodentologist, or rabbit specialist 
that would be the type of vet who could best help. If you dont have access 
to such a vet choose one who will see and treat your piggy in a bark free 
zone, but ask if he is willing to consult with a specialist or a University 
Veterinary School that stresses exotics.If you need help either send us our 
location or check on rabbit sites, like any state chapter of the House 
Rabbit Society, they keep lists of approved vets chosen by their members, 
bunny vets are usually good at piggies although not always, best to ask. 
Always ask a vet what percentage of his clientele are piggies and rabbits. 
mice/ hamsters. etc.  Even just a visit to primarily dog / cat vet is 
incredibly stressful to a piggy as they are prey animals and pre programmed 
to be fearful around predator animal. Sometimes a piggy lives in a house 
with dogs and cats and is less stressed but still the dogs and cats fear is 
contagious.

In any case watch for any psychological harm to the other pigs and esp if 
they are getting nipped or injured. Make sure they aren't suffering.

 I would also consider adding one of the very comprehensive probiotic 
products as a supplement. The proper one is usually found in the 
refrigerator section of a high end grocery that carries lots of organics, a 
Vitamin or supplement store, or health food store. The list of Active 
ingredients will look like a high end natural yogurt plus a few more 
bacteria including a form of streptococcus. Regular yogurt has Acidophilus, 
higher end ones  like Nancy's or Greek Yogurt add more add more like S. 
Thermophilus, L. Bulgaris, L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, and L. Casei. The 
capsule I am describing actually costs almost $30 here in Western USA

The probiotic most often recommended by vet and even carried by many is 
Benebac, but it just has the Acidophilus and possibly one other, these are 
fine products but they aid in the digestion of milk product which piggies 
dont consume anyway.  One last thing to check, with all yogurts make sure it 
says "live cultures added or made with" and that it is well inside its 
expiration date and that it has been continuously refrigerated

I believe the refrigerated capsules are by far the best as you dont have to 
feed the piggy milk products, which they are unaccustomed too (or should be) 
and because you will choose one that has the very long list of active 
ingredients. Anything left over can easily be consumed by your  family and 
will probably improve any digestion / gas type probs anyone has. If it were 
a med prescribed the vet you would pay the $30 if you had it. Also Any 
spares can be fed around your herd on lettuce or veggies, shared among your 
families so no waste occurs.

I am not positive this will fix your sows problem but it should add some 
building blocks to the necessary digestive flora found in a healthy gut. 
Since she has made a habit of stealing cecals it may take a while before she 
drops the habit, and it may take a few days weeks etc. before the gut builds 
the right population of gut flora to further produce the B vitamins that are 
the primary and needed ingredient of the cecal pops. Its a list of chemical 
reactions among ingredients, kind of like making cookies, if you leave out 
the baking powder you dont get cookies you get crackers, plus every thing 
has to be mixed properly with adequate equipment, strange analogy, a cross 
between science and kitchen applied to piggies.

I am not a pro, this is my best guess. If your girl has an overgrowth of 
some bad ingredient, or is missing something from her diet, or doesn't 
produce the right enzymes this therapy wont work. It wont work if she is 
just displaying dominance, but I would try all this because if she isn't 
getting what she needs from her own cecals if you house her alone where she 
couldn't get cecals from others, she would decline and die eventually. I 
recommend you keep ca log on her weight daily or a 2 or 3 times a week on a 
kitchen scale as weight will be the first warning sign that something is 
going very wrong (well second, considering she is poop stealing).

Since you are fairly new to piggies i recommend you read the list of best 
foods for piggies, esp make sure they are not being fed those cheap feeds 
with colored bits and seeds in it. If they are adults a year or older feed a 
Timothy hay based pellet with stabilized Vit C (piggies can't make their own 
and so cant be fed bunny food, it has no Vit C added. Also they Need 
continuous access to grass or orchard or timothy hat, they will get too fat 
on alfalfa but hay is extremely important to proper digestion and we are 
talking a digestion problem here possibly. There veggies should be based on 
greens mike mixed lettuces, like romaine and butter, lettuce, cilantro, 
parsley, cabbage chard, smaller amounts of kale and spinach or other high 
calcium greens. Carrots in the amount of aprox 1 baby carrot per pig per 
day. Small amount of varied colorful fruits like watermelon, rind included 
if scrubbed with soap before cutting, a grape, cranberry, other berry, skip 
strawberries peaches and other fuzzy fruit unless organic, tomato, orange, 
apple (has a tendency to make sores in the corner of the mouth, even lemons 
are enjoyed. Herbs are fine. The tomatoes, carrots, corn and other sweet 
veggies and fruits must be severely limited as piggies are very susceptible 
to type 2 diabetes which is hard to diagnose and treat, much better to 
avoid. With celery and very fibrous and stringy veggies feed big chunks so 
their teeth and veggies get a work out.  Piggies are designed to eat 
24/7/365  which is why their diet choices must be very low calorie, low 
sugar, low protein. Never feed people food. These alone could cause the 
digestive upset that may have produced the imbalance your little sow may 
have. Guinea Lynx above has great food lists for piggies, variety is the 
best, I avoid iceberg lettuce as it has very small amounts of nutrients 
compared to its parasite load.  My own diet improved allot after I started 
feeding my piggies varied salads twice daily. Oh bell peppers are great, red 
best, but organic or home grown if possible as tons of pesticides are used, 
I grow them easily even in my 45deg Northern latitude and they are 
attractive in flower beds. Supplement about 50 mg of Vit C per day, piggy 
pills can come from Oxbow hay online, or just break off little pieces of the 
human chewable type, very cheap and easy that way. If they have been eating 
the wrong foods and not much in the way of Vit V veggies do this right away.

Please keep us up to date on her progress and share what you try and find 
out from others. Keep a record or log so you can go back and check if 
something happens, good or bad, may help you to pinpoint what produced the 
change.  This is a new one to me and our purpose is to help and support each 
others pigs by sharing, and you have a very unique situation best I can 
tell. Forgive my wordiness, a fault, I worry about leaving out something 
that may not be intuitive. And I do beg others to chime in even if you think 
I am 100% wrong, especially if you think I'm, wrong, really.
Sorry for the book, I wasn't sure of the cause, plus you said you were newer 
at this so i wanted to be complete. I will be happy to answer any other 
questions you have as will the others on this list. Happy to meet you and 
your piggies, Good luck, Sandy and Shipwreck Sam, pirate and secret agent 
who loves Jodie in our virtual piggie world