Pregnancy Keeping pregnant ladies with other pigs?

[emilygn]

Hi there!

My sister adopted a beautiful guinea pig baby 8 weeks ago, and surprise surprise... she's super-duper pregnant. Having had two pregnant ladies before, I'm not too worried about the whole situation. However, with those two other pregnant ladies, they were kept separate and away from other piggies as they were both jerks and couldn't live with each other.

This is what my question is - Daisy is living with four other pigs, soon to be five if Mabel gets along with them all. Should I leave daisy in the cage with them for the birthing, as Athena is her adopted mother (who has been pregnant essentially her whole life) and she lives with her adopted sisters, or should I separate them? Daisy was about four weeks when we introduced her to the group, and everything has been perfect since. She literally just slipped in without anyone really noticing her.

I am not seeing any bad behaviour, her sisters tend to nip her sometimes but she nips them right back and everyone settles down. She spends most of her time lying down and eating with everyone generally leaving her be. I am just worried that maybe the sisters might not take well to having babies around? I mean, I have no idea how this all works, and I would rather keep them all together instead of separating Daisy and having to reintroduce her and her babies later on. I also don't want to risk the babies health in case the other pigs step on them or hurt them or things like that.

Another question - Daisy was only 4 - 5 weeks when we adopted her. Does her young age predispose her to any sort of problems regarding the pregnancy/birth? My other two girls were just fine, but they weren't as young as Daisy.

Thank you!

 

[bpatters]

Most guinea pig sows make great aunties, and the pregnant mom and babies should do just fine with them. That is, if the cage is large enough for all those pigs. If not, the pups ears are apt to get nibbled. But if you've got enough room, it's definitely easier to leave them all together now rather than have to reintroduce later on.

Yes, Daisy will be at some risk because of her age. But many young sows deliver ok. You should probably line up an exotic vet ahead of time in case she has any problems with delivery. If she's in the throes of labor, it's too late to start looking for a vet.

The young guinea pig diet should be fine for her, but do make sure she has unlimited access to alfalfa pellets, and supplement her with some extra vitamin C.

 

[emilygn]

Okay, great! That soothes a lot of my worries, being able to keep them all together. We have a vet lined up, she gave us our last pregnant pig that was dumped at the clinic so she's well-versed on these situations, thank goodness. A lot of vets in our area aren't - gotta love living in rural Australia.

I weighed Daisy today, and shes 725 grams, compared to her adopted sisters who are a little over 5 months and weigh the same as her. How much should a three month old guinea weigh? I'm hoping that we can try figure out how many are in there - delivering two would be easier on her than delivering one!

Thank you for your advice, hopefully she pops soon. We know she's at least 8 weeks pregnant, and she's already huffing around and finding it hard to get comfortable.

 

[bpatters]

You can't go by weight. It's like asking how much a five-year-old child should weigh.

 

[lennier1]

I didn't have any problems when Luna had a baby and there was one other adult female in the cage. Of course that was just one baby, so it wasn't too crowded.

Be careful about any male babies, though. I've read that males can be fertile as early as three weeks, so be sure to separate them soon enough to avoid further pregnancies.

 

[emilygn]

Good point bpatters, I'm just trying to be as prepared as possible, even if it is in stupid ways!

I really hope Daisy has girls, between our two other pigs and the four babies they had all were girls, so hopefully it keeps going that way! Only because if it's a boy I don't want to give him up because I know I'll get too attached hahaha. I mean, with Daisy and her 4 other cage mates it isn't too crowded, but I might have to expand it a bit if she has more than one baby. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it!

Thanks for all your replies!

 

[emilygn]

Update: Daisy had her babies this morning!! She had 3 little pigs, although we have already run into a few problems.

The pigs are a bit lighter than our previous litters, weighing around 60 - 75 for each pig, which is a little on the light side, but that isn't our main issue.

Two of them are lethals.

One of them, that we have called Ginny, isn't lethal but she has an extra toe that is falling off her foot. Do we just wait for that to fall off, since it is literally hanging on by a tiny thread of skin, or should we do something about it?

Now the two lethals. We think they are lethals since they are completely white with pink eyes. Neither of them are deaf since they react to our loud noises and we don't think they are blind, since they are navigating really well and aren't bumping into things or anything. They have all their teeth, and they are making noise and seem like a regular pig?

So are they really lethals, or is there some sort of super albino pig? They have not a single speck of colour, but they are behaving just like their other non-lethal sibling. In fact, both the lethals are heavier than she is! What should we do for these little guys?

