Treatment
Vitamin C. Minimun 10 mg/kg. At least every three days.
Recovery within less than a week.
Why?
Guinea pigs, like humans, can't synthetizise their own vitamin C,
and if vitamin C is not included in the normal diet the guinea
pig will get scurvy. Scurvy is quite unususual today.
Since the information that guinea pigs need vitamin C in
their daily diet is well known,
many people try to make a profit from this by
producing guinea pig food with vitamin C added to it. Some
even say that guinea pigs need to get this food or they may
die from scurvy. Beware that they just want your money!
This causes an other problem, called Pseudo Scurvy, in the guinea pig.
How to keep your guinea pigs healthy:
The best way to ensure that your guinea pigs get enough
vitamin C is to give lots of fresh vegetables daily. Where
I live, in Sweden, even breeders with over 100 guinea pigs gives
fresh vegetables or grass daily.
The needs of vitamin C is not high, only 10 mg/kg for a
healthy guinea pig, given at least every three days!
When you give vitamin C, the guinea pig retain it for
approximately 4 days.
Sick guinea pigs need more vitamin C!
For pregnant females and sick guinea pigs you may need to
give extra vitamin C. The best way to do this is to give
vegetables and fruit with extra high contents of vitamin C.
Like kale, kiwi, parsley and so on. A pregnant guinea pig
only need 3 times as much vitamin C as a non-pregnant
guinea pig, so don't overdo it.
If your piggie has skin problems you also need to give
extra vitamin C. Skin problems can be either mites/lice or
fungus.
My advice is:
Give as much vegetables as your
guinea pigs can eat. One big carrot a day (per guinea pig)
keeps the scurvy away...
Don't give vitamin C in water, or vitamin C pills unless it is
really called for (preferrably by a reputable guinea pig vet).
Copyright Eva Johansson.
Last update: 2nd of December 2005.