Use of Vick's on Pigs

[3piggles]

I'm starting this thread because of an alarming report I read on Facebook, about a guinea pig that broke it's neck trying to get away from the smell and burning sensation of Vicks Vapor Rub in/on it's nostrils. This was highly recommended, when I joined my first guinea pig forum in 2004. Since then, I've seen more negative responses to it than positive ones. I am interested in opinions from people who have used it, which I did in very limited form back in 2005, and in options people have found worked as well or better than Vicks.

I had a pig with asthma and extreme allergies. I did try small dots of Vicks right under his nasal openings, but he pawed at it, and it didn't seem to do him any good. I removed it after a few minutes. He survived pheumonion, but that resulted in the asthma and allergies. He was on an inhaler for the asthma, as well as a maintenance dose of Baytril. During extremely humid weather, he needed oxygen tent treatments, which the vet did for me using a box.

That caused me to check for anything that was obviously giving him trouble. First, I changed from loose shavings bedding to fleece washed in scent and dye free detergent. Next, I removed the plastic pigloos and tubes from the cage, as they trap a lot of exhaust breath, and replaced them with cardboard tubes and wooden houses with large openings for air circulation. Lastly, I misted-not sprayed the hay, to reduce the amount of dust and pollen he had to breathe. That included keeping the floor around the cage hay free, and misting that to reduce dust. It definitely did a lot more to help him than the Vicks, and didn't bother him the way the Vicks did.

The pig with the Rhinovirus was diagnosed by the vet, who recommended a maintenance dose of allergy meds. Peter Gurney(http://oginet.com/pgurney/) and others recommended Chlor-Trimeton or childrens' Benadryl. I used Chlor-Trimeton. I also set up a humidifier near the cage, and kept the humidity at 40%. In the summer, I used the a/c to remove humidity to keep it at a steady 40%. Still used fleece bedding. It worked, and she was relatively problem free for over a year. She was a sickly pig. I think she was either overly inbred or kept in horrible conditions before she was abandoned at the pet store where I found her.

Not only is everyone likely to encounter similar problems at some point in keeping guinea pigs, there is a lot of probably wrong information available. I'd like to hear from those who have had pigs for a while. Maybe we can help the newcomers not make some of our mistakes.

[bazookagoof]

Aug 21, 2015 20:02:56 GMT 3piggles said:

 I also set up a humidifier near the cage, and kept the humidity at 40%. In the summer, I used the a/c to remove humidity to keep it at a steady 40%. Still used fleece bedding. It worked, and she was relatively problem free for over a year. She was a sickly pig. I think she was either overly inbred or kept in horrible conditions before she was abandoned at the pet store where I found her.
  

 I keep my two boys in my daughter's room which has two windows, so air circulation is good. Also, we have central AC, so when it gets hot the cages are somewhat close to the vents. (There is nothing blowing directly on them.)

Also, during the cold weather season there is always a humidifier running, so my boys should be in good shape.

[Bean]

That's awful about the pig - I can't imagine the strength of the reaction for it to break its neck?

I know a lot of Peter Gurney's methods get regularly questioned, although much of his advice is good too. But without your own experience, how can you know which advice is worth following and which could cause harm? Vicks is certainly potent stuff and anywhere near the eyes/ mouth (which it could easily get to if the pig was trying to groom it off) would be very unpleasant.

When Ziggy had a URI (we're talking 15+ years ago) he was finding breathing so hard, I tried about everything and anything that had ever been suggested. I put the tiniest smudge of Vicks above his nostrils, not enough for him to spread it round, and it didn't seem to bother him at all. But it didn't really make much difference either. I felt that using an oil burner in the room with eucalyptus or olbas oil was much more effective. When I had him out, I used to put a few drops of olbas oil on a cloth and put it near his nose too. At first he didn't react to it and at the point at which he started trying to move away from the horrid smell, I knew he was getting better!

We did the same as you in terms of using washable bedding and removing anything which could stop air moving around him. I think the antibiotics were the main thing that helped him - I'm sure he'd have died without them. I think that's the main danger of some of Peter Gurney's approach - that it encourages people to self-treat too much. Of course when you're an experienced owner, you might develop a feel for which ailments can be treated as effectively at home, but it's not a call that can be made without a good bank of experience. There weren't as many guinea pig forums around back then, so at least now people can get a variety of views before deciding to undertake any treatment.

[jolovespiggies]

Oh God that is awful, I must admit so far I haven't had a piggy with wheezy problems. Yes, anything we can do to help new mums and dads would be great.

Hugs
JO xx

[3piggles]

I've never heard of Olbas Oil, but it was an option to Vicks mentioned in the Facebook discussion. I used a vaporizer for Dallas, which is the eucalypus steam, rather than putting the actual oil on or near him. There are also Vicks tabs that go in a plug-in that goes in the wall outlet. Some former members had a lot of luck with that, for themselves and their pigs. I think the issue with the poor pig that broke its neck trying to get away was that the Vicks was both too strongly scented for a pig, and possibly burned the skin. I judged from some of the comments, that the owner was not considered very highly.

Bean, I totally agree about not encouraging people to skip taking their pets to the vet. However, there are situations where people can't get their animals to vets, because of distance, lack of transportation, lack of an open vet or lack of money. I always tell people to take their pigs to a cavy savvy vet, as many vets know nothing about guinea pigs. That's why I felt safe in relating my experiences, because they were done with the knowledge and approval of the vet. Peter Gurney, Guinealynx and others are great sources of information for emergency situations when getting to a vet isn't possible. They aren't vets, though, and that should always be considered.

Dallas was a test case for maintaining guinea pigs with allergies and asthma. The summer of 2005 was so hot and humid, wood floors buckled and asphalt melted on the roads. I moved Dallas and Zippy to the basement with the ladies, because it was naturally cooler and dryer down there. Even that didn't help poor Dallas, so I started looking for what bothered him the most, got ideas from the vet, etc. He did okay, but did need three oxygen treatments during that awful summer. He died in November, 2005, so his problems finally caught up with him, but he was active and interested in life right up to his last day. The meds were expensive. The pharmacist got such a hoot out of knowing that Dallas was a guinea pig, and not a person They even asked to meet him, so he and Zippy went with me to get the meds several times

Humidifiers are also really good for dry, itchy skin. We keep a 40-50% humidity level in the house, and my pigs don't get dry, itchy skin. Winter can be miserably dry, with humidity levels dropping into the 20-30% range. My sinuses dry up. We zap ourselves every time we touch an light switch or each other, so we have humidifiers in every major room during the winter. We have central heat/air conditioning, but no matter how high we set the humidity setting, it never seems to change. It's much better at removing humidity than adding it.