Overweight Guinea Pig... can I not be concerned?

[Meggymoo777]

Okay... normally I would be concerned but... I have 2 pigs (originally my sons pets but have become my adored girls since the second I brought them home). They are 3.5yrs and unfortunately, one of my girls (initially) lost the use of both her back legs for a time, OOH vets and then regular vets could find nothing wrong. Nothing showed up in X-ray etc. Then she regained full use of her one of the legs but the other now drags behind her. They have no explanation for what happened? This was about 1yr ago.

Have been told to keep her clean and comfy, that she's healthy otherwise and my vet has consulted with some exotic vet colleagues re: amputation if it comes to it. Her concern was sores etc but my girl is doing great. Definitely muscle wastage on that leg but she's a really happy girl from what I can tell.

My question is... she's (at least) 1550g. Waaay over what she should be. She's a total chonk. My other girl is a healthy weight. They both get the same treatment, food and exercise time. She's due a check up again in 2mos so I'll ask the vet about her size. But given that she won't live forever, should I be really worried about her weight?... or should I just make sure she's happy, comfortable, loved and fed and not focus on her weight too much given her disability?

Please please please do not cut down on hay or fresh vegetables. That's what guinea pigs are supposed to eat and won't cause weight problems.

I'm not sure what kibble is. Guinea pig food is generally called nuggets.

They should only get about a tablespoon of nuggets a day. Most of their intake should be hay. If you restrict the hay you'll likely get teeth problems too.

Well the story doesn't finish there ... the pregnant piggy was pregnant again as we took Lolly straight to the vets, but she had ANOTHER litter 🤯 ... we kept one piggy, a girl, and when the second litter arrived we kept another one of these which the vet said was a girl ... he wasn't .. and got both mum and sister pregnant too! So poor first piggy had 3 mutters and second piggy had 1 litter ... 13 between them!!
They all lived (the ones we kept) to a pretty ripe old age considering the in breeding!!

Aww she's lovely and guinea-pigs are 100% little eating machines .

Ours were known as "Lardy " when they got porky .

Looking at her photo its all round her hips , I'd want to rule out any cysts or tumours (mammary or ovarian) which are more common in unbred sows .

And she's a smooth which I found in our pigs tended to be heftier than the more fancy breeds . (We (DD and I) had smooths, an Abby , a longhaired -not Peruvian but long, a Rex and a Teddy )
The Rex boar was 1.4kg when he was neutered , he was massive , like a rabbit !

Pellets , not the muesli type of food -for the Vit C too
Hay , unlimited (not alfalfa though too high in protein unless they're pg/nursing or piglets ) . Should be their own bodyweight every day but they sleep and play in hay too so need loads

Cut right back on "sweet" foods like carrot and parsnips .
Easy on dark greens
Easy on fruits
Grass needs limiting early in the grazing season, they can get bloat , they go wild for fresh grass and cannot say no !

You cannot diet a guinea-pigs they need to eat constantly (apart from when they sleep ) . You could try making her more active with boxes and tunnnels to pootle in, stuff loo roll tubes with hay to keep them working for their food .

We have a clonk here too. 2 normal weight pigs and our clonk. We got our big one at 6 weeks and she grew really fast and has always been heavy for her age, she’s adult now. She is definitely lazier than the others and eats more, she can run and popcorn though. We have decided not to segregate her for feeding as we just think that would be really mean. We do limit nuggets a bit but not to 1 tbsp per pig per day as we tried this for a few days and it resulted in the clonk eating all of it and the others having next to nothing. We also are careful not to give too many veggies and to emphasise hay, but our clonk loves her hay, as well as everything else. We are trying more exercise and putting food all over the cage and pen so they have to forage for it. And several evenings a week all 3 of them are coming into the lounge for a run about (in a cute 3 pig train) which they enjoy. She is a really happy affectionate pig who loves tickles and sleeping on laps. She also has gorgeous thick shiny fur.

Feeding the thinner guinea pigs nuggets on a platform is an option, so the bigger one doesn't have more than fair share. My thinner ones can and do climb up onto a 19cm platform works well in a C and C. Just mean so that can limit to the recommended amount.