Young pregnant female

Question
Hello

I bought a pair of males from a petstore yesterdy and turns out today I have a male and a female! They are both very small the male is so tiny hed fit into a mug and still have room in the mug, the female is just a little larger then him. I thought that she was jsut a fat male but turns out his belly was kicking when I resexed him so its a her. My question is what are the chances of her carrying them to full term and her and the pups living? How far away is she from giving birth if I can feel them kicking? How big would tehy be when born since she is so small?

Answer
Hello.

I'm so irritated with pet stores. They are not really experienced in sexing the pigs and send people off with these problems. My first pig i ever had came to be pregnant and had 4 babies. People aren't ready for these things. *Sigh*

Sounds like they are both REALLy young, which is not good with her being pregnant. To be quite honest with you, there is a pretty high chance that giving birth will kill her. I won't say that for sure, because things do happen, and i do wish you the best, but you never know with these things. She's just so young. The same percentages will go for the babies as well. All you can do (because what's done is done), is hope for your piggy and her babies. It's hard to tell with guinea pigs how far they really are along. Just know that guinea pigs gestation period (time from when the conceive to birth) is about 60-70 days. That's about 2 months. How old is she? If you can feel the babies kicking i would have to assume she's at least a month along.

I would start to give your pregnant lady some alfalfa hay. It's good for her to fatten her up, and supply some nutrition to her babies. Make sure you give her the veggies she needs plus a tad bit more. Make sure she gets her vitamin c through her veggies. Great veggies for that are parsley, dandelion greens, and swiss chard. The babies won't change how big they are because she is small, they would still be full sized babies which are still pretty small. If she is pregnant with 5 or something like that, then it may be a problem with her being so small. Just think positive, remember that in a month before giving birth she is going to become bigger as well. I wish you the best. Please keep me updated on the progress of her pregnancy.

Also, Before she gives birth (a few weeks ahead), or just when you can tell the time is coming near, you need to take the male out of the cage. If you don't, then he could get her pregnant again the same day she gives birth, which would be be a bad outcome for her. Also, in hopes that the mama and babies make it, make sure you seperate the males and females (babies) from the cage at 3 weeks of age. Otherwise, the brothers could get their sisters pregnant. It would be a process you wouldn't want to do again.

For a clear pictures of the sexes of the pigs, go to this website:
www.guinealynx.com   and look under "sexing".

Hope this helps.
Christy