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Why Is Benjie Still Gaining Weight?

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biscandmatt

biscandmatt

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i took benjie to the vets a couple of months back now because of his weight gain. vet couldn't feel anything wrong on examination. he said benjie is overweight for his frame, but he's also very muscular and strong and his fat distribution is normal aswell. vet advised reducing the pellets down gradually over time as benjie seemed to eat most of them anyway whereas mollie only wanted a few..

so we reduced from 1/8 cup each per day down to 1/8 cup between the two of them initially. he gained weight.

then we went to 1/16 cup in the morning and 1tbsp at night between the two of them... his weight stabilised and then decreased slightly.

now mollie is not allowed any pellets at all so when she's out having her meds, benjie is given 1tbsp twice per day and he typically eats about 1/2 - 3/4 of this amount. and he's gained weight again recently taking him to his heaviest ever weight.

we got benjie in december last year and the weight he arrived at is basically what the vet thinks he should have stayed fairly stable at - 1020g.

now only six months later he weighs over 1.3kg. this is overweight for his frame and he does look too big.

i don't understand why he keeps gaining. going off the average, he is gaining around 50g per month! so now he's on very limited pellets which will be reduced further again soon (the reduction obviously needs to be done slowly so the body can adjust), he gets approx 1cup of veggies per day which are mainly leafy greens/herbs with small amounts of non-leafy greens. nothing sugary or fattening. he also gets unlimited meadow and timothy hay aswell which he eats alot of. they have a cage which is very large at just under 9x2 c+c for the two of them, and he is the most energetic pig i have had. he moves around constantly and he popcorns alot aswell and sprints round the cage. so exercise wise things seem ok aswell. they don't get floor time very often due to our house being so small, so this is why i have provided the biggest cage i can fit! could this daily floor time be the issue? even with a large cage? other than that he doesn't get any other food except grass when it's dry.

usually when one piggy is going through an illness like mollie is now, the other will gain a bit more weight. i've always found this to be the case. so this recent gain i can sort of understand, but it's still a bit of a concern to me just how much he has gained in the short time we have had him.

in himself, he is bright, he's always very happy and on the move. he's generally a very happy and healthy piggy in all other ways.

does anyone have any ideas? thank you :)
 
Wiebke said:
To be honest, Benjie sounds like a normal healthy adult boar in the prime of life. He is probably eating a little more than he needs, but he is also at the age when his body is hanging onto the weight until becomes elderly. As long as he is not fat, I would really not worry!
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...ng-ideal-weight-overweight-underweight.38805/
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it's strange with him because he looks really big, but he doesn't look flabby if that makes sense. but he does look too big for his frame although he is able to move around quite easily and very quickly at times :)) i did notice recently though that sometimes he lies down to eat and i don't remember him doing that so much in the past.

when he arrived he was 11 months old and weighed 1020g approx. i expected he would gain a bit as he settled etc and to be honest, i over-fed the pellets as he settled. he was obsessed with them though so took a while to wean him to a smaller amount! and they were sugary aswell. i would say when he gained upto around 1150g-1200g max he still looked fairly healthy. since that though he really does look huge! i don't think little mollie next to him helps this! :)):)):))

i weigh him every week for his basic weight record, but i also weigh him at exact regular times per number of weeks per pellet reduction! just so when he needs get a check over with the vet i can show him the amount we reduced by against his weight.

have you ever heard of certain hays causing a gain? because i seem to have a feeling that when we switched to the timothy hay from timothyhay.co.uk, his weight really shot up! but this may be coincidence.

i do over-worry but all i can do is keep a record of everything, reduce to very minimal pellets or no pellets as suggested by the vet, and see where we are at then. i am going to try to increase floor time aswell but to be honest, the space we have for that is smaller than their cage anyway! but a change of scene is always appreciated by them i think.

he also gained weight after he stayed at the vets with mollie because they were in a small space and they allowed more pellets than i would feed so they were settled and to make sure they were eating aswell and mollie was getting some. that was just after i managed to stabilize him and decrease his weight slightly! :roll::))
 
Have a look at the link I have given you, and think about what veg and how much fresh rich grass you are feeding (many piggies often weigh more during the summer months because of that), but to be honest, as long as his heft is fine (see the weight-thread for what that is), at 1300g he is a normal weight for a healthy adult pet boar. My boars are all around that weight, and a couple have been up to 1500g in their prime. He is now at that stage when any growth no longer goes length-wise and only goes side-wise. It is also normal that he is calming down somewhat as he reaches a settled adulthood.
 
