The girls weigh in

[Pepperdog]

And I confess I have no idea if this is a good weight or not - both crystal and minty are not a year old, probably around 6 months ish. Fudge is around the 6 week mark but was a single ginormous baby.

Anyway the weights

crystal - 650g
minty - 680g
fudge - 390g

As this will be the beginning of my weekly record I wanted to check that they are a healthy weight to start off with and then I know if they start to lose weight. Obviously fudge will get heavier but will crystal and minty get heavier too, and how much more will they gain before they are a mature weight?

 

[flintstones]

Your guess is as good as ours!

Piggies come in all shapes and sizes they will continue gaining even after a year although it will slow down somewhat.

Esme was born 1st October 2010 she is 6 months her last weigh in was 970 grams, were as Milo who is a year and 2 months weighs less than 900 grams.

Its the patterns your looking for there isn't a normal weight, but when they get ill there is a downward trend to there weight. As you weigh them, keep notes it will flag up anything thats not normal.

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Often the first sign of illness is weight loss. The most important tool you have to monitor your pig's health is to weigh it once a week. Keep a chart! This will enable you to spot gradual weight loss and get medical help before it's too late, perhaps buying you valuable time for early treatment. Weight loss may be one of the first signs of malocclusion.

One ounce weight fluctuation is OK.
Two ounces - Go on alert.
Three ounces - Extreme red alert.
Four ounces - Get the pig to a vet.

Source: http://www.guinealynx.info/emergency.html

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For Example: Fred gained to over 1041 grams last August now his weight does flucturate the last time he was under a 1000 grams was June last year.

Weigh day came and he'd lost 41 Grams, he was now 1000 grams, next day weighed him 996 grams, and the following day he was 986 grams. By that point we had our vet appointment booked.

 

[Pepperdog]

fudge really is a big girl :o but a healthy one at that and I thought crystal would be the heaviest as she is the biggest, but she is a little lighter than minty - but then crystal does tend to move about more I wasnt 100% sure how old the two girls were, fudge I know she is 3 ish weeks older than when I got them all, I knew the other two were still young, I think they could be younger than 6 months but not by much - I wont know for sure and as long as they are happy and heatlhy then I am happy too.

 

[Freela]

There's a really wide range of normal weights. I've had three sows over the years- the biggest is about 1200 g, and the slightly smaller one is about 1150 g. However, one of my previous pigs was very small-boned and never weighed 1000 g- her weight was always somewhere around 980 g.

 

[Wiebke]

It is less important how much they weigh, as there can be such a range of weights due to their birth weight and upbringing, than that they continue to gain weight at a fairly regular rate.

The growth rate will start to slow down between 6-9 months old depending on how close a youngster is to his ideal weight. Most piggies are fully grown by 12-15 months old, so smaller piggies have a good chance to catch up on the quick starters.

 

[Pepperdog]

Thank you

I am rather embarrassed and humbled by being such a novice guinea pig owner despite having had them previously - but then as knowledge and experience of others help and progress the way we keep our pets I know that this time round I will provide them an excellent home, not that the other girls before didnt have a happy life, its just that I now know there is more to keeping them than just giving them their daily food and some veg.

I really am loving having guinea pigs again and I love the way they are blossoming with me, and we are getting to know each other really well. I love my girls x)