Advice For Overweight Pigs In A Group

[pimm]

I have 3 female pigs and 1 male that live together. The male guinea pig (nugget) is not overweight, if anything I'd like him to put a bit more on as I can feel his hip bones and spine a bit. He does eat plenty of hay and veg and I often see him eating pellets.

The three girls (autumn, princess and ginny) are overweight. Ginny is probably the fattest and has a flabby chin and sides.

I would like the girls to slim down a bit, but wondering how I can do it without causing nugget to lose weight too.

Currently (due to living in a group) I fill their feed bowl in the evening, I've read a lot about rationing and only giving the guineas a small amount of pellets but with the girls being greedy I want to make sure there is enough food for nugget when I am out.

They are currently on Harrington's pellets, they have two sources of hay available at all times (comfy pet hay, b&m timothy hay, burgess barn dried and burgess feeding hay) and sometimes get a handful of readigrass but not every day. They get a mix of veg in the evening after I come home from work.

Any tips for slimming the girls down would be great

 

[GPcrazy]

I would guess the biggest contributor would be the full bowl of pellets.
If you're worried about Nugget not having enough, how about rationing what goes into the cage, but then taking nugget out for some extra pellets during lap time or something?

 

[Critter]

Have you tried them on a grain-free pellet? I wonder if that would help.... x

 

[Wiebke]

I have 3 female pigs and 1 male that live together. The male guinea pig (nugget) is not overweight, if anything I'd like him to put a bit more on as I can feel his hip bones and spine a bit. He does eat plenty of hay and veg and I often see him eating pellets.

The three girls (autumn, princess and ginny) are overweight. Ginny is probably the fattest and has a flabby chin and sides.

I would like the girls to slim down a bit, but wondering how I can do it without causing nugget to lose weight too.

Currently (due to living in a group) I fill their feed bowl in the evening, I've read a lot about rationing and only giving the guineas a small amount of pellets but with the girls being greedy I want to make sure there is enough food for nugget when I am out.

They are currently on Harrington's pellets, they have two sources of hay available at all times (comfy pet hay, b&m timothy hay, burgess barn dried and burgess feeding hay) and sometimes get a handful of readigrass but not every day. They get a mix of veg in the evening after I come home from work.

Any tips for slimming the girls down would be great

Hi!

Please feed veg and pellets in small portions in a bowl per piggy each twice daily in order to prevent food hogging.
Pellets should only be fed in very small quantities, as they are fattening and prevent th piggies from eating hay, which should be the overwhelming mainstay of their diet - 80% at the miminum. By leaving a lot in a bowl, you encourage food hogging.
The same goes for some veg, like root vet or sweet corn and readigrass if fed in too great quantities. Your piggies won't go hungry when you are away if you leave them with a fresh supply of unlimited hay; in fact, you put them on the best and healthiest diet for a long and healthy life!
There is always a certain amount of weight difference between the top piggy and the underpiggy, but it is less if you portion out the fattening parts of the diet. I always have one or two bowls extra in a medium or larger group in case the underpiggies are being pushed oof their bowls.

An example of a balanced portion of veg for that can be eaten twice daily by a guinea pig:


Pellet time with the Tribe in 2013


The Importance Of Weighing - Ideal Weight / Overweight / Underweight
Recommendations For A Balanced General Guinea Pig Diet

 

[pimm]

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to start rationing the pellets. I've already added another hay area to their cage so they now have 3 hay stations.

With regard to rationing the pellets, do I need to do it gradually or can I do it straight away without causing any problems?