weaning hand-reared guinea-pigs

Question
Myself and a neighbour have hand-reared 5 orphaned baby guinea-pigs after we lost their mother to a prolapsed uterus and bowel during delivery. They are now just over 2 weeks old (2 boys and 3 girls) and we are wondering how to go about weaning them. They are certainly eating hay and dry food, plus cucumber and grass. However, they are reluctant to drink from the water bottle and are consuming increasing amounts of formula milk as they grow. Should we begin to decrease the amount of milk we give them. We are now feeding them  only 3 times a day when they have between 3 and 5 ml each. We have placed an older guinea pig with them but they don't seem to be copying her and drinking from the water bottle. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Catherine and Nicola.

Answer
Catherine, Nicola:

This is a tough one, but also one that is relatively easy to solve.  What you want to do is start feeding them their milk (slightly watered down at this point, to make it easier to get through the tube) from a water bottle, just like the one in their living cage.  Over the course of a week, decrease the milk/water ratio to the point where it's almost all water.  They will start drinking from the water bottle in their cage.

Also, they have reached the age where you should think about separating out the males, if you have not already done so, especially if you have a mature female in with them.

Hope this is helpful.  Let me know how it turns out, and feel free to contact me if you have any more questions.  Good luck!

Lorena