Lily's Med Thread

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Annapox

Post   » Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:23 am


The basics: Lily is about a year old (assigned birthday May 10, 2020), I brought her home on June 14, 2020 (when she was about 5 weeks old), and she shares a 2x4 C&C cage (fleece bedding) with my other pig, Penny. Neither pig is spayed, but Penny is about to be because she has an ovarian cyst. Every day they are each given unlimited water and Oxbow timothy hay, 1/8 cup Oxbow adult guinea pig pellets, two Oxbow Vitamin C biscuits, one big romaine leaf (or multiple small leaves that add up to the same amount of lettuce), a cucumber slice, half a wedge of bell pepper (usually green), and half a grape tomato (or a whole one if they're the tiny kind).

Lily is tiny. Her weight is stable at about 750 g. Yesterday was Lily's first well vet visit as an adult; at her last one she was only about nine weeks old, so she was expected to be tiny then. So yesterday the vet told me that Lily is probably part dwarf guinea pig, and she also told me that dwarf guinea pigs aren't actually a breed of guinea pig but are just guinea pigs that happen to be much smaller than average. She specifically told me that Lily is *not* malnourished or anything; she's perfectly healthy, just small. But she did say that dwarf guinea pigs are more prone to health complications, so I was just wondering whether anyone here has experience with unusually small guinea pigs and can tell me if there's anything specific I should keep an eye out for. The vet just said to keep an eye on her, and I didn't think to ask for specifics.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:25 pm


What your vet has to say about her makes sense.

I don't have any experience with small guinea pigs so can't comment except for the fact that early on, the only veterinary weight guidelines I could find described females to actually be about that size.
https://www.guinealynx.info/norms.html

We usually tell people guinea pigs are normally bigger.

I think guinea pigs used in the scientific community for reasearch may in general be smaller. Is she by any chance a pink eyed white guinea pig?

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pigjes
Cavy Comic

Post   » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:38 am


Wheeter was a piggie who was really small, and I had a giant one too in 52 years of having pigs. He had pea sized balls and was 1/3 smaller than a normal pig. Floopy was about 1/4 taller than most pigs. Yes, he wasn't a hamster, and she wasn't a cuy. Being tiny, he was extremely healthy, luckily.

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Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:47 am


How interesting; I've never heard of smaller guinea pigs being referred to as "dwarf." Our Joshua was quite small. We used to joke that maybe he was the "runt of the litter," which I suppose was actually quite possible. He lived a healthy life until he reached the age of, I think, four when he was diagnosed with heart issues that the vet felt were congenital.

Annapox

Post   » Sun Sep 05, 2021 2:31 pm


Lily is part white and part black-and-white agouti, and her eyes look black in most lighting but are actually dark red. So maybe one of her ancestors was a research subject?

pigjes and Sef, thank you for the reassurance that small guinea pigs can still be pretty healthy.

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