Low Calcium Diet

[Pantalaimon]

I have a four year old sow who was leaving calcium deposits wherever she was weeing (little piles of crumbly stuff, not just stains). I decided to change her diet to remove a lot of calcium, she gets a few rosewood meadow menu pellets and a pinch of burgess. I have been giving her an oxbow urinary support tablet every day for the last month with two ml of water, and she has unlimited access to meadow hay.
The veg that she gets is cucumber, red or yellow pepper, coriander and romaine lettuce. I am looking for ways of broadening the variety of veg she gets, whilst keeping calcium as low as possible, but in addition she has lost 300g recently due to bereavement and a spay to remove an ovarian cyst so I am trying to find a veg that she can have regularly that will assist weight gain.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Piggies&buns]

Changing the pellets is a good move.
if I remember rightly, your area is mostly a soft water area. We recommend filtering drinking water for those in hard water areas.

Veg wise, there is a section in this guide covering bladder issues Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

is she eating plenty of hay? Is she still losing weight now? If so, have you stepped in to syringe feed her?

 

[Pantalaimon]

I don't believe she is losing weight but I do not weigh her every week because she finds handling incredibly stressful, she eats lots of hay and is incredibly active and noisy. I have critical care that I can syringe feed to her, would it be worth giving her a small amount of critical care every day for a while to see if it has any effect?

 

[Piggies&buns]

I don't believe she is losing weight but I do not weigh her every week because she finds handling incredibly stressful, she eats lots of hay and is incredibly active and noisy. I have critical care that I can syringe feed to her, would it be worth giving her a small amount of critical care every day for a while to see if it has any effect?

my piggies don’t particularly like being handled either so I know how difficult it can be to weigh them. weighing regularly is the only way to know what is going on with hay intake though.
If she is now back to gaining weight then she won’t need to be syringe fed. if she isn’t gaining weight then she will need to be weighed daily to ensure your syringe feeding is having a positive effect in stopping daily weight losses
it’ll take quite some time for her to regain lost weight but for now being back on an upward trend is what you are looking for.

 

[Pantalaimon]

I will train her to sit on the scales in the cage. Thankyou for the advice!

 

[Siikibam]

I will train her to sit on the scales in the cage. Thankyou for the advice!

It may take a while to do that and it’s an essential thing, so you’ll just have to bite the bullet and pick her up. Perhaps give her a treat afterwards - a sprig of coriander or another herb.