[Gpdd] re GPDD (Care) (UTI treatment/prevention)and cleaning

[warmbreath]

Hi Ellen  I found a bit of a shortcut for cranberry for piggies who don’t 
like it.  If you don’t want to syringe it use it as a salad dressing. This 
is how I get my piggies to like flavors they didn't start out liking. So 
take a bit of that unsweetened cranberry juice, (or tomato or orange) and 
dress their greens with it, lightly at first, then more.  Also, since 
piggies learn what to eat from their mums and mates always enjoy some of 
what you are feeding them in front of them, I even had one piggy, the late 
great Square-Ed,  accept lemons that way.

The most convenient thing in the whole world is to train your piggies to 
syringe, Sammy expects good stuff, like watered down orange or tomato (from 
fresh tomatoes) or water, so when I put a syringe up the cage he goes for it 
as fast as if it were a leaf of lettuce although I might get the evil eye 
after, he forgives me. He just had his Ivermectin that way.

I think magnesium and/or potassium in small amounts might be helpful but I 
don’t really know maybe Ann knows  For these things look in the vitamin 
section and chose the one that has the least additives, but remember these 
are minerals and stones are made of minerals and how are we to know if one 
or more is out of balance with the others. For sure don’t use sodium, same 
for us people.  I have no clue what an effective dosage would be, much less 
how much is too much and if we get it wrong could the next stone be one we 
caused by adding extra minerals.  I could use some education here

About creams on their bums, mind you I'm not a pro, but over the years I 
have come to believe that nothing foul tasting or with any chemicals should 
be used on their bums for fear it will put them off their cecals, make them 
taste or smell bad.  My solution is to clean their bottoms and boar parts 
with olive oil, since oils are a high proportion of most creams it may work 
for you.

As for sodium citrate, I wouldn't give anything with sodium in it, it’s the 
bad element in salt and acts the same I believe.

About the other stuff you listed maybe its my brain overloading, but it all 
sounds like too much new stuff at once to me. Maybe it sorts out to one new 
thing for this little piggy, one new one for this other piggy, but I don’t 
ever change 2 things at once, if something goes wrong you don’t know what 
did it. And as for preparations of many ingredients, I just wouldn't.  The 
pedialyte solution is very salty, that’s what de-hydrated babies need, 
everything with scent I wouldn't use or colorings, or sodium or petroleum 
jelly (petrolatum which is basically used dinosaurs).  The longer we study 
the more we find out what awful stuff companies put in their preparations, 
make sure everything on the ingredients list is something you want in your 
piggie.

BTW I use Hibiclens for myself the directions say not to use on genitalia, 
if u need to cleanse and she's not sore, I would use a small prepackaged 
alcohol wipe like diabetics and nurse use before cleaning an injection site. 
It is fine to use Hibiclens on skin, just not where it can come in contact 
with eyes, mucous membranes, punctured ear drums etc.

Glad to hear your anti parasite program is going well.  Please know every 
little thing I wrote here isn't for you, I always assume there are new 
readers that haven't had many piggies over time. So since there may be those 
new slave/parents here I'll give my fav advice for boars after keeping them 
parasite free via Ann Evan's or  Cambridge Cavy Trust protocol, and the 
teaching of the syringe feeding to the point of fun, it is;  ta da ....

Boar care, some of which can apply to the ladies. As they age you must clean 
out their "slot" more often. When Sammy's gets gunky he calls me for a 
cleaning but you may not recognize, also if you don’t adopt a routine to 
this smelly chore, you can easily miss, or help cause, certain parts to 
stick together, or get infected. As you know know boars rumblestrut, 
dragging their buts and picking up all sorts of junk in the slot area 
between their balls. Get newspaper to set them on and and have a Q-tips 
alcohol wipes, olive oil, and little squares of paper toweling, maybe some 
aloe vera without additives.  Consider the front half and the back half 
separate for cleanliness reasons, VERY IMPORTANT.  If this is down to a no 
stress routine you can do the nails also.  I often give a bath afterwards, 
no perfume, Ann recommends Adams, as apparently does Ellen, otherwise a 
simple baby shampoo, organic is good.    So use the Q-Tips, and nose clips 
for you, and attack the mess. Mostly gone I add a little olive oil to finish 
the cleaning.  That done I use a patch of paper towel with the olive oil and 
clean around the penis, then a new paper towel  patch and carefully extrude 
the penis, it gets stuck, use the oil to clean of the dries stuff. make sure 
the whole thing can extrude. One word of warning, there is an almost 
invisible, cartilaginous final piece with a bit of a hook on the end. This 
is part of the included equipment so don’t think something got stuck inside 
and try to remove it, piggy damage would ensue.

For the oil gland gunk I cut as much of the hair off as possible and then 
wash with Dawn as Ellen does, might be problematic for Ellen's long hairs, I 
had Peruvians and clipped their butts short up to the grease gland, then 
combed the sweep (long back hair over the rump, and then trimmed the whole 
around the piggy at floor length, they gave the illusion of long hair, but 
not the mess. I always clipped their bangs to stand up straight in a punkish 
look, they could see more, and became much more active.

Then wrap up the mess and wash hands or get new gloves, and lay out new 
paper and supplies' you have reached the front of the piggy. Check the front 
teeth for evenness, check against pigtures for  length. If they let you 
check the back molars do that, use a flashlight and make sure they aren't 
growing unevenly or worse growing together over the tongue, make sure they 
aren't poking the cheek. A quick finger insert to the side and run over as 
much real estate as possible quickly will work partially anyway. Any worries 
there, go to the vet. Clean the ears, carefully as you would your own and 
don’t go deep. if they have allot of black gunk it might be flea gunk or 
mite detritus so if you aren't treating for mites and parasites, drag out 
Ann's recent post and either start it yourself or take it to the vet and 
compare notes to make sure he uses the dosages and frequencies on Ann's 
list.

Most of all don’t ever move your hands from piggy front to butt or back 
again any more than you would wipe at toilet and pick up your sandwich 
without a thorough wash. Just cause they are coprafragic doesn’t mean then 
they don’t know how to do it right themselves but we cant presume to.

Chinese herbs?  I dunno, wouldn't take them myself without a lot more info, 
which the Chinese herbologists have and I don’t.
Now I have to go practice what I preach, I'm sure many of you have your own 
methods,
just be really sure sure to clean your boars often and well  Sammy says so. 
Best regards Sandy