Weight Skinny Guinea pig

Midnight is black and Oona is brown and white.

Also, they are REALLY skittish. I haven’t even touched them (only to place them into their cage) but Oona has not left from under her mom. I also haven’t seen them eat or poop anything... yet.

Just make sure she has plenty of high quality hay and pellets, and that she has a place in the cage to stay warm. Skinnies use up more calories trying to stay warm than haired pigs, so generally weigh less than a hair pig of the same body size. If you think she's particularly underweight, you can sprinkle a few rolled oats over her veggies.

Ditto @bpatters. She doesn't look like a Skinny Pig to me though, just maybe a skinny girl? I'm sure they are skittish and absolutely terrified. Give them a few days together with you to adjust, and perhaps cover one end of their cage with a blanket or something to give them some cover.

Yummy treats will help coax them out to you, and build trust.

Oops, missed that she's not a skinny pig.

How much does she weigh? And are you weighing her regularly to see if she's gaining? Do you know how old she is?

So I just brought them home a few hours ago, and I don’t really want to handle them too much yet as they look terrified. So I don’t exactly know the weight although I plan on weighing them both tomorrow once they settle in. For now I’ve just been sitting next to their cage so that they get used to my presence.

oh and I offered them lettuce and they took the smallest cautious nibbles!

They haven’t pooped or peed once in three hours, are they just nervous? I covered their cage with a blanket.

Yes they may just be nervous, I would be more concerned if they haven't peed or pooped at all after they have been in the cage overnight. I wouldn't necessarily cover the whole cage, but certainly cover the section of the cage where their food and water is, so they can feel safe while they eat and drink.

It is really hard to get them to gain weight without adjusting the diet in a way which could cause other problems, like for example giving them unlimited pellets which could lead to eating less hay and then overgrown teeth due to the lack of hay. Mostly you just need to make sure they have a balanced, healthy and consistent diet and they hopefully should start slowly gaining weight.

I do know certain hays can be more fattening without adding much risk so if you want to you could give them oaten hay as their grass hay if you have good quality oaten hay available in your area. For several years all my guinea pigs were fed was oaten hay (hays such as Timothy/brome/bluegrass are not available in my area) and after I transitioned to wheaten in the past year a few of my guinea pigs have gradually lost about 30-50 grams of weight and have stabilised at their new normal weight, not that I was concerned about their weight either way as they are all well within healthy bounds.

So who are exactly are you fostering thru/for? Have they been vet checked BEFORE you took them? May take her in just in case - my experience: adopted a skin n bones guinea pig from an animal shelter and he had scurvy.

Yeah, they’ve been seen by the vet at the shelter. Should I give them unlimited pellets?

When I got Chico and Amigo, the shelter was giving them as much food as they wanted and I did the same at home. They didn't really get unlimited pellets, but they got lots of hay and veggies, and I was giving them Oxbow vitamin c treats twice a day (supposed to do it once daily, but for ill pigs I double it). I've read that alfalfa hay (which the baby needs) can be ok for sick adults to eat, but I'm not totally sure on that.

If they won't come out from hiding to eat, then move the food as close to their hides as you can so they can eat from home.

Ok, I’ll do that. They haven’t eaten anything yet but I try to get them to eat some hay and pellets.

I wouldn't "try" to get them to eat anything. The best thing you can do is put hay, pellets, veggies and water underneath something that's draped over part of the cage and then leave them alone. They're perfectly convinced that you're going to eat them, and don't recognize your advances as friendly gestures at this point. As the days go on, drag the foodstuffs gradually out from under the cover so they're in the open.

They'll get braver, but it may take several days.

I’m so glad that they’ve relaxed a bit! I saw them munching on hay and pellets so that’s good. I’ve also weighed them and Midnight is 1 pound, 5 ounces (595 grams) and Oona is 9 ounces (255 grams).

Any idea how old Midnight is? 595 is VERY tiny for a mom unless she's still very young.

We don’t really know how old she is but her medical record says 1 to 5 years. I know that guinea pigs can get pregnant very young so could she be less than a year old? She’s so much smaller than my piggies.

The way she looks to me, I highly doubt that she's even a year old yet. She's very tiny. My estimate is maybe 6-8 months old. But that's just my estimate.

Yes, that is what I suspected when i first saw her. When I look at her and look at my full grown piggies, she looks half as small.