‘normal’ weight

[piggiemummy03x]

is there a ‘normal’ weight guide to how much a piggie should weigh at certain ages or does it vary? my dellas just 472g but lunas already over 600g at 606g! they are sisters just over 11 weeks.

 

[Piggies&buns]

No there isn’t. The number on the scales isn’t the whole picture. It tells you whether they are eating enough but it doesn’t tell you about their body condition and whether they are a nice size for themselves - the average weight range for an adult piggy is huge - 800-1600g - so you can see why weight alone doesn’t work!

The way you know a piggy is healthy for their size is by checking their heft. This guide explains
Weight - Monitoring and Management

 

[piggiemummy03x]

No there isn’t. The number on the scales isn’t the whole picture. It tells you whether they are eating enough but it doesn’t tell you about their body condition and whether they are a nice size for themselves - the average weight range for an adult piggy is huge - 800-1600g - so you can see why weight alone doesn’t work!

The way you know a piggy is healthy for their size is by checking their heft. This guide explains
Weight - Monitoring and Management

wow what a huge variation! i did think this may be the case, thanks ill check it out!

 

[Merab]

Like humans, normal for one piggy can be overweight or underweight for another.
My Priscilla has always been a petite girl. She’s just hit her heaviest at 1160g which is due to the extras in the cage when Phoebe was ill.
Jemimah, in her heyday weighed in at around 1300g.
Both perfectly healthy for each one.

 

[piggiemummy03x]

Like humans, normal for one piggy can be overweight or underweight for another.
My Priscilla has always been a petite girl. She’s just hit her heaviest at 1160g which is due to the extras in the cage when Phoebe was ill.
Jemimah, in her heyday weighed in at around 1300g.
Both perfectly healthy for each one.

bless them! thats good to know, thanks!

 

[IDal]

I use this table, is in Dutch, but should be readable with these translations. It’s the lowest table. Dag=day weken=weeks maand=month beer=boar zeug=sow

De Grote Cavia-website - Cavia? Cavia! - Caviafeiten

 

[Freela]

There's a REALLY large range of normal... I've had healthy piggies who never reached 2 pounds and healthy piggies who were well over 3 lbs.

 

[Wiebke]

To be honest, all 'average' weight tables are not worth the paper they are printed on, which is why we do not use them on here because the difference between the smallest babies born and the largest is three times the size (40g-120g) - and this weight/size difference generally carries on throughout life. The natural variation in weight is much larger than weight tables suggest.
I am not at all fond of weight tables because they artificially create a divide that is not there in reality - the half of piggies outside the 'average' are not ill or deficient in any way but they are made to look like that by humans; and as a result, anxious owners trying to over-compensate can inadvertedly cause more harm and shorten lives instead of achieving the opposite.

It doesn't matter one bit whether you have a large and a small youngster as long as each of them is a healthy weight-size ratio in themselves ('heft' or cavy BMI). Concentrate on a good general diet, which allows each piggy to realise their own genetically determined optimum (whatever that is) and gives them a boost for a longer healthy natural life span. In the end, good health is more important than any 'acceptable' weight.

Here is a picture of the day I bonded my newly adopted rescue-born Triplets into their new group 8 years ago on 1st May 2014. You can see that one of the sisters is much smaller than the other two. Yet is it is Morwenna (who was just 40g at birth and needed a helping hand in her first days and who has always remained the smallest of the sisters) who is the one still with me and the one of the three to celebrate both her 8th birthday in February and now a very special 8th adoption anniversary. Her black sister Mererid sadly died 9 days before her 8th birthday and the largest sister, Myfina, didn't even live to her 4th birthday; she died on Christmas 2017 from a blockage in the gut.
Happy 8th Adoption Anniversary, Morwenna!

I hope that this helps you to put things into perspective.

