[Gpdd] Health: Piggy dry heaving?

Mieke Staaks pandameisje at gmail.com
Mon May 6 17:33:17 EDT 2019


Hi all,

I noticed recently that both Cookie and Raani sometimes so something that
looks to me like dry heaving.
Raani was making little coughing (almost like gagging/choking) noises,
while she seemed to dry heave by contracting her sides together and sort if
rocking back and forth. Cookie did the same but without the coughing noises.
It looks really alarming, but once they stopped they both looked fine like
nothing had happened and they acted normal.

As I had rarely seen this before, I tried to look it up and found something
about heaving hiccups (quoted from Peter Gurney's practical guide to guinea
pig care ;). Explaining it could be like us humans coughing and spluttering
when something has gone down the wrong way when eating to fast.

I know Cookie was eating just before she started doing this. Of Raani I do
not know, but she was next to the hay rack, so it is likely she was just
eating before starting the heaving.

Had anyone ever seen this before? Should I be worried, or is it as Peter
gurney described?

Here's the quote from his book:
*Heaving Hiccups*
These cause much alarm when inexperienced owners see them for the first
time. The animal appears to be heaving, prior to vomiting. The whole body
is rocked and the retching comes from way down below the diaphragm. It
usually stops abruptly when the guinea pig gives a little cough.
Guinea pigs cannot vomit; in essence anything that goes in the front end
can only exit by the back. As hiccps usually happen during or just after a
guinea pig has eaten, it is simply a matter of something having gone down
the wrong way. Think of the way we cough and splutter when we eat too
quickly and you will immediately identify with the animal.

Curious to hear what you think about this and if you have seen it before in
your piggies.

Grtz,
Mieke &
Guinygirlz Raani, Cookie and boar Binky

“There are short-cuts to happiness and dancing is one of them”
Vicky Baum



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