dead baby guineas?

Question
Hi Jenny,
My daughters are in tears, we have 2 adult guinea pigs, and the female has just had her 2nd lot of babies, we have been checking the hutch, twice every day expectantly, and this afternoon she had them - but when we found them they were dead. They seem fully developed - but both were cold, and in seperate places in the hutch. There was blood on one of them still.  The last time she had babies - there was also 2 born, they didn't seem to prosper, and at 1 week old, they were close to death....I hand feed them with a syringe (rice cereal) the stronger one survived, but sadly the smallest died after a few days.  Is there something we can do?  Is this a common problem with guineas?  Any advice would be great, thanks for your time - Karen & kids in Australia.


Answer
Hi Karen,

I'm very sorry for your loss; it's always difficult to lose a pet, especially when they're so young and you don't know why.

You mention that your female guinea pig has had babies before. What made you decide to hand-rear the first litter? Did she reject them? Baby guinea pigs are usually quite sturdy from the beginning; they need their mother's milk until the age of three weeks, but will also eat solid food and be running around the hutch from day one. So unless their mother wasn't feeding them or they had some sort of genetic defect, there's no reason that they should have seemed to not be prospering.

I'm presuming you found the second litter quite soon after they had been delivered. If they were already cold, it implies that they were stillborn. As with any animal, birth can be a difficult time for a guinea pig, and there's always a risk of complications. How old is your female guinea pig? She should be six months or younger when she has her first litter, otherwise her pelvic bones will have fused and it will be very difficult if not impossible for her to successfully see through a pregnancy and give birth to live young. After the first litter, a female guinea pig can be bred until the age of three or four, though you should be aware that a breeding sow has a shorter life expectancy than a non-breeding sow, so if you are a pet owner and  do not wish to pursue breeding guinea pigs as a hobby, it is best not to breed your female more than a couple of times.

Sadly, it is also a possibility that your female guinea pig killed her babies, though this would only usually happen if she was stressed and felt unable to successfully bring them up. Are your male and female living together in a hutch? If so, the male will continuously be mating with the female, and whilst when she is already pregnant this obviously won't result in any more babies, it can cause undue stress to the female, and also potentially damage to the female and the babies in the later stages of pregnancies due to the physical mounting. Of course, the male could also have killed the babies; not on purpose, but boars are clumsy and he could just have been too rough!

Do you know what breed your adult guinea pigs are? Some purebreds cannot be bred to another purebred of the same kind (such as dalmatians) as this almost always results in a difficult pregnancy and "wonky" babies. So this could be another explanation.

Keep a close eye on your female guinea pig over the next few days to make sure she doesn't show any signs of lingering complications such as being off her food or having blood in her urine. Also give her lots of cuddles, as if the babies were stillborn, she will be feeling even more upset than you and your daughters. If you can afford it, it might be worth taking her for an examination at a vets to make sure she doesn't have an underlying problem which means she is unable to see through a pregnancy.

Sorry I can't give you a clear answer, but I hope some of what I've said might help you to figure out why the babies died.

Best wishes, and don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions,

Jenny.