Do Guinea Pigs Overeat?

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I read before I got my piggies that they didn’t eat when they weren’t hungry (like cats, as opposed to dogs that eat anything that you give them whenever you offer it). At 8 months old and 1350g Treacle is 320g bigger than his brother and cage mate and never stops eating! I read on the back of the P@H nuggets that the recommended amount of food is up to 50g daily and wondered if I am over feeding my pigs…………

Typical day is;
2 bowels of nuggets, total about 130g of food, Treacle eats more but I believe that Scampy gets his fair share,
a couple of handfuls of herbage hay
and as much salad as I give them – typically a handful of spinach leaves each, 25% of a cucumber each, a grape each, half a carrot each and 25% of a red pepper each.

And they gobble this down like they haven’t been fed for a fortnight!

I have started separating them for supper because Treacle was eating all of the salad before Scampy (quiet and a bit nervous) got to any of it – I thought perhaps this was why Scampy was so much lighter.

So any comments on my piggies diet please………….?
 
Sounds like they are growing little men, my piggies eat the same what exercise do they get? :) I dont think piggies can over eat but if you fed them the wrong things like treats like yogurt drops etc then they would probably get a little fatty. Some piggies are big and some are small I have 2 whoppers and they eat like there's no tomorrow but they stay at the weight they have reached they are adults so they dont have any more growing to do. dont worry too much.
 
Thanks dazie, they don't have "floor time" as I have seen on here because my house isn't piggie proofed and they'd just poo and scent all over the place! But they do have a big cage and are always running around (usually from one food bowel to the next!) :o)
 
LOL well if you can get them out to have a run around that may help, you could get some c&c and make a mini run. Some people shut off the hall way and use that.
 
I think more likely they overeat on the wrong kinds of food because thats all they have. Ordinarily they won't overeat- but they will choose to fill up on hay not veggies which very quickly meet their nutritional needs and are more a convenient food for us :) (But they do need veg!)
 
My hubby reckons Guinea pigs can eat an abundance of veg and that they shouldn't get fat ;D I think he's getting in a mix up with my weight watchers dieting :D
George likes the herbage hay. He will eat about a cereal sized bowl of assorted veg every day as well as extra veg when he is having a cuddle :smitten:
I took him to my vet about a month ago for some advice about his weight and she laughed at me :o she has guinea pigs herself. She asked me if he was on steroids ?
She was only having a laugh, she said that what he ate seemed fine and she weighed him. He weighed about 1000 grams at 8 months. He was 1100 grams last week and he is now 9-10 months old. I do know that if I kept refilling the veg he would eat constantly - a bit like me ;D
Sometimes he looks fatter than other times, I think it's deceiving depending on how they are sat. George likes to do his ferret impression where he stretches himself really long, he looks quite trim then. :)
 
I've had one clinically obese boar brought into rescue and that was as diagnosed by a vet who said she wouldn't want to operate on him, they are very rare :) Within a wheek of being on a 'normal' diet with nothing with held he lost 4 oz, it wasn't the amount of food he was being fed but the type of food ::) He really was a spoilt guinea and wanted for nothing, all vegetables/fruit and fed on Cavy Cuisine and Oxbow hays.
 
We took our Louis to the vets the other week, just for a general check up and she said he's a bit big and told me off for feeding carrots everyday as they are high in sugar! he's not massively fat, only just over 1kg, which is average i think reading on here. Mine are really fussy eaters, they dont eat loads of veg, so I give them their dried food, timothy herbal hay, other normal hay and a few veggies a day, oh and dried grass everyday - i always make sure they have some sort of Vitamin C food like pepper everday...
 
Gps appetites vary the same as humans.They are grazers so it is natural for them to be eating most of the time.Some of mine will go to sleep near a hay rack,wake up,nibble some hay,and then back to sleep.The majority of my pigs eat a lot of hay,the girls especially,I am always refilling their racks.Although some gps are bigger and less picky eaters than others,I do not think they can overeat.Some pigs are naturally a bigger,heavier build than others.I have only taken in one obese sow but she had been kept for a long time in a tiny cage and never allowed out.I gave her lots of excercise and the loose flesh soon tightened up. GPs do need plenty of excersise every day.
 
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