Guinea Pig Body Types

[Pohtaytur]

Whenever I see Henrietta stretched out when she walks, she has a bit of a round tummy and then it just quickly dips back to being straight near her butt bone. She goes back to the typical piggy shape when she sits. It's almost as if she just has a longer back bone or something.

When I got her she was always shaped like that, but Harold's body is straight with a bit more roundness in his butt, though he also does have that bit of roundness in the belly when you look closely. I always thought she was fat, but I make sure to regulate her meals and make sure she's eating properly. So, I think her body is just normally like that, even though looking online I haven't really seen that in photos. Anyone else notice this with their pigs? Do guinea pigs have different body shapes?

 

[Lorcan]

Blitzen was built like a sausage dog - long, skinny body. Plenty of weight to him don't get me wrong but he felt like nothing when you picked him up, and he was definitely not the Dwarf Potato body type.

 

[Freela]

They can definitely have different shapes. Bone structure can be really different too, I've had some really large pigs who were solid with big heads and feet and huge eyes, and then I've had a couple of really petite pigs with really delicate little faces.

Right now we have one named Tomie who is, for lack of a better term, small but dense. She is a little pig but when you put her up she is really solid and compact. Our other pig is longer but lighter/slimmer (although that's also probably due to aging/loss of muscle mass because Tomie is about 18 months and Leela is six-ish years.)