Concentrate on a good life-long hay based diet with prefereably green veg and herbs and only 1 tablespoon of pellets per piggy per day and do not get bogged down with artificial 'averages'!
Here is the link to our diet recommendations - they are by far the best thing ever that you can do for your piggies.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

You feel around the ribcage whether your piggy is a good weight for their actual size - and that is much more important. It also has the advantage that it works at any age and for any size since weight is not static throughout life. I have had piggies that felt chunky even though they were just touching the bottom of the 'normal' adult weight in their prime and one boar who felt skinny at the top limit - he could have easily packed another 200g and not been overweight; yet despite that, they were perfectly healthy in themselves and both lived beyond the average normal life span whereas a number of my more stream-lined piggies sadly didn't.

You can learn all about feeling for the 'heft' (or BMI) and about life-long weight monitoring in this very helpful guide here. The BMI gives you the general weight ball park your individual piggy is playing in and the once weekly weigh-in then helps you spot any developing problems. This method includes all piggies of all sizes fairly and doesn't create a category of 'deficient' piggies where there is actually none: Weight - Monitoring and Management

Do not worry about having differently sized piggies but enjoy having two healthy ones.

 

[piggiemummy03x]

I use this table, is in Dutch, but should be readable with these translations. It’s the lowest table. Dag=day weken=weeks maand=month beer=boar zeug=sow

De Grote Cavia-website - Cavia? Cavia! - Caviafeiten

okay thanks!

 

[piggiemummy03x]

To be honest, all 'average' weight tables are not worth the paper they are printed on, which is why we do not use them on here because the difference between the smallest babies born and the largest is three times the size (40g-120g) - and this weight/size difference generally carries on throughout life. The natural variation in weight is much larger than weight tables suggest.
I am not at all fond of weight tables because they artificially create a divide that is not there in reality - half the piggies outside the 'average' are not ill or deficient in any way but they are made to look like that by human categories; and as a result, anxious owners trying to overcompensate can inadvertedly cause more harm and shorten lives instead of the opposite.

It doesn't matter one bit whether you have a large and a small youngster as long as each of them is a healthy weight-size ratio in themselves ('heft' or cavy BMI). Concentrate on a good general diet, which allows each piggy to realise their own genetically determined optimum (whatever that is) and gives them a boost for a longer healthy natural life span. In the end, good health is more important than any 'acceptable' weight.

Here is a picture of the day I bonded my newly adopted rescue-born Triplets into their new group 8 years ago on 1st May 2014. You can see that one of the sisters is much smaller than the other two. Yet is it is Morwenna (who was just 40g at birth and needed a helping hand in her first days and who has always remained the smallest of the sisters) who is the one still with me and the one of the three to celebrate both her 8th birthday in February and now a very special 8th adoption anniversary. Her black sister Mererid sadly died 9 days before her 8th birthday and the largest sister, Myfina, didn't even live to her 4th birthday; she died on Christmas 2017 from a blockage in the gut.
Happy 8th Adoption Anniversary, Morwenna!
View attachment 202639
I hope that this helps you to put things into perspective.

Concentrate on a good life-long hay based diet with prefereably green veg and herbs and only 1 tablespoon of pellets per piggy per day and do not get bogged down with artificial 'averages'!
Here is the link to our diet recommendations - they are by far the best thing ever that you can do for your piggies.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

You feel around the ribcage whether your piggy is a good weight for their actual size - and that is much more important. It also has the advantage that it works at any age and for any size since weight is not static throughout life. I have had piggies that felt chunky even though they were just touching the bottom of the 'normal' adult weight in their prime and one boar who felt skinny at the top limit - he could have easily packed another 200g and not been overweight; yet despite that, they were perfectly healthy in themselves and both lived beyond the average normal life span whereas a number of my more streamlined piggies sadly didn't.
You can learn all about feeling for the 'heft' (or BMI) and about life-long weight monitoring in this very helpful guide here. The BMI gives you the general weight ball park your individual piggy is playing in and the once weekly weigh-in then helps you spot any developing problems. This method includes all piggies of all sizes fairly and doesn't create a category of 'deficient' piggies where there is actually none: Weight - Monitoring and Management

Do not worry about having differently sized piggies but enjoy having two healthy ones.

thanks so much for all the information!