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Since Monet had eaten his lettuce before I left, I went ahead with my plans to be gone all day. I came home to find Bijou clamoring for supper, and Monet still in his corner, sniffing around and looking, but not squealing and begging like he normally does. I gave them each a leaf of red leaf lettuce and, by the time I did my evening routine and fed the cats (about 5 minutes) Monet had started eating his leaf. His bowls of pellets are empty.

He is in the bottom cage. I do intend to rotate them each time I clean their cages. I do know Monet loves his brother but .... I don't think a barrier between them in one cage is enough. I won't have time enough to stay home and let them be together until late on Sunday, so I may have to wait till Monday to test them out and see if that's Monet's issue.

*sigh* they are as bad as human kids! lol

I had Monet & Bijou enjoying some together time on the floor Friday morning... each with a pile of hay. They decided to share the SAME piece of hay and Bijou bit Monet's right front paw. I didn't realize he'd been injured till I saw all the blood prints on the carpet - freak me out! I immediately took him to the sink, saw the blood on his paw, rinsed it, then put styopic powder, which stopped the bleeding. I called the vet & got him an appointment that afternoon as an emergency. I figured an anti-biotic & pain meds would be in order.

I wasn't prepared for how deep the wound was. Bijou really nailed his paw and almost went to the bone one the outside digit. Required 3 stitches and a pressure bandage. Monet needs a couple more follow up visits before this saga is over.

Question about the Metacam that I didn't see mentioned before. He's on 0.15 ml per day. As he was injured in the afternoon & stitched in the evening, his first dose was an evening dose. However, it doesn't seem to hold him the 24 hours & I'd like to be able to give it to him in the morning. Does anyone know if giving him tomorrow's dose at breakfast -after giving him today's dose for supper - will overmedicate him? Unfortunately the vet is off until Tuesday, when he goes back to see how he's healing - so I can't ask her. He's also on 0.4 ml of sulfa antibiotic for 14 days.

Thankfully after a very quiet, lethargic, and hardly-eating day, he's more like himself today, even reaching up on the bars of the cage to beg for lettuce. Phew! I have moved him to a store-bought cage, instead of his C&C cage, so he has less room to move around and, since I have to keep his cage clean & change every day, this one is much easier than the big honking C&C! He actually seems to prefer this small space right now. Not like he can go anywhere; he's hobbling as it is!

Here's Monet after his morning medication, showing off his bandage.

I'm so happy - he purred when I picked him up this morning! He's also drinking again & he begged for breakfast. He's also been biting at his bandage; I can see where he's gotten through it to his skin.

The "emergency line" for the vet is the general animal ER that's 24/7. They normally don't have an exotic animal expert on hand. Last time I took a sick pig to them, they did little more than look at her, say she looked like she was in distress, took my money for something I could have said, and she died on the way home. I knew what she needed but they weren't comfortable taking directions from a layperson! As I suspected, by the time I realized she was ill it was likely too late to help her, but still... had I known how close she was, I wouldn't have dragged her the 15 miles to the clinic at 7 pm!

Monet went to have his bandage removed and Dr. Linda is very pleased with how he's healing. The challenge now is keeping it clean!

He wouldn't leave his foot alone last night after the bandage came off, so I put the cone on his head. After his picture was taken, he so freaked out (including getting his injured paw caught in the cone) I worried that he'd injure his neck. He's not worn the cone since, but I've been watching him. He's gradually left his paw alone and gone back to sleep. Today he's used his injured paw to beg for food - you know how they climb the sides to reach the top for the morsels! I can tell, though, that he's not putting weight on it. I think he likes being in the Marchioro cage again. He hops over a couple steps and he's in his hidey house. Turn around and hop a couple steps and he's in his cavy cozy. He hasn't used his cozies since he moved to the C&C cage.

The foster buns also enjoy having him in the smaller cage - its on top of their cage, and when he kicks hay out... it falls in their crate! lol

Here's Monet not-so-happily modeling his stitches & cone...

I took it off him just after I took the picture. He was driving it into the cage floor & trying to shake it off. I didn't want him to injure his neck, never mind eat!

Nothing problematic, but this morning I took Monet in to see his regular vet as an overall follow up. My concern: the ER vet said his back molars were overgrown but not worrisome at this point, and I wanted a second opinion b/c he just doesn't eat like any other pig I've had.

Dr. Shawn says that his teeth look fine to him; Monet's done a good job at keeping them filed, and his tongue is fine, too. Since Monet's weight has not fluctuated at all since the beginning of his injury (3 weeks ago), I agree with the vet's conclusion that Monet is simply not as "piggy" about eating as his brother is. (Bijou is more like "you gave me 6 pounds of lettuce? I must eat it all NOW!" and he doesn't stop eating hay until the pile is gone.) Monet is apparently a grazer and likes to keep stuff on hand just in case.

Dr. Shawn said Monet's healed paw gives him pause. He thinks, and I agree, that its larger than the other 3 paws, and he says its warmer to the touch. He doesn't think there is an abscess there, but just to be sure, he's ordered a round of Baytril for Monet to take. This makes me feel better, too, as I thought the paw still looked a little swollen, but its looked like that since he injured it, and the ER vet who treated him didn't seem to be overly concerned about it. I'm not sure, at this point, if the tissue damage is just going to make the paw look larger, or if its swollen, or there's an infection. Monet is still not his busy want-to-beg-to-run-all-over-the-living-room self, but that could also be because he remembers being injured there and is fearful. I don't imagine another round of antibiotics will cause him significant injury.

I let Monet run on the floor this afternoon while I cleaned his cage; he's not done this since he was bitten. This evening he was perched on his hidey house and he had his right paw hanging off the edge, not tucked underneath him like the left paw & normal. I got to see how swollen the paw looks. Gracious its about twice its size now. He didn't seem to be limping when he ran around, though he was easier to catch today, which leads me to think that he's not running as fast because its uncomfortable. The Baytril came in at about closing time for the vet, so when I pick it up tomorrow, I'm also going to ask for more Metacam. Think that would be too much?