Wiebke said:
Have a look at the link I have given you, and think about what veg and how much fresh rich grass you are feeding (many piggies often weigh more during the summer months because of that), but to be honest, as long as his heft is fine (see the weight-thread for what that is), at 1300g he is a normal weight for a healthy adult pet boar. My boars are all around that weight, and a couple have been up to 1500g in their prime. He is now at that stage when any growth no longer goes length-wise and only goes side-wise. It is also normal that he is calming down somewhat as he reaches a settled adulthood.
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will do. and just keep monitoring him as i have been. because mollie is on a very strict diet now it means they have to eat anything but hay separately anyway so i can monitor both of them much more closely food wise at the moment which is good i suppose. :)
 
i meant to say... we moved benjie down to 1 teaspoon twice a day. it seems just the right amount actually. he has them whilst mollie is out having her meds so works out well. sometimes he even leaves a few of them, usually if he's had alot more grass than normal. :))

so i think this is the amount he will stay on now and we'll see what his weight does. i have a feeling he is just chunkier so aslong as we have his diet and exercise right, then whatever his weight is, is probably what he should be.... ie: a fatty bum! :))

i also hope to switch him to vitakraft aswell at some stage but that will depend if he likes them though. although he generally does like any food! :)) and i'm hoping they will eventually be ok for mollie aswell, with her IC.

so that's how we're going for now. might keep this thread as a progress thread to look back on :)
 
He does sound rather large, particularly if he has a compact frame! My Pepper weighs in at 1400g, but he is a large framed pig, so can carry it. He is by far the largest of the household, with the average weight of the other boys, somewhere between 1000 and 1200g. A way to gauge it is whether you can fit a hand between his belly and the floor when he is standing up!

Grass is less calorific than hay, as it has a water content as part of its make up. Maybe try him on more grass, to fill him up?
 
My horse looks at grass and puts weight on. Grass is full of sugar, but it drops at night.
When a horse is over weight, some owners soak the hay for hours, or a minimum of just dunking it to remove dust.
I'm not sure you can feed guinea pigs soaked hay though, or whether the same issue applies to them at all regarding grass, but does it?
 
MintyAndGarry (TEAS) said:
He does sound rather large, particularly if he has a compact frame! My Pepper weighs in at 1400g, but he is a large framed pig, so can carry it. He is by far the largest of the household, with the average weight of the other boys, somewhere between 1000 and 1200g. A way to gauge it is whether you can fit a hand between his belly and the floor when he is standing up!

Grass is less calorific than hay, as it has a water content as part of its make up. Maybe try him on more grass, to fill him up?
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he's not short as such, but he's not exactly long either... he's the most 'solid' piggy i've had though. he seems very muscular and strong.

i'll try the hand thing :)) there is definitely a gap between his tummy and the floor but i'll see if my hand fits! :tu:

they've started having more grass now it's dry and they're enjoying that :luv:

i think he is very prone to weight gain on pellets so 1tsp 2x day seems a good amount for him and over the coming weeks and months, it will be interesting to see what his weight does :)
 
