Handrearing newborn guinea pig

SophieSakura

I thought I'd share the story of my baby guinea pig I'm handrearing right now. She's 4 days old now. She was born really tiny and weak, but I left her with her mother, thinking that was the best thing for her. But she was getting weaker, and the bigger babies were too much competition. When she was 2 days old, she wouldn't even suckle from her mother and was just lying down or sitting down, hardly able to move.

I thought there was no hope for her, but I thought I'd give her a bit of sugary water and see if that would make her more lively and maybe then she'd suckle. She drank out of the syringe fine but wouldn't suckle from her mother. So I had to bring her inside and start syringe feeding her goat's milk every 2-3 hours.

She's now way stronger and has started crawling around, squeaking and eating tiny bits of lettuce, grass and brown bread soaked in goat's milk (that's meant to be good for them!)

If she was a normal strong guinea pig she wouldn't even need the goat's milk, but she's tiny. I had some new babies born today that are bigger than her, about twice the size!

She still could go downhill but is doing so well. She's obviously nowhere near as strong as the other babies, who all can eat dry food and run around like mad, but she's getting bigger everyday I know it's only been two days, but we're pretty hopeful for her now, whereas before we thought there was little to no chance.

Here are some photos

Outkast_IRE

hope the little guy makes it , if he does he will prob be a great pet guinea pig from all the extra attention hes gotten so young .

SophieSakura

Yeah, if she makes it I'm definitely keeping her. I'm really attached already (think she's a she!)

taram

Hope she perks up, she looks very like my Sherry! Squeaking and moving are great signs. Good luck!

sotisme

Aahhh she's goergous Fingers crossed she makes it

SophieSakura

I got her to eat a little green pepper, cut up incredibly tiny! I'm worried about vitamin C, so trying her on every veg I can think of

bullylover

hey congrats on the lil baby:) my mate was one of the top guinea pig breeders in sweden (invented a breed:P)
She said to take some of the droppings from the mother and put it in with the baby, guinea pigs apparently eat their droppings as it contains vital nutrients for them. If you want I can ask her to have a chat with you she has hand reared hundreds of them:)
Good luck:D

SophieSakura

bullylover wrote: »

hey congrats on the lil baby:) my mate was one of the top guinea pig breeders in sweden (invented a breed:P)
She said to take some of the droppings from the mother and put it in with the baby, guinea pigs apparently eat their droppings as it contains vital nutrients for them. If you want I can ask her to have a chat with you she has hand reared hundreds of them:)
Good luck:D

Thanks for the tip I'll do that! I've heard of that with rabbits, dunno why I didn't think of doing it.

I've been asking loads of questions from breeders and rescuers on the internet I must be driving them mad, but in return they get to see cute photos!

Vojera

Oh she's gorgeous! I hope she makes it!

There's a recipe here for newborn babies, it's pretty much mushed up pellets. If you've problems cutting things up small enough you could always try grating them as well. If she gets past a week or two she should be okay if you can keep getting food into her. If your vet stocks Science Recovery or anything you could supplement with that as well.

Sigma Force

Here's some links that might help, will get some more info.

http://www.geocities.com/heygpig/breeding.html

http://jackiesguineapiggies.com/pregnancylinks.html

Avoid iceberg lettuce etc. the tiny bits of veg are good

Aw how sweet that story is ! That little 'un deserves a happy ending. It brings me back to my childhood when I bought two guinea pigs (seperate pet shops) and just a couple of months later we had another four little ones! They're such great pets, I learned a lot from caring for them & it annoyed me how some people lumped them in with wild rats when they certainly are not !! God that was all so long ago now !!!

Sigma Force

According to Peter Gurneys book you should never feed a pig under a week old with a syringe, the risk of them taking on too much milk and inhaling it is too high. You can get special teats but the best way to feed them is by spoon and plain Complan mix it two thirds the strength of whats recommended on the box.
After a week of age they can be fed by syringe.

Wrap the pig in a towel and keep the baby upright when feeding the Complan.

