overweight guinea pig

[sarah24]

The girls are a year old over the next few weeks and Gwen is having a little bit of trouble with her waist line. She was the smallest for quite a while but that soon changed into her being quite a curvy lady. Shes weighing in at 1.25kg (2.5lbs) with her hutch mates, Ruby and Isla 800g and 950g respectively. Ruby and Isla are sisters and considerably more active than Gwen is.

I'm wondering what I should be doing to help Gwen without compromising Ruby, who had a bit of trouble gaining weight.

They have Marsdens Pellets as this was what they had prior to coming to me and when they were younger they didn't appreciate a change to Burgess. They've recently been on a holiday where the lady there felt they were not eating the same volume of the pellets as her own guinea pigs do of museli so she fed them museli which they ate more of. I'm not going to switch to a museli because I am not comfortable with them feedng selectively and I'm sure it won't help Gwen at all, but I'm considering trying burgess again now they are older.

They also have plenty of hay and veg everyday.

 

[Toffeewoffee]

Like with us hoomans, guinea pigs come in all shapes and sizes, she is not over weight, you will probably find she won't gain much more and that is a healthy weight for a piggy, many will tell you that, one of my girls is 1.2kg and she is perfectly happy and healthy, i bet my baby will probably grow up to be the same or bigger - she is obsessed with food!

xx

 

[mikulinek]

Like with us hoomans, guinea pigs come in all shapes and sizes, she is not over weight, you will probably find she won't gain much more and that is a healthy weight for a piggy, many will tell you that, one of my girls is 1.2kg and she is perfectly happy and healthy, i bet my baby will probably grow up to be the same or bigger - she is obsessed with food!

xx

Absolutely, the only real way to tell if your piggy is abit overweight is by looking at their shape. You'll be the best judge of whether she is or isn't putting on too much fat but purely weighing alone won't really help. Our piggies are all around about the 1kg mark but many are closer to 1.5kg or even 1.8 - 2.0kg and this is perfectly healthy - there's no strict optimum weight for piggies.

Unfortunately, the clearest indicator of unhealthy overweightedness is fatty eye and by then, it's a little late, your piggy can still shed the excess weight but the fatty eye won't go away.

The very best way to reduce a guinea pig's excess/unwanted weight is to cut down dried food and sugary fresh food. This way, you know they're still getting a healthy diet, especially if you stick to grass, lettuce and cucumber for fresh food, but you're cutting out extra unwanted calories. You'll also encourage more hay intake which can only be a good thing.