BonBon2010 said:
My horse looks at grass and puts weight on. Grass is full of sugar, but it drops at night.
When a horse is over weight, some owners soak the hay for hours, or a minimum of just dunking it to remove dust.
I'm not sure you can feed guinea pigs soaked hay though, or whether the same issue applies to them at all regarding grass, but does it?
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not sure about the grass but sometimes it's recommended to feed misted or soaked hay to rabbits and guinea pigs with respiratory problems. i had to do it for a while with one of my rabbits called matt. it was ok for him but made our other rabbit bisc sneeze even more so it must work for some and not others. i know it has to be given little and often when it's wet aswell so i was constantly changing it through the day :)
 
babydoll said:
yep he loves his grub
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benjie loves his food aswell. i think he would eat and eat and eat given half a chance. thankfully he is as into hay as all the other foods so that is all they have in the cage between veg times! except sometimes grass aswell :)

he has his 1tsp of pellets twice a day when mollie comes out for her meds :)
 
biscandmatt said:
benjie loves his food aswell. i think he would eat and eat and eat given half a chance. thankfully he is as into hay as all the other foods so that is all they have in the cage between veg times! except sometimes grass aswell :)

he has his 1tsp of pellets twice a day when mollie comes out for her meds :)
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Harley is long as well so it portions out
 
That doesn't sound alarmingly big for an adult male. I had two rather large lads who were 1.4kg and 1.3kg but they were perfectly fit and healthy, and very muscular.

Do you have any photos of him? :)
 
i don't have many pictures of benjie yet actually! not that show his fuller figure anyway :))

ae623a54-ea0b-4829-baa1-9fd0b194daef_zpsrlxf6yys.jpg


75b04a5e-09ff-40c3-877c-e73b0fce5f64_zps2iwedbuj.jpg


apologies for the quality. he rarely stays still enough to take a pic! but i'll try and get some more of him soon :)
 
i think benjie has slimmed down slightly since going to 1tsp twice per day. sunday is weigh day so i'll post what he weighs. lets see how what i see relates to the scales! it doesn't always seem to match as we all know.... but my guess is that he has gone down slightly. watch this space.... :))
 
benjie is 25g less this week so hopefully we have stabilized his weight now with this amount of pellets.

we'll keep him on 1tsp 2x a day for now and see how he goes each week. he's also having a vitakraft pellet now aswell morning and night which i hope to move him onto completely at some stage :)

of course, he may have just had a wee which made him a bit lighter but we'll see at the next weigh-in! :))
 
he's his heaviest ever weight today! - 1340g.... i don't understand why. it doesn't seem to be the pellets because he's on hardly any now and he's still massive!

he goes down to half a teaspoon of oxbow 2x a day now, with one vitakraft pellet twice a day aswell. he loves the vitakraft pellets so i hope to stop the oxbow completely in about four weeks (we are doing the reduction very slowly, each change for about four weeks just so his body can adjust properly) - so after this he will probably be on two vitakraft pellets per day initially and then we'll see where we are at.

he's still on approx one cup veggies each day, and loads of hay, both meadow and timothy, although he eats alot more timothy. maybe it's the hay? i don't know. he still has grass but usually only a small plate full between them when it's a dry day.

he is still moving around normally, he's happy in himself aswell. the new run should be here anytime from the end of next week so hopefully some extra exercise will help.

my worry is that he has something going on health wise, but wouldn't he be showing other signs? could this be fluid he is retaining? he struggles with the heat but this could be because he's big. or could it be something else health wise? it's tough because i worry but at the same time, it doesn't seem right putting him through tests when he's perfectly happy in himself.

i guess i'll just keep monitoring him and update the vet when i next speak to him or see him, and see what he thinks.
 
this is the best pic i could get before he moved again! apologises for the quality as usual! as you can see, he looks too big on his lower body.

83d237a7-19b2-406a-a2c2-f41d2ed8c093_zpszvqfw5uj.jpg
 
little update - benjie had a check-up today. even with the pellet reduction benjie's weight has been going up, although it's slowed down alot now - what he was gaining per month, he has now gained in four months. so alot more slowly. vet said the same - he's a bigger piggy, feels strong, a little flabby but not as much as you'd think if you looked at him! said he seems healthy and that he most probably is meant to be a bigger piggy, especially seen as he has a healthy diet.

so that's all good :)
 
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