Hi, my 2 year old female guinea pig has lost 73 grams in the last 7 days. She appears to be eating and drinking fine. She shares a Hutch with her nearly 6 month old daughter. I'm kind of at a loss because I currently cannot afford to take her to the vets, as we've already spent a ridiculous amount at the vets this month. What can I do? Thank you!
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Weight loss
- Thread starter ConWarno
- Start date
You need to step in and syringe feed her to stop the weight loss. She may appear to be eating well but her hay intake has dropped otherwise she would not have lost weight. 50g is the point at which you go on alert and switch to weighing her once every day so you can more closely monitor.
You will need to see a vet to find out if there is a medical issue starting.
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
You will need to see a vet to find out if there is a medical issue starting.
All About Syringe Feeding and Medicating Guinea Pigs with Videos and Pictures
Wheekallweek
Adult Guinea Pig
It'll be cheaper to get her seen now and get whatever is going on sorted quickly, than if you leave it until she is really poorly!
That's really quite a lot to lose. That could be around 10% of her bodyweight over a week, depending on her weight!
That's really quite a lot to lose. That could be around 10% of her bodyweight over a week, depending on her weight!
Claire W
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That’s quite a big drop in weight 
. I understand that vets are expensive but It’ll be cheaper to nip any illness in the bud now than to leave it until further down the line. Weight loss is usually the first sign of illness which could be a number of things x
. I understand that vets are expensive but It’ll be cheaper to nip any illness in the bud now than to leave it until further down the line. Weight loss is usually the first sign of illness which could be a number of things xI'm going to be weighing her daily from today. I'm also going to be bringing her inside, on her own, when she's eating her salad. I'm going to give it a 2 of 3 days, whilst monitoring her weight, then I will ring the vets.
Don’t bring her inside on her own to eat salad, separating them is stressful but also eating a salad is not enough to stop weight loss, it isn’t the essential fibre she needs and it won’t replace her reduction in hay intake.
She is losing weight because her hay intake has dropped and it is that which needs to be replaced. Hay makes 80% of the daily food intake, veg just 15% so without eating enough hay a huge amount of the daily food needs has been lost whether they eat their veg or not.
She needs to be syringe fed a fibre rich recovery feed or mushed pellets to replace the hay intake.
You need to syringe feed as much as is necessary to keep her weight stable each day - around 40-60ml as a minimum in each 24 hour period (the less she takes at each sitting the more sittings will be needed each day).
If you don’t syringe feed her from now and she doesn’t eat enough hay independently, then her weight loss will very quickly reach significant levels. Remembering 100g weight loss constitutes an urgent situation.
Okay, thank you so much for this. I've got some science selective syringe food. I will get her started on that immediately. I'm still so new to having piggies and this forum has been a life saver!
The guide I linked in the earlier reply explains syringe feeding more fully.
She will still need to see a vet though. The syringe feeding stabilises her but it doesn’t address the underlying medical issue.