How To Give Guinea Pigs Pills and Eye Drops

Guinea Pig Pills

Sometimes your vet will prescribe pills for your guinea pigs. So, how exactly do you get them to take solid medicine?

Putting the medication in their drinking water is not a good idea. The medications are carefully prepared in order to have the highest effectiveness, and diluting the treatment in water will reduce their effectiveness (and the other GPs will drink it too). Follow your vet's instructions - the pills will usually have to be swallowed whole.

Ask the vet to show you the best way to administer the pill. The technique involves holding the guinea pig securely and administering the pill through the side of its mouth to the back teeth (the molars) where it will be automatically swallowed. If you sit down, and hold your guinea pig’s back gently but firmly to your chest with your wrist, and its head still with your fingers on either side of it’s head just below its cheeks, then you can just pop the pill in at the molars with your free hand. It's tricky the first time, but you soon get the hang of it.

Guinea Pigs who are hand-tamed will be easier to handle when pills need administering

Eye Drops

Never use eye drops intended for humans on guinea pig, unless your vet has recommended a particular brand. More usually a vet will prescribe one for you. If you’ve never used eye drops on a guinea pig before, ask the vet to demonstrate. The trick is keep the eye dropper where the guinea pig can’t see it. Place the guinea pig on your lap, carefully keep the eyelid open and apply the drop from above so that the guinea pig can’t see the big scary dropper coming towards it.