File :-(, x, )
Anonymous
hey /an/,

some of you may remember a couple of months back when i mentioned Florence, my guinea pig, had a growth on her leg.

well now i'm back home from uni so heres a picture of it.
its not the best quality and i'll probably be able to get a better one tomorrow, but here it is.

basically she started getting a little growth on her leg about a year ago. we took her to the vet who said he'd never seen anything like it and that it would be impossible to remove it as there wouldn't be enough skin left to close the leg back up after it had been taken off. it doesn't seem to bother her, so pretty much all we can do is wait until it gets too big for her to cope with and have her put down :(
but now its a year later and although its grown a lot, it still doesnt seem to be causing her problems.

has anyone seen or heard of this happening to other pigs? any ideas what caused it?
>> Anonymous
Take it to a different vet, your vet seems inexperienced.
>> Anonymous
It's a tumor. I would say, if the tumor isn't making her sick or getting in her way, why remove it?

If you absolutely must do something, draw another set of eyes on it.
>> Anonymous
>>252269
Also, it might be possible to remove the tumor in successive surgeries and maybe stretch the skin, though you might have to give your piggie some exercises to make the stretched skin grow so it wouldn't be too restrictive.

Of course, if the tumor starts making its way into muscle and bone, you might want to ask the vet if the health of your pig is served by not amputating its leg. That would be a harsh thing, but depending on what this growth is, how fast it moves, etc., it might save the pig's life for longer than it would shorten it... if that phrase made sense.
>> Anonymous
If it's a benign tumor, then there's really no problem except physical inconvenience.. which she's obviously adapting to just fine if she's still eating and drinking.

I've never read up much on guinea pigs but benign tumors are very common in rats. Maybe they don't occur as much in pigs, but I'd imagine it's very similar.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
yeah, i've kept rats before and a couple of them got tumors, but they were just loose lumps under the skin, as opposed to this which seems to be a knobbly growth on the skin.
i guessed it probably was a tumor, but wondered if it could have been anything else cos the vet said he hadn't seen it before. i guess he was just inexperienced.

she seems to be happy enough, except the constant fear that all guinea pigs seem to live in, so the plan is just to let her get on with it and leave it alone.
>> Anonymous
>>252273
Most common domesticated rodents are prone to tumors; largely, this is attributed to overbreeding and inbreeding.

The tumors tend to stay localized, but are not benign. Suffice to say, a skin tumor is better than a tumor on an organ.