Guinea Pig Crisis

I kind of completely forgot to mention something important last week.

Last weekend (or, I suppose, two weekends ago now) I finally got around to doing some online research about our two guinea pigs. Mo had developed some nasty scabs and Einstein started to lose his hair. From a few different resources I determined it was probably mites. The only thing we could do was take the boys to the vet. Unfortunately, the closest exotic pet vet is in Hortonville. So on Monday both Adam and I took off from work early and we loaded the guys into carrying boxes and headed to the vet. The doctor examined them both and did skin grafts to see if she could see any mites. She found them. The treatment for mites is in shot form since the mites burrow underneath the skin. So both Mo and Einstein got a shot. Einstein was really good about it but you could hear Mo scream throughout the clinic. Poor guy.

I had to get to handbell practice so Adam dropped me off at the church and he went home and cleaned out their cages. Fortunately they don’t seem to have a very good long-term memory and they don’t hate me. I only cuddled with them once since then though since I don’t want to spread anything around. Einstein is definitely looking better and Mo seems to be improving as well. On the downside – the treatment is a series of 3 shots, each a week apart. So tonight Adam will be taking them in for shot #2. Hopefully it will all be taken care of after the third shot. Otherwise we’ll have to decide if we want to do a round of antibiotics. There comes a point where you have to do a cost analysis but hopefully we won’t have to get to that point. They both seem happy enough. They’re definitely eating and playing around.