Piggiewinkles
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi,
I've just weighed my 2 year old boar Ernie and he's lost 36g in 6 days. Is this normal? There are no signs of ill health whatsoever and he's eating and drinking. I've changed his diet considerably as I used to feed him gerty guinea pig and too much carrot every day, with some other veg now and again. After reading through a lot of threads on here and through advice from my vet, she said try and change gerty guinea pig for pellets, as there was a lot of waste due to him only eating the nice things he liked. She also said carrot was quite fattening. So for the first few days I mixed half gerty gp and half pellets, and although he wasn't impressed at first he is eating the pellets now. I have changed his veg to a more varied choice, giving him his 50g a day of a variety of things (using the calcium/phosporous ratio guidelines). I didn't have scales before but after weighing things out I reckon he was probably having 50g of carrot a day! I noe realise this was wrong, hence the changes I have made in his food. He now gets 25g veg in the morning, 25g of veg early evening, then an eggcupful of pellets before bed, and of course unlimited supply of hay and fresh water daily.
Is the weight loss down to his better diet? And if so is this an acceptable amount to have lost? Or should I be worried? Ernie weighed 1311g six days ago, today he weighs 1275g. Thanks.
I've just weighed my 2 year old boar Ernie and he's lost 36g in 6 days. Is this normal? There are no signs of ill health whatsoever and he's eating and drinking. I've changed his diet considerably as I used to feed him gerty guinea pig and too much carrot every day, with some other veg now and again. After reading through a lot of threads on here and through advice from my vet, she said try and change gerty guinea pig for pellets, as there was a lot of waste due to him only eating the nice things he liked. She also said carrot was quite fattening. So for the first few days I mixed half gerty gp and half pellets, and although he wasn't impressed at first he is eating the pellets now. I have changed his veg to a more varied choice, giving him his 50g a day of a variety of things (using the calcium/phosporous ratio guidelines). I didn't have scales before but after weighing things out I reckon he was probably having 50g of carrot a day! I noe realise this was wrong, hence the changes I have made in his food. He now gets 25g veg in the morning, 25g of veg early evening, then an eggcupful of pellets before bed, and of course unlimited supply of hay and fresh water daily.
Is the weight loss down to his better diet? And if so is this an acceptable amount to have lost? Or should I be worried? Ernie weighed 1311g six days ago, today he weighs 1275g. Thanks.
