Underweight piggy

[Ritika]

Hey guys
As if someone remembers my piggy gave birth to 2 babies last month on 4th. Since then the mama is very thin. I have read the pregnancy post diet thread by wiebke already and gave her all the beneficial food and hay including unlimited amount of pellets for 3 weeks but still she's not putting up any weight. Right now she nearly 500 grams. We even talked to our vet and even he doesn't know what's wrong. She's gaining only 5-5 grams per day and sometimes even loses it. She eats fine she plays around fine her teeth are fine too. Any kind of advice would be helpful

 

[DMS260820]

Just bumping this for you and tagging in members.

@Wiebke
@Abi_nurse
@VickiA

I do know that weight fluctuations can be up to 40g, empty bladder full bladder difference taken into account. So don't be worried about a 5 g drop then a 5g gain. But you need to get some more weight on her obviously . What was her original weight? Do you know

 

[PigglePuggle]

Its good she is eating and fine in herself but 500g is very small... how old is she? If she got pregnant very young she may not yet be an adult weight... you should probably step in with some supplementary syringe feeding of recovery food or mushed up pellets, and some porridge oats and extra high calorie veg (my piggies and my vet recommend grated sweet potato to regain weight lost througj illness) until her weight (and more importantly heft, how chunky she feels) improves. But it seems this is probably related to her pregnancy and nursing her babies which I have no experience of myself, so hopefully some of the members that were tagged in who have this sort of experience can give you more specific advice soon!

 

[DMS260820]

Its good she is eating and fine in herself but 500g is very small... how old is she? If she got pregnant very young she may not yet be an adult weight... you should probably step in with some supplementary syringe feeding of recovery food or mushed up pellets, and some porridge oats and extra high calorie veg (my piggies and my vet recommend grated sweet potato to regain weight lost througj illness) until her weight (and more importantly heft, how chunky she feels) improves. But it seems this is probably related to her pregnancy and nursing her babies which I have no experience of myself, so hopefully some of the members that were tagged in who have this sort of experience can give you more specific advice soon!

Sorry I always forgot people to tag

 

[PigglePuggle]

Sorry I always forgot people to tag

I think you got the right people tagged there because this may be an after effect of pregnancy and nursing the babies, all I can offer is some general weight gain advice here!

 

[DMS260820]

I think you got the right people tagged there because this may be an after effect of pregnancy and nursing the babies, all I can offer is some general weight gain advice here!

Yea, what you said all makes sense. For some reason I imagined the mother had finished with all the nursing and was underweight.

 

[Ritika]

Just bumping this for you and tagging in members.

@Wiebke
@Abi_nurse
@VickiA

I do know that weight fluctuations can be up to 40g, empty bladder full bladder difference taken into account. So don't be worried about a 5 g drop then a 5g gain. But you need to get some more weight on her obviously . What was her original weight? Do you know

She is 7 months old and before pregnancy she was quite small so I could say she was the same weight as she's now

 

[Ritika]

Its good she is eating and fine in herself but 500g is very small... how old is she? If she got pregnant very young she may not yet be an adult weight... you should probably step in with some supplementary syringe feeding of recovery food or mushed up pellets, and some porridge oats and extra high calorie veg (my piggies and my vet recommend grated sweet potato to regain weight lost througj illness) until her weight (and more importantly heft, how chunky she feels) improves. But it seems this is probably related to her pregnancy and nursing her babies which I have no experience of myself, so hopefully some of the members that were tagged in who have this sort of experience can give you more specific advice soon!

