Best food for fattening up underweight boar

Status
Not open for further replies.
wind1

wind1

Teenage Guinea Pig
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
632
Reaction score
53
Points
370
I have recently taken on an old guinea which I think is underweight. His living conditions were very poor and I have no idea what his diet consisted of. He is 5+ years and weighed 940grams when I got him. A week later he weighs 952grams. He is very bony around his bottom end. My other boys of a similar size weigh 1100 grams and 1300 grams, although they are a lot younger and I know guineas do lose weight with age. What are the best foods for building him up and is 12grams in a week a good increase. It doesn't seem alot to me. Thanks for any help.
 
I got advised through the vet to pour hot water on science selective and leave till mushy and feed it through a syringe or off a spoon. Pampered piggies had sample packets on their webste pamperedpiggies.co.uk
 
That sounds like quite a good weekly increase to me - especially for an old boy!

I find Science Selective quite a good substantial dry food or Burgess Supa Guinea Excel pellets. I'd deffo go for a pellet or nugget for him rather than a muesli mix so you're sure he's getting the full nutritional value and not selective feeding.

Good luck - hope he's OK O0
 
Good luck with him, if he's got a good appetite then all of the above plus umlimited hay and a variety of fresh food should do the trick!

Let us know how he gets on.

I've got two that I'm trying to feed up as well :-\

Sophie
x
 
You want to put on condition, not fat. If he's eating normally then it might be best to have him checked for tooth problems etc if he's a bit on the skinny side.
 
He is eating normally but as I said I have no idea what his food intake was before I got him. I do know there was no evidence of hay where he came from (a friend picked him up for me so I didn't see his living conditions) also he was living on just newspaper and bare ground in an aviary. He is on Supa guinea excel and lots of fresh veg and plenty of hay and readigrass so hopefully he will continue to put on weight.
 
There's every possibility that something as simple as lots of hay and a good diet will make him beef up. I have a boar that weight 950g when he came to me (less when he arrived at the rescue) and he was 3 or 4 at the time. Nearly 2 years on he weighs a heftier 1200g! It really didn't take him long to put on the weight at all.
 
This sounds like one of the sows at my college and went to tell someone about her condition as i was very concerned for her and just got told 'shes old' :-\

Shes really thin around her abdomen and it just sinks in and shes skin and bones to be honest :( checked her teeth whilst holding her and they are perfect :) she just sits in the food bowl eating ;D

Hope your boar gains weight but to me that sounds a good weight gain O0
 
wind1 said:
He is eating normally but as I said I have no idea what his food intake was before I got him. I do know there was no evidence of hay where he came from (a friend picked him up for me so I didn't see his living conditions) also he was living on just newspaper and bare ground in an aviary. He is on Supa guinea excel and lots of fresh veg and plenty of hay and readigrass so hopefully he will continue to put on weight.
Click to expand...

Oh poor baby :'( Sounds like you've rescued him in the nick of time!

Hopefully he'll start gaining (and sustaining) a healthy weight. Keep up the good work O0
 
I am so pleased. Have just weighed this boy again and his weight is now a whopping 1010grams. He has gained 58 grams in 10 days. I thought the scales must be wrong so I started again but it would appear to be correct.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top