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Underweight Guinea Pig

MarissaLynne

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Recently, I got my first scale for my four year old guinea pigs (yay) but as I weighed my them I realized that one of them seems to be at a low weight. My guinea pig Thor weighed in at around 910g but my other guinea pig Loki weighed 830g :(. Do you guys think that I should take them to the vet to make sure nothings wrong? Or should I just monitor their weights and make sure they don’t go down any more? Should I be feeding them more? I feed them the recommended amount of veggies everyday and they have an unlimited amount of hay. I also feed them 1/8 to 1/4 a cup of guinea pig pellets when i have them.
 
Hi! I love your Guinea pig names, absolutely adorable.
An adult boar should weigh around 900-1200 grams, and an adult sow should weigh around 700-900 grams. I would definitely recommend feeding Loki a little bit more and consult your local vet just to be on the safe side. If Loki’s weight does not increase, and instead decreases, I would see a vet as soon as possible. If possible, try weighing Loki every day to make sure his weight is increasing!
 
Hi! I love your Guinea pig names, absolutely adorable.
An adult boar should weigh around 900-1200 grams, and an adult sow should weigh around 700-900 grams. I would definitely recommend feeding Loki a little bit more and consult your local vet just to be on the safe side. If Loki’s weight does not increase, and instead decreases, I would see a vet as soon as possible. If possible, try weighing Loki every day to make sure his weight is increasing!
Thank you so much! I’ll keep an eye on Loki and make sure that his weight stays stable or increases. I usually feed them their veggies separately anyways to prevent any fighting so I’ll try to increase Lokis portions from now on!
 
Hi! I love your Guinea pig names, absolutely adorable.
An adult boar should weigh around 900-1200 grams, and an adult sow should weigh around 700-900 grams. I would definitely recommend feeding Loki a little bit more and consult your local vet just to be on the safe side. If Loki’s weight does not increase, and instead decreases, I would see a vet as soon as possible. If possible, try weighing Loki every day to make sure his weight is increasing!

@PeachesThePig - No, this is incorrect.
A piggy should not weigh between the amounts you quote. The number on the scales is not indicative of what is a healthy body size for an individual piggy, it only tells you that they are eating enough hay to maintain their weight. The only way to know that a piggy has a healthy body size for themselves is to check their heft, not their weight.
A boar can healthily weigh 1500-1600g and still be a perfectly good heft - I have one such boar. Equally being 800g with a good heft is also perfectly healthy.
If the OPs piggy weighed more, he may well become out of proportion and unhealthy for his body type, so causing a piggy to artificially stay within such restrictive supposed weight ranges by overfeeding or underfeeding would be detrimental to long term health and lifespan.

The health section is monitored by those of us with badges in our signature and we ask that new members don’t comment on health threads unless they have specific experience of a particular medical issue

@MarissaLynne

The number on the scales is not a indicator of what is right for the individual piggy.
As long as your piggy does not lose weight (this means they are not eating enough hay) and is a good heft for themselves, then there is nothing to worry about.
The guide below explains further about the importance of weekly weight checks, and gauging their heft.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Please do not overfeed him with veg. This will not increase his weight (if he is a good heft, then he doesn’t need his weight to be increased anyway and certainly not in an unhealthy way) as veg is only supplementary and makes up only 15% of the daily food intake, but instead could mean he eats less hay which will be detrimental to his long term health. Overdoing veg can also cause digestive upsets so should not be done.

If he is actually losing weight (the guide explains what we is meant by weight loss and differentiates between normal daily fluctuation, slower but longer term weight loss and emergency weight loss), then you must immediately step in and syringe feed him to stabilise him and see a vet.

For the daily diet, they need

Unlimited hay (around 80% of the daily food intake)
One cup of veg (around 15% of the daily food intake)
And one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day. (1/8 of a cup is 1.66 tablespoons and 1/4 of a cup converts to 3 tablespoons so is too much per piggy - you should give just a little over 1/8 of a cup between them both). (Around 5% of the daily food intake)

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
 
@PeachesThePig - No, this is incorrect.
A piggy should not weigh between the amounts you quote. The number on the scales is not indicative of what is a healthy body size for an individual piggy, it only tells you that they are eating enough hay to maintain their weight. The only way to know that a piggy has a healthy body size for themselves is to check their heft, not their weight.
A boar can healthily weigh 1500-1600g and still be a perfectly good heft - I have one such boar. Equally being 800g with a good heft is also perfectly healthy.
If the OPs piggy weighed more, he may well become out of proportion and unhealthy for his body type, so causing a piggy to artificially stay within such restrictive supposed weight ranges by overfeeding or underfeeding would be detrimental to long term health and lifespan.

