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Guinea Steadily Losing Weight?

Barnyard Boars

Barnyard Boars

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Feb 25, 2018
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Location
Vancouver, BC
My guinea is eating just fine, not as much hay as I’d love, but I just mixed his Timothy with some Orchard in hopes he’d much on it some more. Pellets, he’ll eat but again, not as much as I’d love, however that’s how he’s always been, so nothing abnormal there. Veggies although, he loves carrots, red peppers and lettuce and will come running when I throw it down, I know the rule of thumb is like 1 cup of veg a day if I’m not mistaken, can’t I just feed lots of lettuce (green and red leaf)? He’s lost 5g in 4 days steadily and he looks perfectly fine. I can’t figure out why he’s losing... vet said to just monitor for a week and if he keeps losing go in. Is there any high cal foods I can give him? Something that’ll put some weight on him? He’s currently 848g I’m also wondering if it’s from stress from his friend dying a few days ago then a new pig coming in. He also constantly gnaws on those wooden sticks for piggies so I can’t see his teeth being too long. I’m stressing as I can’t fogure out why he’d be losing, he’s never without food and eats normal!
 
Just checking - did you mean 5g in 4 days? If so, then that's nothing to worry about, as the difference between a full or empty tummy can be between 30 to 40g I believe. If you are weighing daily it's important to do this at the same time of day, every day too, to give you the most accurate result.
 
Like 4ish days ago when his friend died he (and I do not know if I saw wrong, or had the scale on maybe a bump or something) but in 2 days had somehow lost 143g and it made no sense, he didn’t look different, he was eating, everything looked just fine, then the next couple days he’s stayed around the 850ish area, the only reason I’m concerned is because it’s not really fluctuating just going down.
 
So he was 1kg for how long? and is now 850g? Weigh daily the same time for a week and see how he going, if there are issues he'll be losing daily I would imagine. Any signs of over chewing?

@Janey has gave some very good general wieghing advice there. 5g change is honestly nothing to worry about. Weigh the same time each time you weigh so e.g we weigh 4pm pre-tea on a Sunday. Expect weight fluctuations of 10-40g which could be a full or empty bladder... if every weigh they were losing 40g so 80g over two weeks then it would warrant further investigation.
 
sport_billy said:
So he was 1kg for how long? and is now 850g? Weigh daily the same time for a week and see how he going, if there are issues he'll be losing daily I would imagine. Any signs of over chewing?

@Janey has gave some very good general wieghing advice there. 5g change is honestly nothing to worry about. Weigh the same time each time you weigh so e.g we weigh 4pm pre-tea on a Sunday. Expect weight fluctuations of 10-40g which could be a full or empty bladder... if every weigh they were losing [you]40g[/you] so [you]80g[/you] over two weeks then it would warrant further investigation.
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Honestly before my Melvin passed away I didn’t understand the importance of weighing so I never did, HUGE mistake on my part and if I had done so earlier I’d maybe still have my Melvin. I feel so stupid! :soz:
A day after Mel had been put to sleep, I weighed Harvey in hopes I’d catch it next time, and again, I am not sure if the scale messed up or I read wrong but it had read 987g on 02/27/18 then on 03/1/18 it had then read 853g, 03/2/18 - 851g, 03/4/18 - 848g. I’ve spoken to my mom about it and she incinerated are scale could be crap as it was giving her inaccurate measures every now and then as well, so now I have to go buy a new scale, but I am just hoping that was a false number at 987g. But then again, I also feel like now he needs to gain weight... he looks healthy but I’d love for him to be in the 900+ range.
 
He’s another 6g down today since yesterday. The only thing worrying me is it’s not fluctuating, it’s just decreasing.
 
Madditanne said:
He’s another 6g down today since yesterday. The only thing worrying me is it’s not fluctuating, it’s just decreasing.
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You need to be weighing at a regular time. If he was poorly I would be expecting big losses per day more than 6g. Try not to worry and keep weighing and writing down
 
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