5 week old orphaned guinea pigs not drinking water

Post Reply
Sam88

Post   » Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:07 am


Hi everyone.

Just looking for some advice really. I rescued two females a while back, one of which turned out to be pregnant. Sadly Georgie died after giving birth to 4 pups having suffered a uterine prolapse.

I have hand reared the babies since day 1. I lost the runt at 3 weeks old sadly, she was only half the size of the other 3.

When the pups were a little bigger I introduced Peppa my rescued female who has been lovely with them.

However I had two boys and 1 girl. So at 21 days I seperated the boys, and kept my female Suzi with Peppa.

They are all eating well, and now go through the night without hand feeds, but they do still require them through the day.

The problem I am having is getting any of them to drink from a water bottle. They just won't do it, and so I continue to hand feed them to ensure they are hydrated enough.

It has been a difficult 5 weeks as I have a 2 year old and a 5 month old baby myself, and was hoping that they would start drinking water so that they could become more independent.

Is this normal at this age, does anyone have any tips?

Thanks in advance

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:42 am


Do they know how to drink from the bottle, but just don't? Or do they not know how?

I wouldn't worry a lot about it. Many pigs don't drink much. But you certainly don't have to hand feed them. Lettuce (red or green leaf is preferred) has lots of water in it, and you can rinse it before you give to them and leave some of the water on it. Tomatoes and cucumber are both largely water.

If they like some strong-smelling herb, like parsley or cilantro, you can crush some up and rub on the tip of the water spout. Or flavor the water with it. You'll have to change the water more frequently if you do that, but once they get the idea, they'll drink when they need it without your having to flavor it.

Sam88

Post   » Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:50 am


I have been giving the lots of cucumber which they enjoy, along with lots of other veggies spaced out through the day.

Great advice Thank you!

rjespicer

Post   » Tue Jan 22, 2019 2:14 pm


I rarely see our 3 girls drink from their water bottles. I have a water bowl for them as well just to play it safe but dont see them drink from that either.

They get plenty of lettuce and Cucumber and pepper as well as wheat grass and seem to be OK. Id see how they do but keep weighing them on a regular basis

JX4

Post   » Tue Jan 22, 2019 5:21 pm


Our babies had to learn to drink from the water bottle by watching mom, auntie, and dad do so. We had 4 babies and one of them (Sugar) started doing it way earlier than the others did. To this day -- and they are almost 4 years old now -- Sugar drinks way more water than the others.

Make sure the babies are able to see Auntie Peppa drink from the bottle.

Post Reply