How much water?

C

Cadams

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Hi Guinea pig experts!
We’ve had our 4 sows since Wednesday and I think they are doing pretty well considering everything is new for them. We left them alone for the first 2 days and then yesterday put them in their playpen for the first time for a few hours during the day and they were happy running around and exploring ( after hiding in the tunnels for 20 mins). Today they didn’t do much hiding and two of them were happy taking Curly kale from my daughters hand.
My question however is water - they have two bottles in their hutch ( one water and one with the pink tummy friendly stuff pets corner told us to buy), but neither bottle goes down that much during the day? The bottles definitely aren’t blocked and when in the playpen I think they take the water as we can hear it, but when they are in the cage it sounds like they are just gnawing on it. Do any of you know how much they are meant to take ( they get a bit of veg twice a day for the 4 of them, and a small amount of pellets in addition to endless amount of hay which they are destroying!).
Thank you!
 
Brill and :wel:
Regards to water all piggies are different . .
if they know it's there they will drink if want to.
I have 2 piggies and think seen them 3 or 4 times in a year drink and it's clean every other day. my single piggie drinks daily and hardly pees lol.
Be great to see yer piggies.
mine say hello. 20191106_175243.webp
 
Fab thanks - I’ll stop panicking. They are most definitely weeing as I cleaned the hutch last night and by this evening I was doing a spot check but the bedding was soaked to the newspaper. In play pen earlier they also wee’d loads so logic tells me they are getting it from somewhere - it’s just hard to keep track when there’s 4 of them!
I'm waiting for a vets appointment to come through so I can get them all checked out!
Picture from yesterday added below ...
 

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Cadams said:
Hi Guinea pig experts!
We’ve had our 4 sows since Wednesday and I think they are doing pretty well considering everything is new for them. We left them alone for the first 2 days and then yesterday put them in their playpen for the first time for a few hours during the day and they were happy running around and exploring ( after hiding in the tunnels for 20 mins). Today they didn’t do much hiding and two of them were happy taking Curly kale from my daughters hand.
My question however is water - they have two bottles in their hutch ( one water and one with the pink tummy friendly stuff pets corner told us to buy), but neither bottle goes down that much during the day? The bottles definitely aren’t blocked and when in the playpen I think they take the water as we can hear it, but when they are in the cage it sounds like they are just gnawing on it. Do any of you know how much they are meant to take ( they get a bit of veg twice a day for the 4 of them, and a small amount of pellets in addition to endless amount of hay which they are destroying!).
Thank you!
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Hi abd welcome!

Water intake differs a lot and also depends on whether a) your piggies have learned from their elders to drink from a bottle, b) how much veg you feed - if you feed too much, then your piggies won't have the need to drink and c) water intake differs massively from piggy to piggy.

Make sure that you do not overfeed on veg and pellets. Over 80% of the daily food intake should be hay, hay and more hay. Veg should only make about 10% and pellets 5%; they are more in the way of a daily treat and definitely not the mainstay of the diet. The more hay your piggies eat, the healthier they will be for the long term; a hay based diet can extend life expectancy for another year or two to upper limits rather than the lower limits of the average life expectancy of 5-7 years.
Most people are not aware that grass is high in vitamin C (which is why guinea pigs actually never had the need to make their own), and therefore hay contains vitamin C, too. Too much veg can contribute to unbalancing the digestive problem; it also not good for the back teeth, which have evolved against the very abrasive silica in grass/hay fibre to keep them perfectly ground down.

Please take the time to read these guides here; you will find them information and helpful:
All About Drinking And Bottles
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

If you find these links helpful, then you may want to have a look at our New Owners Guide Collection, which specifically addresses all the ares we get the most worries and concerns about and which aims to help you to settle in your piggies and make friends with them in ways that they instinctively understand (piggy whispering) and to learn figuring out what is normal and not for yours:
Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides
 
SkyPipDotBernie said:
Doesn't anyone else's guinea pigs always drink after every pellet they eat? All 4 of mine have done this, my current two do, they wash down the dryness with a drink everytime they eat one
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YES! Mary loves to have a drink a few times during eating pellets. Spike (who recently passed) use to go for a drink every few pellets he ate :))
All my piggies drink a lot! Mary LOVES her water bottle, (so did Spike) I see the 2 little girls drink often too, not as much as Mary but still a few times a day. Those 2 never learnt how to use a bottle so they drink from their bowl :nod:
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Sorry if someone already mentioned this above, but adding things to the water supply can discourage piggies from drinking the water. Adding what I would assume are probiotics(?) to the water isn’t necessary for their health at all; if your piggies need probiotics your vet would tell you and give you some other suggestions :)
 
Robin_ said:
Sorry if someone already mentioned this above, but adding things to the water supply can discourage piggies from drinking the water. Adding what I would assume are probiotics(?) to the water isn’t necessary for their health at all; if your piggies need probiotics your vet would tell you and give you some other suggestions :)
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I sometimes add pro c powder, but I make sure its only one of the 2 bottles, and it was when my sow had just had an op. She didn't desperately need it, but it was there incase. I don't know if it all degraded fast in the water or not, I know vit c does but the probitoic I Havnt the foggiest. I already know my pigs loved it because they wouldn't give the syringe back when I was syringing it
 
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