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growth in guinea pigs

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kash191

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Hello everyone, so my oldest Chewie is rounding the 2 month mark, but hes not as big as i had imagined he would be, i have them on 2 servings of vegetables a day with pellets and timothy hay.

but i dont see so much growth in them. maybe its because its slow but from what i read i was expecting them to be full grown before they reach 3-4 months.

what size should i expect my guinea pig to be at about 2-2.5 or so months old?
 
I dont know how big they should be, do you weigh them reguarly? they should reach fully grown at around 9-12 month i think.
 
i weigh mine on normal kitchen scales just replace the bowl with something big enough to hold them, its the best way to keep an eye on them and also the easiest way to spot illness is weightloss
 
get some digital scales if you can, as you will need to weigh them, its helpful if they are ill as they can go downhill so quick.

My little boy is approx same age and i can see the weight on the scales increasing, but he still looks so tiny.

I'm pretty sure its 9-12 months that they become fully grown.

Hope Chewie is ok x
 
Guinea pigs grow much slower than you are expecting. They will have most of their weight by 9-12 months and will stop growing between 12-15 months. That is also the time when their hormones will finally settle down and they will be mature adults.

Do not be tempted feed extra to speed up the growth. A good diet consists of:
- unlimited hay (up to 80% of the daily food intake!)
- 1 cup/50g of mixed veg per piggy per day in as many servings as you like
- topped up bowl of pellets until 6 months old, then slowly reduced to 1 and later 1/2 handful per piggy per day for adult guinea pigs.
-fresh water.

Please weigh your boys once weekly - it is a good instrument to monitor health and spot problems early on. At their age, they should put on about 20-30g weekly on average which will slow down later on, but don't panic if it is a bit more one week and less another!

There are no fixed charts, as guinea pigs sizes differ enormously. A healthy adult piggy can weigh anything between 800-1800g, although most piggies will end up weighing something between 900-1400g.
http://www.guinealynx.info/weigh.html
 
wow thanks for the lightning fast replies everyone!

i will get a scale ASAP so i can weigh my little monsters.

doglovinpiggylover - chewie is as healthy as he could be, after a week of antibiotics he returned slowly to his normal self and even his wheeking went back to normal, full of volume and far less cracking. i couldn't be happier to have helped him ^^

Weibke - thanks so much for that useful info i was worried maybe 1 cup of veggies per piggie was too little, I'm very happy to hear I'm giving them the correct amount :D

on a second note / question ; if a guinea pig is in contact with a rabbit is it 100% sure he / she will get sick from it? and if so how hard is it to treat? (not that any of mine have it but i wandered in to the pet shop today and they had the guinea pigs outside, and to keep them warm instead of bringing them inside they had all the 1 month old piggies in with the rabbits and stuff, like 3-5X size difference.....it was sad, and the owner wouldnt listen to my warnings against that)....so I'm feeling in a rescue mood if i can treat them.....can someone advise me on that?
 
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