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Many mammals are alike, albeit with their own unique anatomical quirks. For instance, if you’ve ever heard a quick toot or an extended noise like a balloon letting out air, it could have been your little guinea pig letting one rip! Like humans, dogs, and many other animals, guinea pigs need to expel gas from their bodies produced by the digestive system and they do this by farting.
If you’ve ever wondered about your guinea pig’s digestive system, you’re not alone. That is why we’ve put together this article explaining how their stomachs work from food to poop, how long that takes, and what you can do to help them along the way. Check out the details below and help your guinea pig’s digestive system ASAP.
Guinea Pig Digestive System Explained
In the wild, these furry little critters mainly subsist on grass and other fibrous green foliage. Guinea pigs have a pretty normal mammal digestive system with one major difference. Check out the parts of their digestive system and how it works below.
How Long Does It Take for Guinea Pigs to Digest Food?
It takes humans a day to 3 days to completely pass food through our long digestive tract, but what about the diminutive guinea pig? From the time of eating, it takes the average guinea pig roughly 20 to 24 hours to 100% process and eliminate food. That said, guinea pigs should never go without food for more than 8 hours or so since their delicate GI system can go into GI stasis and stop working.
How to Help Your Guinea Pig’s Digestion
The not-so-secret secret to helping your guinea pig’s digestive system regulate and be as healthy as possible is to try and match their diet to roughly what they’d be eating in the wild. We don’t mean you have to go out and forage for fresh greens every day, but there are some ways you can help. Check out how below.
Conclusion
Guinea pigs have a digestive system a lot like ours but a smidge different due to their heavy fiber based diet. They fart, poop, and can have stomach troubles just like us or other animals too. However, most of the time keeping their diet consistently heavy in hay and with moderate veggies will eliminate excessive gas and keep them healthy.
Featured Image Credit: Birute Vijeikiene, Shutterstock