I think we can try feeding her sweet potato for gaining weight but yes she's getting the after effects of pregnancy but she's not nursing anymore since 3 weeks so I am confused where am I going wrong btw thank u for the advice will try it asap

 

[PigglePuggle]

Well you can never directly compare different piggies with different backgrounds and body types, but checking my piggy weight diary at 7 months old my smallest piggy Puggle weighed 680g (she now weighs 950g at 2 years old) and my heaviest piggy Piggle weighed 740g (she now weighs 1200g at 2 years old). So your poor piggy mum had her babies well before she was anywhere near an adult weight.
I think slow and steady weight gain is the thing to aim for, in the short term you can and should give recovery food and extra veg and porridge oats and alfalfa hay to replenish the nutrients the babies have taken from her, and weigh daily at the same point in the feeding cycle to make sure there's no rapid weight loss (50g loss over a week or less is usually what might be worrying and need a vet check, this is particularly important in a small piggy) .
But longer term you should be feeding a good balanced hay based diet with small amounts of high quality vit C rich veg, and only limited pellets. Gaining weight and heft and better body condition won't happen straight away, but after maybe 2 weeks or a month you should hopefully start to see an overall increase in her weight, maybe 50g per month until she reaches her adult weight. But I imagine she may always be fairly petite!

 

[Wiebke]

Hey guys
As if someone remembers my piggy gave birth to 2 babies last month on 4th. Since then the mama is very thin. I have read the pregnancy post diet thread by wiebke already and gave her all the beneficial food and hay including unlimited amount of pellets for 3 weeks but still she's not putting up any weight. Right now she nearly 500 grams. We even talked to our vet and even he doesn't know what's wrong. She's gaining only 5-5 grams per day and sometimes even loses it. She eats fine she plays around fine her teeth are fine too. Any kind of advice would be helpful

Hi!

Is your girl still nursing or has she just finished nursing? It can sometimes take a while for the nutrients to filter through after a pregnancy/bringing back babies but then you can suddenly experience a few weeks with a massive weight gain of 50g or more per week (which usually triggers a new thread on the forum along the lines of 'Could my sow be pregnant again?').

Be patient and concentrate on providing a generous diet with the pregnancy extras until your mommy starts her weight gain. As long as she is not losing weight and is OK in herself, she will be fine. My Taffy (who was very overbred and rescued from a massive uncontrolled breeding situation in horrible conditions that ended with a conviction in court) took several months after having her last rescue born babies with a bum end that was basically a finger width of bare spine and nothing but skin at the bum to suddenly fill out very quickly. She lived to 6 years despite all of what she had been through.

 

[Ritika]

Well you can never directly compare different piggies with different backgrounds and body types, but checking my piggy weight diary at 7 months old my smallest piggy Puggle weighed 680g (she now weighs 950g at 2 years old) and my heaviest piggy Piggle weighed 740g (she now weighs 1200g at 2 years old). So your poor piggy mum had her babies well before she was anywhere near an adult weight.
I think slow and steady weight gain is the thing to aim for, in the short term you can and should give recovery food and extra veg and porridge oats and alfalfa hay to replenish the nutrients the babies have taken from her, and weigh daily at the same point in the feeding cycle to make sure there's no rapid weight loss (50g loss over a week or less is usually what might be worrying and need a vet check, this is particularly important in a small piggy) .
But longer term you should be feeding a good balanced hay based diet with small amounts of high quality vit C rich veg, and only limited pellets. Gaining weight and heft and better body condition won't happen straight away, but after maybe 2 weeks or a month you should hopefully start to see an overall increase in her weight, maybe 50g per month until she reaches her adult weight. But I imagine she may always be fairly petite!

Thank u pigglepuggle I ll do whatever u said and I ll update u in a month❤

 

[Ritika]

Hi!

Is your girl still nursing or has she just finished nursing? It can sometimes take a while for the nutrients to filter through after a pregnancy/bringing back babies but then you can suddenly experience a few weeks with a massive weight gain of 50g or more per week (which usually triggers a new thread on the forum along the lines of 'Could my sow be pregnant again?').

Be patient and concentrate on providing a generous diet with the pregnancy extras until your mommy starts her weight gain. As long as she is not losing weight and is OK in herself, she will be fine. My Taffy (who was very overbred and rescued from a massive uncontrolled breeding situation in horrible conditions that ended with a conviction in court) took several months after having her last rescue born babies with a bum end that was basically a finger width of bare spine and nothing but skin at the bum to suddenly fill out very quickly. She lived to 6 years despite all of what she had been through.

Hey wiebke
She just completed her nursing 3 weeks ago and is gaining weight really slowly so now as u said I must be patient and just monitor everything right?