so lately my guinea pig is getting fat, dont laugh pls it's scary, so I have him hay which amount to 5 days of hay but he finished it in 5 minutes, I'm scared all he does is eat sleep pee poo, and repeat, somebody pls help
Hi and welcome
How old is your guinea pig and how long you have you had them? Do you have a single or have they got a companion to keep them more active socially and mobility/exercise-wise?
You can always feel around the ribcage whether a piggy is OK, over- or underweight at any age. If you can just feel the ribs, then your piggy is in the ideal weight range for their current size. If you cannot feel any ribs when you gently feel around, then a piggy is overweight. If you can feel every single rib, they are underweight; we call that feeling for the heft or the BMI.
ONly when you know whether your piggy is OK can then you can interpret the weekly weigh-in on your kitchen scales correctly.
Weight - Monitoring and Management
Please be aware that unlimited hay should make over three quarters of the daily food intake. 1 cup of preferably green veg plus a slice of pepper, 1 tablespoon of pellets, any fresh or dry forage and any treats (please don't) all together just replace the supplementary role of wild forage.
The more extras you feed the more fattening calories your piggy will get. The digestive system and dental growth rate are fully laid out for the digestion of the nutritious but hard to break down and ery abrasive grass/hay fibre. The more hay/fresh grass a piggy eats, the healthier they are and the longer they will have a chance to live. You cannot overfeed hay, except alfalfa (which is a legume and not a grass hay and should not feature on a guinea pig diet unless you are dealing with neglected and/or highly pregnant piggies.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
If your piggy has a healthy appetite for hay that is usually a very good sign but we can only comment and help you further once we know in which BMI bandwidth your piggy is punching. Please check the ribcage now.
