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First vet visit - didn't go so well - any advice?

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mamapie

I got my piggies from Animal Lifeline, 2 girls who we called Natasha and Sparky. I've had them for 3 weeks now so thought it would be good to take them to the vet for a check up, just to make sure everything was ok.

Natasha weighed 9300g - a good normal piggy weight. Sparky weighs 6200g. They're the same age, sisters in fact. We've watched them and Natasha is most definitely the more dominant one, we've even seen her take food off Sparky. We thought this was normal, not realising how underweight Sparky is. But the Vet, and I, both agree that it probably goes on more then we realised and that Natasha hasn't been letting Sparky eat her fair share. Sparky's teeth are all normal and nothing else seems to be wrong, also lending weight to the idea that Natasha is basically bullying Sparky.

We have a C&C cage with an upstairs. Only Sparky likes going up there, Natasha hates it, so we're going to put food up there just for Sparky, also take her out before Natasha for floor time and let her get at the food first and hope this gets her weight up. We'll go back in 2 weeks to see it it's helping.

Has anyone else had a similar situation? What did you do?

I'm so worried about Sparky. :'(
 
How old are they? I think you mean their weights are 930g and 620g too not what you said otherwise they're massive piggies? ;)

Maybe you could try hand feeding Sparky when she comes out for laptime?
 
Er...yeah that's what I meant! :D

They are 9 months old. Neither piggy seems to be comfortable with taking food from us yet.
 
We had a similar situation with bumble hamish and rimmer, it seemed that bumble and rimmer was bullying hamish and not having her food, and bumble used to be smaller than hamish, now hamish is smaller, we took hamish away for about 4weeks, but we but them in the run together in the day time.

So she slept in a separate hutch ate her own food, but had a lovely play in the day time.

This helped alot, now they all have there own fair share.

You could always try having then separate for 2 - 3weeks and play in the daytime

Might help :)
 
When I got an 18month old rescue sow and put her in with my 6 month old boar I too thought she was bullying him. I have since realised that he is now a proper little fatty and he pinches off her!

One pig can't be in 2 places at once so I have 2 bowls in separate places, 2 bottle and two lots of hay. At least if one gets there nose pushed out there is somewhere else to go.

Hope your little one gains weight.
 
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