Burgess rabbit light nuggets for overweight guinea pig?

Ketoprofene17

Ketoprofene17

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Hi all,

In the past few days I've seen my boar more "easy-to-get-relaxed" and less active. I brought him to the vet yesterday who checked him (and gave him 2 x-rays). He said he found him healthy (a bit fatigued, probably from the 20 minutes car journey and the stress) and with some gas, shown by the X-ray. His heart and lungs are fine and so is the rest, we were told.

However, since the last vet visit past 3 months ago, the vet said he went from 1120g to 1200g, meaning he's not exercising enough out of laziness + he may be eating too many nuggets.

He suggested we should get a type of Burgess food for overweight rabbits, as there isn't a guinea pig equivalent: Excel Light Rabbit Nuggets with Mint | Burgess Pet Care

Has anyone been given that advice before? I normally steer away from rabbit products as they're very different animals in terms of what they eat. Any advice?

Thanks in advance
 
How old is he?
How is his heft? A piggy’s weight is not a way of determining what is healthy for them - what is right for one isn’t right for another. My boys both weigh over 1300g, neither of them are overweight!
How much do you give him (nuggets)?

if he really is overweight (checking his heft is the way to determine this), then you’d do better to simply cut down the amount of nuggets you give to your piggy, encourage more hay eating and more exercise.

I would not give a piggy rabbit nuggets - they aren’t vit c fortified for a start, but I just can’t see how doing this is a good idea.

Weight - Monitoring and Management
 
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I would not feed your boy rabbit pellets - they are not designed to meet his nutritional needs at all.
You would be far better off feeding a reduced amount of guinea pig nuggets instead.
It would help if you could describe his current diet including amounts to give us some further information.

An 80 gram weight gain over 3 months is not significant - what are his weekly weights like as this will give you a clearer picture if today was a one off, or part of a steady gain.

Without observing your boy it really is not possible for the vet to attribute this very minor increase in weight to over eating and lack of exercise.
Are they an experience guinea pig vet?
 
Thanks for the replies! He's nearly 4 years old and he does have a 2 years old companion, in the past few days he just seems like he's less happy to move around in the pen and he's very reluctant to go out for floor time. It seems as if he didn't find walking comfortable anymore. Not sure if he always did it and it's me only noticing it now, but he "hops" more than "walks". Not sure if he moves less out of laziness/boredom (both me and my partner recently started to work again and in the daytime we're less present for them) or if it's something to do with his legs/body that prevents him from walking normally.

The vet is (apparently) guinea pig experienced (I had done some research when I moved and, even though I moved to Rome, not the smallest of places, I struggled a bit to find a good one). Yesterday he said he checked his legs and his anus/penis area and everything seemed in order. The X-rays also showed nothing significant, besides the gas, which he said was nothing to worry about. He seems healthy otherwise. He eats and asks for food (climbing and standing on two legs if needed 😅) and I haven't noticed any constant sneezing/runny nose/crusty eyes or any other generic infection symptoms.

I honestly didn't plan on giving him rabbit food, just wanted to make sure I wasn't being unreasonable. In terms of diet, they have constant Oxbow timothy hay, 1 Oxbow vitamin C tablet and about 3 tablespoons of nuggets each and 3-5 servings of greens/veg (romaine lettuce, radish and bell pepper daily + chicory, spinach, celery, carrot tops, parsley, chard, fruits on rotation). My sow is also 1.1kg, so I'm not saying we underfeed them 😅 however, I am not sure they're overweight to the point of becoming a problem. Starting tonight, I reduced the nuggets to 1 tablespoon each + the usual Oxbow tablet.

I'm quite confused as to what to do next.
 
You’ve definitely been overfeeding nuggets if they are having three tablespoons each. Definitely cut them right down to one tablespoon each (the recommended amount). Nuggets are the least healthy and least important part of the diet, they contain a lot of calcium (even the low calcium nuggets contain more calcium than the highest calcium veg (kale)) and too much calcium can lead to health problems. (Veggies such as spinach, kale and parsley, chard also, contains a lot of calcium and they need to be fed in very small amounts and no more than once per week, along with fruit that also needs to be kept limited to no more than once per week - they actually don’t need fruit in their diet at all). They can have one cup/50g of veg per day.

Hopping can be a sign of a problem. If the vet has checked then perhaps it’s not the case right now though but it’s something to be aware of
 
Have you had a go at checking their heft for yourself? The weight management guide linked in earlier explains but if you put your hand around their rib cage and can feel their ribs with a nice fat layer on them, then they are fine. If you cannot feel ribs at all due to them being completely covered in fat, then there is a problem.
 
I'll keep it at 1 tablespoon a day, thanks for the advice! I notice him (also in the pic) laying down more and moving sideways kind of uncomfortably. I think I'll go visit another vet, just in case their usual one missed something.

Heft-wise, I can feel they're not all fat. However I'll be much more mindful of the nuggets amounts.
 
Ketoprofene17 said:
I'll keep it at 1 tablespoon a day, thanks for the advice! I notice him (also in the pic) laying down more and moving sideways kind of uncomfortably. I think I'll go visit another vet, just in case their usual one missed something.
Click to expand...

Sounds like another vet check would be a good idea. If he looks uncomfortable than he possibly is.
 
Piggies usually hide their discomfort so if you are noticing it, then I would say another vet visit would be a good idea.
 
Morning all! Yesterday I went to another (visibly more pig-expert) vet and, after 2 hours of general check-up, 2 more X-rays and a blood test we found out Guanciale has a bilateral ear infection. The blood results were "good overall", which calmed me down a bit. The vet has prescribed antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and probiotics for 10 days. He mentioned that if this doesn't work, he'll have to proceed with a general anesthesia to collect samples from his ear-drum to find out exactly what bug is causing the otitis. Once again, thanks all for the replies and the support. This forum is really a great community.
 
I’m glad your boy is sorted. Hope he starts to feel better soon.
 
Sounds like a very thorough vet visit. Ears can be painful, so hopefully he will be more comfortable now and happier to wander around. Hope he gets well soon!
 
Well done for getting to the bottom of the problem.
Hopefully this will do the trick and your boy will be feeling better soon.
 
Hi all. Just wanted to update you. Guanciale has since been to the vet 3 more times, as after the cycle of antibiotics+anti-inflammatory+probiotics he recently started being veeeeery itchy. He's losing loads of hair and nearly making himself bleed for how much he scratches his back and his legs.

The vet first tried giving an injection for parasites, which didn't really help. Scotch and visual tests didn't show any visible mites or fleas. The next step according to the vet would be to leave Guanciale for a day, sedate him, "clean up" one of his ears (as it's still very dirty inside probably due to the infection) and take a small sample to find out what germ has caused the infection. The vet also asked me to collect poop samples every day for 3 days for him to check them out.

He said there could be many reasons for the itchiness besides fleas/mites, including some form of bowel parasite, an imbalance in the intestinal flora due to the meds he took, "reflex" itchiness from the ear infection that may have not been killed off yet and others.

I really hope we'll manage to get to the bottom of this soon, it's draining me seeing him itch so much. However, I'm also not overly happy to know he'll get sedated. It took him a couple of days to "get back to normal" after he was sedated to get neutered a couple of years ago.
 
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