 

[jaycriae]

If they aren't deaf or blind, they're very unlikely to be lethals. It's worth taking a look at their teeth, though, to make sure everything that you can see, at least, looks normal - lethals generally have dental and digestive problems as well as being deaf/blind. Just weigh them at the same time every morning and keep track of them, and if they continue acting normal and gain weight quickly you're probably fine. Are the eyes a normal size or smaller than usual? Blind guinea pigs often can navigate well.

As for the toe, if there's no blood/quick connecting it, it won't last long but it might be worth clipping.

Can you post pics? Of both the toe and the 'lethals.' And congratulations on the babies!

 

[bpatters]

They're not lethals if they can see and hear. They're probably just PEWs -- pink-eyed whites. Lethals will have small or missing eyes. If the eyes are the normal size, they're not lethals.

 

[emilygn]

Oh, thank goodness! I was hoping that was the case, thank you so much for clarifying, I wasn't sure if PEWs were an actual thing in guineas, so I'm very glad to hear that! As far as I can tell they're teeth seem normal - they don't like me checking, but I managed to get a good look and it all seemed pretty normal as far as I can tell.

Here's a pic of one of the PEWs, we think we'll call it Nibbler since it's already nibbling on our fingers a little.

 

[emilygn]

Me again,

I just have a question about the mother. She had given birth sometime this morning before we checked on her, and we noticed she had one placenta afterbirth thing she hadn't eaten. Is that normal? Secondly, she's still bleeding a little. There was a small amount of blood where she gave birth which was to be expected, but it's been 6 hours since we found her and she's still bleeding. Not an awful amount, but it is very mucousy? What should I do, is this normal? I feel like a helicopter parent!

Thank you!

 

[lennier1]

I think that's pretty normal. Luna had a few bloody, mucousy spots appear for up to a day after she gave birth. Has she started nursing yet?

This page might ease some of your concerns.

https://www.guinealynx.info/labor.html

"If you are present, you can help her out by removing some of the placentas and some of the soiled bedding. She eats those to keep predators from discovering the babies. The afterbirth will be a round flat bloody object ranging in size from a nickel to a quarter."

"Moms may continue to spot for up to 4-5 days after delivery, although 1-2 is more normal. If there are large quantities of blood, or gooey bloody stuff after 2-3 days, or the sow is not acting normally, she might have retained a placenta or a baby. You will need to see a vet if this is the case. The new Mom will not act sick. If she is fluffed up, or has any signs of illness, get her to a vet immediately."

 

[emilygn]

I thought so, our last lady Athena spotted for a few hours, I just wasn't sure how long it was meant to last. Yes, she has started nursing, those babies can't get enough of it!

We've noticed a few things today though. The other girls in the pen are nipping the babies occasionally but they aren't causing any damage so I assume thats fine. However, a couple of minutes though the leader of the herd Athena picked up one of the PEWs and threw her into the wall. There weren't any marks on the baby and she only had some mussed up hair, but should I be worried by that behaviour? The others seem to be cool with the babies and won't nip or hurt them when the mother Daisy is present.

 

[bpatters]

How big is your cage, and how many pigs are in it? Crowding can cause the other pigs to nibble the babies' ears.

And sometimes you'll run into a sow that will bully the babies. It's not common, but it does happen. If that's the case here, you may have to separate that sow. If so, put another one in with her so she's not so lonely.

 

[emilygn]

I'm not sure about the exact size of our cage, but i do know it is about 110cm wide. We constructed it out of a thousand cardboard boxes since we didn't have an inside cage large enough for 1 full grown sow, 4 sows under 5 months and the three babies, and we couldn't sure our playpens as the babies can easily slip through the bars, and the older pigs always somehow manage to chew off our baby-proof borders.

How large should a cage for these 5 sows and 3 babies ideally be? We can always make it bigger with more boxes (we own a business so we are cardboard box galore). I just can 't find my tape measure so I can't give you an exact size, but it is at least 110 cm wide and it is much longer than that.

 

[CavyChrissy]

Congratulations on the babies! The one in your pic reminds me of my Randy (although Randy has a crest and black eyes that sometimes look red). Would love to see more baby pics. Best of luck!

 

[emilygn]

Oh my gosh, I love guinea pigs with crests, I think they are so hilariously gorgeous. We nearly adopted Daisy's sister who had a crest, but the guy at the rescue gave her away when we were on our way over, even though we had her on hold. At least she got a home though, though I daresay she would be pregnant just like Daisy was!



Here are all three of them - Terry, Sherry, and Ginny! The PEWs eyes look black in it though, but I can assure you they are the cutest pink colour. I never knew what to think of pink eyed white animals, especially rabbits, but now I love them even if my mum thinks they look like rats hahaha.