Weight loss advice

[CaviaEkko]

My male guinea pig is only 8 months old and has been very sick. Unfortunately, I’ve been told he may not have much longer, and I’m really worried because his weight keeps dropping.

In July he weighed 929g, then went down to 858g, 848g, and today he is only 836g. I’m wondering if there’s anything safe I can feed him to help him gain some weight and keep his strength up.

Should I just stick with his normal pellets, vegetables and unlimited hay, or is there anything else I can safely give him to help him gain weight? I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear this

Given he has a terminal diagnosis/depending on what is wrong with him it may not be possible for him to gain weight but rather you could be looking at stopping or at least slowing his weight loss as much as his illness will allow.
You do that by giving a fibre rich recovery feed such as oxbow critical care or emeraid.
Do you have access to such a fibre rich recovery feed?

I’ve added some guides below

Weight and Weight Loss Explained: BMI, Weighing, Poos and Feeding Support Levels
How to Improvise Feeding Support in an Emergency
Probiotics & Live Gut Microbiome Transfer ('Poo Soup'); Recovery Formula Foods And Vitamin C: Overview With Product Links and Transfer Recipe
A Practical and Sensitive Guide to Dying, Terminal Illness and Euthanasia in Guinea Pigs

 

[Merab]

So sorry to hear this news.
Holding you in my heart

 

[ThePiggyWhisperer]

My male guinea pig is only 8 months old and has been very sick. Unfortunately, I’ve been told he may not have much longer, and I’m really worried because his weight keeps dropping.

In July he weighed 929g, then went down to 858g, 848g, and today he is only 836g. I’m wondering if there’s anything safe I can feed him to help him gain some weight and keep his strength up.

Should I just stick with his normal pellets, vegetables and unlimited hay, or is there anything else I can safely give him to help him gain weight? I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences.

Hi, sorry to hear about this, poor little chap. You need to get some Emeraid Sustain for herbivores as a matter of urgency, its expensive (between £17 online, more like £27 in shops for 400g, but you can get 100g to start with) but a piggy's life is worth a lot more than that. Get yourself some 1ml syringes, snip the thin end off with scissors and enlarge the hole with a drill or knife, not so much that the plunger comes out, but big enough that the Emeraid will flow freely though it. 1ml syringes are much easier to get in a piggy's mouth and much less traumatic for the piggy than the big 10ml syringes one tends to get from vets. Mix up a batch of Emeraid, make it slightly more watery than the standard 1:1 recommended, and feed it to your piggy as often as he will have it. If he is anything like all the piggies I have had he will love it, and want to take it from you. Make sure he has all the other usual foods on hand too, especially unlimited hay. Good luck, I hope he survives, piggy's lives are so precious, and so fragile. Emeraid has saved the lives of mine many times.