Hi, I have 2 Guinea Pigs and one seems to be heavier and larger than the other even though they are the same age(3 month and 27 days). Could you please tell me what is a normal weight for a GP at 4 months?
Thanks
Hi!
The smallest guinea pig babies born can be three times smaller than the largest; this weight difference carries on through life with the gaps becoming larger as the piggies grow into adults. Any 'average weight' is an entirely arbitrary human definition that at the best includes just about 50% of all piggies and declares all mostly healthy other piggies as 'not normal', which - to put it mildly - is in no way helpful.
As long as your piggies are healthy and active in themselves and are a good weight/size ratio, there is nothing to worry about. Either can live a perfectly normal life span or even beyond, as my own piggies large and small have shown. I have had piggies that just passed 800g at the height of their lives and piggies that were 1500g at the same age live to 8 years (PS: Some of which lived in the same group).
Important for a long life is not that they are 'average' in weight but that they are as healthy as can be.
In order to understand more about weight, how it changes over a lifetime, where to check the BMI (or 'heft' - i.e. whether your piggies are a good weight for their size or over-/underweight) and how to monitor their health throughut their lives, you will find our very comprehensive, interesting and important weight guide helpful:
Weight - Monitoring and Management
Key to boosting long term health and extending the average life span from the lower end to the upper and may be eve beyond is a good balanced grass hay based diet with a modicum of preferably green veg and fresh replacing the role of wild forage and just a tablespoon of pellets as compared to hay, pellets have lot less fibre but much more empty calorific fillers. You have to see diet as a whole and not just concentrate on one or two food groups.
This guide here will hopefully help you:
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Piggies on a good, mainly hay and fresh grass based diet with high sugar/starchy veg like carrots or too much fruit only used as a rare special treat (the way it would be for foraging piggies) don't usually suffer from being obesity or being badly underweight. Especially when they have regular run time and enrichment.
Enrichment Ideas for Guinea Pigs
What you have to say goodbye to is the idea of piggies being 'standard'. However, if your larger piggy is a food bully, it would be good if you switched to sprinkle feeding and to put out only as much veg and pellets as your piggies can eat in one go. Since 80% of what they should eat in a day is hay, this encourages to do so for their long term benefit. Please make sure that larger piggy cannot block access to hay and if necessary, offer it in two different places, the same as water.
The leader of a group will always be a bit heavier - but it is not always the largest. It was the much smaller 1 kg litter sister Nia who successfully ran the Tribe at up to 12 piggies whereas her 1500g sister Nerys concentrated on stuffing herself; Nia died shortly before her 6th birthday and Nerys lived to celebrate her 8th birthday. Just to show you how different even siblings can be!
My current boars are ranging from 4 years old Gareth just pushing towards 900g at his best and huge Pioden, who always felt skinny despite the 1400-1500g he brought onto the scales and who could have easily carried another 200-300g without being overweight; he is a bit less now and even bonier now that he is an old gent of 7 years, but still ticking along nicely.
I hope that this helps you?