Is my guinea pig too small? I feel the answer will be that she isn’t and that’s just the way she will be but wanted to know if anyone else has had really small adult pigs. She is coming up for a year old and weighs just 750 grams. She’s fluctuated around this mark since July.
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Weight
- Thread starter LaurenS
- Start date
Hi!
The size is genetically determined; there are piggies that will always stay very small and that will stop growing early.
The crucial point is not overall weight but that your piggy is well and healthy in itself. Feeding up with fatty/sugary food is not the solution; a good quality hay based diet with a careful mix of healthy veg (very little fruit or junk veg like carrot or sweet corn) is much better, as this means that you are concentrating on long term health and on giving your piggies as long as life as possible.
Like with humans the average weight catches about 50%, a wider weight band about 80% but there are always those that are outside - and they can often live a perfectly healthy long life, just as average piggies.
Please take the time to read our weight guide. It tells you in detail how you can judge the 'heft', i.e. check whether your piggy is a healthy weight for its size or not. Weight - Monitoring and Management
This guide is part of our very helpful information collection on a wide range of topics we get the most questions about. Weighing once weekly and giving a piggy a body check-over at the same time are important tools in life long health monitoring. What you are looking for are not absolute weights but weight changes.
PS: I have adopted several piggies that have just about creeped into the 800g in their best times. A couple of them have lived to celebrate their 8th birthday, so you still have everything to play for. But for however long or short I have a piggy, I cherish knowing that I have given them many happy days. In terms of piggy expectations they have what they are looking for in life. always put quality before quantity, and you cannot go wrong.
PigglePuggle
Senior Guinea Pig
Its always worth a vet check to set your mind at rest that she doesn't have any underlying dental or gut issues, but our little Puggle hovered around 750/800g until she was over a year old, and approaching 2 years old she still hovers around the 900g mark while her cousin and friends the same age are all in the 1100 to 1200g range!
Our skinny pig is 10 months old and is about 850g. Some piggies are just small, like in the excellent guide that @Wiebke has posted, check her heft as well as weight
Our skinny pig is 10 months old and is about 850g. Some piggies are just small, like in the excellent guide that @Wiebke has posted, check her heft as well as weight
I thought she might have had a gut issue as her poo’s are not normal a lot of the time but the vet checked her over and said she seems fine. I do weigh every week and she isn’t losing weight which is good. She’s probably just gonna be a naturally tiny pigIts always worth a vet check to set your mind at rest that she doesn't have any underlying dental or gut issues, but our little Puggle hovered around 750/800g until she was over a year old, and approaching 2 years old she still hovers around the 900g mark while her cousin and friends the same age are all in the 1100 to 1200g range!
Our skinny pig is 10 months old and is about 850g. Some piggies are just small, like in the excellent guide that @Wiebke has posted, check her heft as well as weight
