New guinea pig - weight loss

[GuineaDan]

Hi, on Wednesday we adopted a new guinea pig as a companion for our old one. His name is Yoshi and he's a 13 week old boar. My older guinea pig, Luigi, seems to be very accepting of him so far and I haven't noticed much dominance behaviours or bullying from them. Yoshi is very timid and hides a lot - I've covered their cage with a blanket. This in itself doesn't really concern me because Luigi was like that when we first got him, but he has suffered weight loss since we got him.
On Wednesday he was roughly 727g, 722 on Thursday, but today he's dropped to 683g, which is a pretty significant drop.
My first thought is that being in a new environment is stressful and he may not be eating due to this? He also seems "frozen"/limp a lot of the time - he can still move perfectly fine, so I'd guess this was a fear response, but with the weight loss I'm not too sure? I haven't seen him eat much.
I was wondering what the general advice would be regarding taking him to the vet and syringe feeding him. I don't want to make him even more stressed/scared then he already is, since that seems like it might cause a further negative reaction? But at the same time I don't want to wait if that will endanger him further. He hasn't had a vet check up yet, I was waiting until he was a bit more settled.

 

[Piggies&buns]

That’s a 44g drop which is starting to become quite an amount - 50g is when we talk of weight loss and become concerned.
I would weigh him again tomorrow and see what that tells you.
It could obviously be either thing - stress of being in a new environment and bonding or an illness.
I would, at this point, offer a top up of mushed pellets in a bowl or off a spoon rather than syringe feed him and see how that goes. If he isn’t yet settled in he may not be willing to eat from your hand as it were (ie the spoon) but it may be less stressful than actual syringe feeding.
If he loses more weight then yes I absolutely would offer actual syringe feeds.
Of course, book a vet appointment.

The fact you mention he is limp is concerning if that is actually what you mean - of course your description may be misinterpreted by us, the downside of a written word! If he is actually appearing limp then that is an emergency vet visit right now

 

[Bill & Ted]

Can you place some veggies and hay in where he hides, perhaps he is a little scared to come out at the moment? If he is limp then a vet check is the best option

Good luck

 

[GuineaDan]

Thank you very much for your advice. I'll see if I can mush up some of his pellets and put them in his hidey, maybe I can mix in a couple of my other piggies nuggets to entice him (we are slowly trying to adapt him to the other piggie's nuggets of course). I'll see about picking some fresh grass as well.
We'll book an appointment for Monday hopefully, though I do agree he may need to go into an emergency appointment before then.

And the "limp" aspect is what I'm not really sure about either. He's perfectly capable of moving and zooming away, he just seems to be limp if I go to pick him up, which seems like "playing dead so the predator loses interest"? I'm used to piggies zooming away when I'm picking them up, so for him to just stay there seems odd, but I don't think it's actually being limp? It's hard to describe.

I have placed hay and veggies in his hidey before. He wasn't too interested in the bell pepper, but he did eat some of the leafy green. I'll try to offer him some more veg throughout the day as well.

And I did forget to mention, but I have been giving them nuggets and veg separately, since Luigi has tried to steal Yoshi's after finishing his own.

 

[Bill & Ted]

He may well be “playing dead” especially if he has had a bad experience previously

 

[Piggies&buns]

The limpness may well be a fear response. If I remember rightly, we have heard from another member on the forum whose piggy was so scared she would do the same thing.

I personally would not get into the habit of feeding them separately, I would instead put them where he can get to them ie in his hide so he can eat them without Luigi being in there. I’m assuming Yoshi will not yet eat from your hand, but when he will It is better to make veg feeding a bonding experience between you and him rather than separating them. They need to learn to share (this is where scatter feeding can come in very useful)

Make sure you don’t overdo the fresh grass if he isn’t used to it - rich spring grass on an unprepared tummy can cause problems.

 

[GuineaDan]

Yes, I am thinking it's a fear response. Just one I haven't experienced before haha.

And alright, I'll keep that in mind. I've always fed veg separately with Mario and Luigi - otherwise Luigi would never get any haha. I'll also have to look into alternative veg for Vitamin C, since Yoshi doesn't appear to be keen on bell peppers (of course this may also be due to fear - I'll try to give him the veg and then leave my room to give him a chance to eat it.

And no worries on the grass either, whenever I'm getting them used to it again I give them a couple of strands every few hours.

Though there is a positive update - he gained weight today! He weighs about 707g right now. Which makes me wonder if the weight loss was an extreme fluctuation perhaps? Either way, I'll keep an eye on his weight and book him in for a check up soon.

 

[Free Ranger]

My girl used to play dead but she wasn't very good at it. She kept turning her head to look at me and see if I was still looking at her - then playing dead again
She also used to enjoy being stroked under her chin while she was playing dead which kind of gave the game away! Now she knows I won't eat her she's stopped doing it which in a way is nice, but in another way makes nail clipping much trickier

This girl was added to a boar/sow pair and is bottom sow. We always knew this would be the outcome as my other girl is a pushy ninja. But actually the bonding process lasted almost a month because Louise just wouldn't come out of hiding. Flora never did any more than a nose bump or grunt - if Louise had just emerged and looked suitably submissive I think we'd have been sorted but because she cried and hid all the time Flora just never got those signals and consequently she didn't let up. I'd say she was probably stressed but she seems to be a comfort-eater so weight loss wasn't an issue - quite the reverse. She's my fattest pig!