Sunday, August 2, 2009

Baby Guinea Pigs...?

My guinea pig had 3 babies but is neglecting one...can anybody give me any info,should I intervene or leave well alone.
Answers:
IT is possible to hand rear guinea pigs, I have done it twice, both times the mother had died. I was recommended to give them Complan (the plain one not flavoured). I got a little bottle and they sucked from it. Guinea pigs will also nibble on food from very small. What i did was got a small cage and put sawdust and hay in the bottom. Put in a little bowl with food in and another one with the complan in, it will prob walk in it but will then lick the stuff off its feet. Also give it a bottle that you normally put water in and put some complan in it too. You will need to feed it from a bottle cos it will only pick at the stuff in the cage. As someone else has mentioned sometimes the mother will not feed a baby that she knows is not strong but this does not necessarily mean the baby could not survive, if the mother is not very strong she will pick the strongest babies and raise them so she is not worn out. Quite honestly I think you should give it a try, if you dont succeed at leat you will have tried and if you do you'll feel wonderful, I know i did :). And in answer to someone else guinea pigs have any amount of babies from 1 one. One of mine had seven once, which was very unusual, they were very small but they all survived except two but they were born dead. Anyway enuff waffling, good luck xx.
if shes not feeding him/her then you will need to - i think its kitten milk but not 100% sure - i would contact your vet today
Is there anything wrong with the one being neglected? There very well might be, animals have a better sense of this than we do. I've seen it many times with rabbits, especially one case where the mother actually chewed off a kit's ear and two of it's feet. We thought the mother had gone nuts and raised this one on a bottle... turns out the thing was constantly sick, not right in the head, and died an early death. You can keep nudging the kit towards the mother, or try an raise it yourself. Just accept the fact that the chance of it dying is really high.
i would take the baby away and hand rear..i had to do this with 5 babies after the mother died giving birth ...but sadly lost all 5 a few days later , i would bring him in and put him in an indoor cage or a large cardboard box lined with straw and hay so he is warm , call your vet explain whats happened and say you need a milk supplement as you are having to hand rear, i cant for the life of me remember the name of the milk i had to use and that was from the vet it didnt cost much , also ask for a syringe so its easier to give the milk, you need to give SMALL ammounts ,say 2ml, every hour , and unfortunatley that will include nite feeds , if you give too much at once you will cause his tummy to explode and theres nowt worse than an exploding guinea pig : ) . then as he gets stronger you can up the ammount to 3ml every 2 hours . but call the vet , explain whats happened and go from there xx
I don't think that you need to take them away at all.
How is the mum neglecting them? How old are they?
She will not intentionally hurt the babies, guinea pigs dint do that!
You should be weighing your babies every 4-5 days to check they are gaining.
The babies will be eating dried food after a couple of hours, but will still need some help from you.
Try taking the other two babies away from the mum for about 15 mins and giving the other one a chance, the mum only milks from 2 teats (i think) so if there are 3 there is going to be one left out.and yes you can pick babies up as soon as they are born, the mum wont mind :)
You can feed veg organic baby food.bread dipped in evaporated milk, or yes you can use puppy milk, but I think that's a wasted expense to be honest...
This forum; www.guineapigforum.eamped.com is great for advice and people that have lots of experience and can give you tips!
It's not usual for guinea pigs to have three babies. I think they usually only have two - they only have two teats.
It's up to you as to whether you wish to hand rear the neglected one. Perhaps there's something wrong with it and the mother is just concentrating on the other two.
Take it to your vet and find out what to do - if it's healthy and how to hand rear it.

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