Sometimes they can inhale fluid even if you are careful if you hear a clicking sound and a faster than usual breathing lift the baby up immediately and place it against your shoulder head down, holding very firmly. It will struggle and become stressed but this will make it cough and clear the lungs provided you have caught it in time. This can happen to babies feeding from their mum as well so it’s a handy thing to know.

That’s all I could find in Peter Gurneys book the sex life of guinea pigs but he really knew his stuff.
Have no idea if goats milk is ok but perhaps feed it with a spoon instead of syringe for a while.

Let us know how you get on, it’s a struggle but are you allowing the baby back in with the mum when your not feeding?

SophieSakura

Thanks everyone She's doing great!

She's started eating mushed up banana, grated carrot and grated pepper

She got to go to work experience with me at my vet's, and college today so got to meet my two teachers (a vet and a vet nurse) and they all thought she looked healthy and also cute

SophieSakura

Vojera wrote: »

Oh she's gorgeous! I hope she makes it!

There's a recipe here for newborn babies, it's pretty much mushed up pellets. If you've problems cutting things up small enough you could always try grating them as well. If she gets past a week or two she should be okay if you can keep getting food into her. If your vet stocks Science Recovery or anything you could supplement with that as well.

Thanks I tried her on mushed up pellets but she wasn't too keen on it, but I'll keep trying

SophieSakura

bullylover wrote: »

hey congrats on the lil baby:) my mate was one of the top guinea pig breeders in sweden (invented a breed:P)
She said to take some of the droppings from the mother and put it in with the baby, guinea pigs apparently eat their droppings as it contains vital nutrients for them. If you want I can ask her to have a chat with you she has hand reared hundreds of them:)
Good luck:D

Oh by the way, if your friend lives in Ireland, there's a new Irish Guinea Pig forum http://irishguineapigs.findtalk.net/ I'm sure everyone would love to see photos of her unusual breeds

Sigma Force

That's great am hoping nowdays Irish vets are being taught more about cavy care because in my experience with vets over the years most (not all don't get me wrong) haven't a clue. They should all be made go to the cambridge cavy trust for a week during their training.

I wouldn't worry too much about giving her lots of things to try food wise the fact she's eating pepper and carrot is great fibre is the most important alongside the vit C, is she eating any hay by herself yet? The point about the poo is a good one as well, the soft poop especially.

Sounds like she might make it have fingers crossed for her they're very tricky to handrear but sounds like she's getting the best of care.

SophieSakura

The baby pig died Wednesday morning she was very quiet and seemed to have difficulty breathing. I took her straight to the vet and got her antibiotics and fluids but she died really quickly.

The vet said she could has aspirated milk or it could have been another infection.

Unfortunately I had no other choice but to syringe feed her, because she couldn't drink any other way, she couldn't suckle from the mother or a bottle or drink from a spoon. I was always very careful to syringe the milk really slowly and let her swallow it, but I guess these things happen

I guess she never had much chance because she was born so tiny and weak. If she had been a healthy guinea pig it would have been no problem to handrear her. But she could have had other things wrong with her too, or just been too weak to fight off infection.

It's really sad cos she was so sweet, and she made it to a week old and was seeming so strong. But then when you see the other babies, they're flying around their cage, eating dry food and squeaking really loudly, and you know they're much stronger than she was and about twice the size, maybe even three times.

Thanks everyone for the advice and good wishes

Vojera

Aw, I'm really sorry to hear that. I guess these things happen

You can honestly say you tried your hardest and did everything you could and you had a special few days with her.

SophieSakura

Yeah at least she was really really happy for those few days, she got cuddles all the time and was obviously happy

Outkast_IRE

you did a lot more than most would of for that little guinea pig, you gave it a chance which is the best you can do with newborn baby animals.

SophieSakura

Thanks

It makes me feel better that I tried. If I left her with the mother then she would have died after a few hours I'm sure. So she got 5 more days and she was happy and not suffering