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Help! Pregnant Guinea pig not drinking water

J

Jaredtkk

New Born Pup
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Hi guys, I bought 2 Guinea pigs from the pet store a couple months ago and they were supposed to be males but one turned out to be female. We did not know she was a girl up until 3 days ago. We thought she was bloated so we were giving her gripe water and I didn’t give her veggies for a day and a half. Well I checked her privates and found out so we figured she must be pregnant. We took her to the vet for an X-ray and it turns out she is pregnant with 3 babies and she is now 44 days along. I feel terrible about not giving her veggies for that small amount of time and I’m so worried that it could have effected her. Does anyone here know if that will cause any concerns in her pregnancy? I also noticed that she hasn’t been drinking water at all but I have been giving her a little bit of extra veggies since she’s pregnant. I’m very worried about her not drinking water but she is eating everything else just fine. I’m hoping that she’s getting enough veggies from the water at least. Is there any one here that could help me or tell me if they think anything could be wrong? When we took her to the vet they said she looked healthy but I’m still very concerned. I really hope I didn’t hurt her by not giving her veggies for a day and a half. Any replies will help! Thank you so much!
 
Jaredtkk said:
Hi guys, I bought 2 Guinea pigs from the pet store a couple months ago and they were supposed to be males but one turned out to be female. We did not know she was a girl up until 3 days ago. We thought she was bloated so we were giving her gripe water and I didn’t give her veggies for a day and a half. Well I checked her privates and found out so we figured she must be pregnant. We took her to the vet for an X-ray and it turns out she is pregnant with 3 babies and she is now 44 days along. I feel terrible about not giving her veggies for that small amount of time and I’m so worried that it could have effected her. Does anyone here know if that will cause any concerns in her pregnancy? I also noticed that she hasn’t been drinking water at all but I have been giving her a little bit of extra veggies since she’s pregnant. I’m very worried about her not drinking water but she is eating everything else just fine. I’m hoping that she’s getting enough veggies from the water at least. Is there any one here that could help me or tell me if they think anything could be wrong? When we took her to the vet they said she looked healthy but I’m still very concerned. I really hope I didn’t hurt her by not giving her veggies for a day and a half. Any replies will help! Thank you so much!
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Hi and welcome
The need to drink comes before the need to eat so as long as your girl is eating, she will also drink as much as she needs, which can vary enormously from piggy to piggy. Please be aware that the more water you give in terms of veg, the less water she will drink. The time off fresh food won't have damaged your babies.

More information on drinking and on a balanced hay based diet:
All About Drinking And Bottles

A good general diet with unlimited grass hay and preferably green veg and especially limited pellets once she is showing/getting large is the best pregnancy preparation - you are aiming for an ideal birth weight not large babies with a small mother.
We haven't seen any difference in births of surprise babies and known pregnancies, to be honest. The actual extra needs are very small and to a very good extent already covered by a good diet. The real difference comes with pregnancies from sows from a neglect/malnutrition background, who really need all the help they can get.
Please take the time to read our diet advice:
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Here is the access link to our comprehensive step-by-step pregnancy, birth and mother/baby care information, which we have specifically written for owners without experience. You will hopefully find it very helpful as 15 years experience with new owner pregnancies and all the little practical issues they come up against have gone into the information collection. You may want to bookmark the link as it is going to accompany you for several weeks and you may want to refer back as you go along: Pregnancy, Mother & Baby Care Guides
Please be aware that your girl may be further along than you think if she has been together with your boy during transport to the shop and during her time in the shop. An average first pregnancy is around 70 days but like natural human birth you can never predict it exactly.

How are you keeping your boy right now? Please make sure that you separate now in case you have got the birth date wrong; it has happened before. Sows come into season again within hours of giving birth.

We have also very helpful practical general how-to collections which you may find both interesting and useful on a wide range of topics; again they are useful for bookmarking:
Getting Started - Essential Information for New Owners
Comprehensive Owners' Practical and Supportive Information Collection
Please keep any further questions, concerns and updates to this your dedicated specially monitored ongoing support thread in the pregnancy section.
Unlike social media we can provide personalised longer term support and do not rely on starting lots of new posts. The designated monitors are the ones with the badge in the signature, whose experience and knowledge we trust. Apart from me, they are experienced rescue fosterers.

What helps both us and you is to keep all the information together so we can refer back and refresh our memory over the space of several weeks. You can either bookmark this thread, find it by looking through the pregnancy section or pick it up via the Find Thread/your threads button when you enlarge the top bar via the three horizontal bars icon when you come onto the forum.

Thank you.
 
Thank you so much for your response! This makes me feel so much better! And I separated the male so she is all alone now
 
Jaredtkk said:
Thank you so much for your response! This makes me feel so much better! And I separated the male so she is all alone now
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Good. We always need to check with any new member with pair.

Please take the time to read our information links in my previous post, which you will find really helpful. We are here to answer any remaining or new questions you may have along the way. It is a bit of a steep learning curve for you but it pays knowing what you can expect, can do and need to look out for at every stage until the babies are old enough for sexing and separation. Our pregnancy collection also includes practical tips for your dad during this time as well as for the long term.
 
Wiebke said:
Good. We always need to check with any new member with pair.

