[Gpdd] HEALTH: Diseases in satin piggies

Janneke guinygirl at gmail.com
Wed Aug 10 04:25:43 EDT 2011


Hi Joanie,

Yes that was my Yaya. She was a satin and suffered from OD (osteodystrophy)

The original english page with more info on OD isn't online anymore, but
some people copied it to this forum:
http://cutiecavies.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=other&action=display&thread=5004
On the bottom of the page there is a copy from an article written by
Desiree, she lives in in the netherlands and she and the other members of
her guinea pig forum helped me a lot with Yaya.

If you're able to read dutch, this is a better source:
http://www.satijncavia.nl/

In short, this is what it is about; OD is a very painful bone disease. The
first symptoms usually appear in the jaws (we diagnosed Yaya when she was
1,5yo) and bones that are typically affected are the hind legs and the
spine. I remember making an X-ray of Yaya to confirm the diagnosis and I was
pretty shocked by what we saw. Yaya lived to be five years old and although
I had to help her through some hard times with painkiller she did much
better than I expected.

There is not much that you can do for a pig with OD, but this is what I did:
- pigs are good at hiding their pain so you have to watch them like a hawk
- fed her painkiller when she was in pain (usually when her joints were
inflammated)
- gave her a heat pad (snuggle safe), which she loved because it relieved
the pain
- when she got older I removed obstacles and ramps in the cage and made
everything easy access

Yaya was bred by a so called 'healthy satin' breeder. The satin issue is
(was?) kinda controversial, those breeders (used to?) say that their pigs
don't get the disease and if they do it is due to bad environmental
conditions (light etc.). This was really hurtful to me because I spoiled
Yaya rotten (AND she had the 'right' family tree) and still she got OD. My
own vet, who I consider to be very neutral in this, told me that up to 80%
of satin pigs get OD and it is very rare for non-satins to have this
disease.

The hard thing is that the OD itself usually doesnt kill the pig. So it's up
to you to decide when your pig has had enough. In the end my Yaya didn't die
from OD, so I didnt had to make that final decision but it's hard, feeling
up your pig and trying to determine where your boundaries are.

You can mail me anytime you need advice etc.

Janneke
slave to Igor, Coco and Bo
www.twitter.com/winkyteam



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