The health section is monitored by those of us with badges in our signature and we ask that new members don’t comment on health threads unless they have specific experience of a particular medical issue

@MarissaLynne

The number on the scales is not a indicator of what is right for the individual piggy.
As long as your piggy does not lose weight (this means they are not eating enough hay) and is a good heft for themselves, then there is nothing to worry about.
The guide below explains further about the importance of weekly weight checks, and gauging their heft.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Please do not overfeed him with veg. This will not increase his weight (if he is a good heft, then he doesn’t need his weight to be increased anyway and certainly not in an unhealthy way) as veg is only supplementary and makes up only 15% of the daily food intake, but instead could mean he eats less hay which will be detrimental to his long term health. Overdoing veg can also cause digestive upsets so should not be done.

If he is actually losing weight (the guide explains what we is meant by weight loss and differentiates between normal daily fluctuation, slower but longer term weight loss and emergency weight loss), then you must immediately step in and syringe feed him to stabilise him and see a vet.

For the daily diet, they need

Unlimited hay (around 80% of the daily food intake)
One cup of veg (around 15% of the daily food intake)
And one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day. (1/8 of a cup is 1.66 tablespoons and 1/4 of a cup converts to 3 tablespoons so is too much per piggy - you should give just a little over 1/8 of a cup between them both). (Around 5% of the daily food intake)

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Excellent response and a nice and clear explanation.
@MarissaLynne , I had a boar called Dennis who on a good day would reach 900g. He was a very small boar but perfectly healthy.
 
Hi! I love your Guinea pig names, absolutely adorable.
An adult boar should weigh around 900-1200 grams, and an adult sow should weigh around 700-900 grams. I would definitely recommend feeding Loki a little bit more and consult your local vet just to be on the safe side. If Loki’s weight does not increase, and instead decreases, I would see a vet as soon as possible. If possible, try weighing Loki every day to make sure his weight is increasing!
I’m not sure where you got these figures from, but they are somewhat misleading as weight alone is not an indicator of health in a piggy. Piggies (like humans) vary tremendously in size and weight. That is why it’s important to fully understand what is an acceptable weight for your pig’s constitution by checking heft and also by regularly weighing and mo ignoring any weight fluctuations. I have a very large 1600g boar who is certainly not overweight but if he were to weigh only 1200g that would be indicative of a serious issue due to his size.
 
I’m not sure where you got these figures from, but they are somewhat misleading as weight alone is not an indicator of health in a piggy. Piggies (like humans) vary tremendously in size and weight. That is why it’s important to fully understand what is an acceptable weight for your pig’s constitution by checking heft and also by regularly weighing and mo ignoring any weight fluctuations. I have a very large 1600g boar who is certainly not overweight but if he were to weigh only 1200g that would be indicative of a serious issue due to his size.

Ah, my bad! I got some of these figures from my vet, so they may have just meant for my guinea pig, lol
 
Ah, my bad! I got some of these figures from my vet, so they may have just meant for my guinea pig, lol
I guess it depends how cavy savvy your vet is, and also whether, as you say, they may have been in relation to your piggies specifically. I have a vague recollection many years ago (pre internet!) of a guinea pig care book (that was the only one I could find at the time) that had those sort of figures quoted, and I remember being concerned that one of mine was overweight. My own vets reassured me that due to her breed type she was a larger than average sow, and within the acceptable limits for her size. I'm glad we have this forum as it does help to share knowledge to help each other out.
 
I guess it depends how cavy savvy your vet is, and also whether, as you say, they may have been in relation to your piggies specifically. I have a vague recollection many years ago (pre internet!) of a guinea pig care book (that was the only one I could find at the time) that had those sort of figures quoted, and I remember being concerned that one of mine was overweight. My own vets reassured me that due to her breed type she was a larger than average sow, and within the acceptable limits for her size. I'm glad we have this forum as it does help to share knowledge to help each other out.
Yeah! The vet was specifically a guinea pig one so I would’ve assumed he was pretty cavy savvy 😅
 
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