Please take the time to read our information links in my previous post, which you will find really helpful. We are here to answer any remaining or new questions you may have along the way. It is a bit of a steep learning curve for you but it pays knowing what you can expect, can do and need to look out for at every stage until the babies are old enough for sexing and separation. Our pregnancy collection also includes practical tips for your dad during this time as well as for the long term.
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Thank you so much for all of your help! I’ve been reading the links and I am going to continue doing so for the remainder of the night. I really want my piggy and her babies to be healthy and it’s very nice to know that there is an amazing community like this that’s full of people willing to help
 
Jaredtkk said:
Thank you so much for all of your help! I’ve been reading the links and I am going to continue doing so for the remainder of the night. I really want my piggy and her babies to be healthy and it’s very nice to know that there is an amazing community like this that’s full of people willing to help
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Thank you! It is our forum ethos to be a friendly and supportive place; we also have a lovely community just for chatting if you are interested. We have a number of US members and others from literally all over the world.

Read them through and then re-read as you go along through the various stages or if you are not sure whether you remember properly. It is always a it confusing at first but it becomes clearer when you are actually going through the relevant part.
 
Wiebke said:
Thank you! It is our forum ethos to be a friendly and supportive place; we also have a lovely community just for chatting if you are interested. We have a number of US members and others from literally all over the world.

Read them through and then re-read as you go along through the various stages or if you are not sure whether you remember properly. It is always a it confusing at first but it becomes clearer when you are actually going through the relevant part.
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So I was definitely over feeding the veggies. Everywhere I read said to give extra veggies so that’s what I was doing. I wish I would have came here first. My piggy now has really soft poops and some are a bit Mis shaped so now I’m really concerned
 
Jaredtkk said:
So I was definitely over feeding the veggies. Everywhere I read said to give extra veggies so that’s what I was doing. I wish I would have came here first. My piggy now has really soft poops and some are a bit Mis shaped so now I’m really concerned
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But you HAVE found us! :tu:

Just stop the veg for a day or two until the poos have normalised and the overwhelmed gut microbiome has settled down again. With that much fluid in her system, your girl (and the babies) won't come to any harm and will not dehydrate that quickly even if she is not drinking - which she will when she feels the need. ;)

I have made the experience early on that what little mostly very vaguely phrased information was around at the time was worse than nothing because many owners faced with an unplanned pregnancy are feeling rather anxious and tend to overreact and add a bit more to any advice in order to the 'extra good' - often with the opposite result.
That is the reason why I have made our guides as precise as I possible in the how-to department and why I have concentrated on what you can practically to, leaving out any mostly confusing breeding advice; especially the bits that have not borne out in our own experience on here.

So please do not feel bad; you wouldn't have fallen into that little trap if you weren't a very caring owner in the first
place. You can only ever do the best with the information you have at the time - and sadly, while there is a lot of information out there, it is impossible for a newbie to judge its quality. What lacks on in the internet and social media is a quality control filter when it comes to information provided.
Just do right but please don't fall into the trap of being overzealous; there is some leeway to both sides. It is a widespread misapprehension that vegetables are the mainstay of a rabbit or guinea pig diet when it is in fact grass hay. There is no lasting harm done in such a short time. ;)
 
I took her off the fresh veg yesterday and her poops are much much better. They’re back to normal shape but they’re still a tiny tiny bit soft. I’m debating on if I should start giving her veggies again today or if I should just hold off one more day
 
Jaredtkk said:
I took her off the fresh veg yesterday and her poops are much much better. They’re back to normal shape but they’re still a tiny tiny bit soft. I’m debating on if I should start giving her veggies again today or if I should just hold off one more day
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Please hold for one more day and re-introduce slowly; ideally starting with a little fresh herb (great for trace elements that are not pellets) tonight - if you have some - and then adding one more fresh green with every passing meal over the course of tomorrow in order to not overtax the gut microbiome at first.

If that works well, you can go on to feeding a normal amount of fresh veg for good from the day after tomorrow and will hopefully not have any soft poo issues again.
 
She has now lost 14 grams since the last time I weighed her. Is that because she hasn’t had veggies? I feel like she should be gaining a lot of weight since she’s pregnant
 
Hay forms the largest part of their diet so weight loss is down to not eating enough of it. What is the time frame that she has lost the 14g in? In the grand scheme of things, that loss is not big. However, if there is a downward daily trend then that can be worrying.

Perhaps switch to weighing once daily. If she is losing daily then you will have to step in and syringe feed her.

I am sure the more experienced will also give you more comprehensive advise once they’ve seen your post.
 
She lost 14 g since the last time we took her to the vet about 4 days ago. She seems to be eating a lot of hay tho. Should I maybe give her some extra alfalfa hay?
 
I’m not sure on alfalfa so would go by the guides and what Wiebke said above. You can’t measure hay intake by eye hence the weighing. There is no harm in weighing her daily for now. But 14g in 4 days is not major, if that makes sense.
 
Yes that makes sense thank you. I did forget to mention that the scale they used at the vet is different from ours so possibly that’s why. But it’s still concerning cause I feel like she should consistently be gaining weight
 
I weighed her again this morning and she weighs the same as yesterday. I still find this very concerning. Shouldn’t she be gaining weight since she’s pregnant especially cause she’s about 7 weeks? It’s been 5 days and she hasn’t gained any weight. I’m worried that the babies aren’t growing
 
I believe they don’t get much weight gain until the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy.
 
She has gained about 20 g today. I just over worry about her cause if anything goes wrong I would feel responsible. Thank you everyone for all your help
 
Hi and welcome

Yes, it is safe to give a pregnant sow bene bac.

May we ask how you come to have a pregnant sow?
 
hi guys just wanted to let you know she finally had her babies. 3 healthy beautiful babies this morning and she’s such a good momma. I will send pictures if I can figure out how lol
 
I think they look like texels but I’m not the most knowledgeable lol. I would love your opinions
 
So cute! It can be hard to determine breed/fur type that soon, as the hair length isn't apparent for the first little while. Longer hair takes awhile to grow in. They do look like like they have curly texture, though!
 
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