Weight question

[ThomasThePiggyDad]

Good morning everyone! (at least here in Canada )

I've heard that as long as your piggy is gaining before they reach one year old, it's seen as good. I'm concerned our boars are gaining too quickly, however. They were both born in May and (as of this morning) Biscuit weighs in at 535g and Teacake at 543g. We weigh them every week and at the moment they're gaining around 40-50g a week. Is this still considered healthy or are we overfeeding? Neither of them have the look of an overweight piggy in that we can clearly see all four paws (as per this Guinea pig Size-O-Meter).

We don't feed them anything they shouldn't have and they have pellets and hay available in the pen at all times and we feed them veggies on top of that. The only sweet things they appear interested in are sweetcorn and grapes. They do not receive these on a regular basis (grapes maybe one grape each every two weeks, sweetcorn, one cob to share on average 3 times a month). They mostly eat bell pepper (red and yellow), cucumber, spinach and kale. We also stay away from the sugar-loaded treats from pet stores.

I'm finding it hard to locate a source on how much our boys should be weighing at this point in their lives so any insight would be helpful!

Thanks in advance

 

[Piggies&buns]

There is no set weight for each age. However they should never have pellets available at all times. The only food they should have constantly is hay. Pellets are the least healthy and least important part of their diet and should be kept strictly limited to one tablespoon per pig per day. Overfeeding pellets can lead to unhealthy weight gain but also excess calcium (along with unfiltered drinking water) which can contribute to bladder stones. Spinach and kale are also high calcium and should only be fed once a week and only in small amounts. Pellets and unfiltered drinking water contribute more calcium than the highest calcium veg.

Hay makes up 80% of their food intake, constantly available.
Veg is 15%, around 50g per day.
Pellets 5%, one tablespoon per day. Veg and pellets are merely snacks. Hay is their main food source

Daily my piggies get coriander, lettuce, cucumber and peppers. Anything else is added in on rotation ensuring high calcium veg (kale, spinach, parsley) are kept limited and sugary items such as fruit, carrots and acidic items like tomatoes are rarely fed.

The weight guide below explains heft - it’s basically piggy BMI - it is the best way to gauge what is healthy for the individual piggy. Ultimate adult weight varies so greatly so can’t be relied upon for as a gauge for their body condition and this is where heft is useful.

I’ll add in some guides below

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Edible And Forbidden Veg And Fruit List With Vitamin C Grading
Weight - Monitoring and Management

 

[ThomasThePiggyDad]

Thanks so much!

We didn't realise the pellet thing. We'll be providing the pellets in the morning and taking them away after they've eaten in that case! Thanks for your advice on the veggies too. We'll definitely make sure to limit their kale and spinach now that we know. Luckily our piggies don't seem to have that much of a sweet tooth when they have been offered fruit and carrots occasionally so we never offer them now. The only fruit we offer is the grapes we mentioned and we were going to try them on some watermelon too.

Thanks for the guides