You and your guinea pig may have more in common than you realize. Both you and your guinea pig must have vitamin C to survive. Sadly, guinea pigs suffer many health problems that can be attributed to a vitamin C deficiency. Unlike other mammals who manufacture vitamin C from glucose in the body, you and your guinea pig both lack a particular enzyme needed to perform this process. Thus, both human and guinea pig vitamin C requirements must be satisfied by external sources. So a daily vitamin C supplement is absolutely necessary to insure that your cavy is getting her daily requirement of this important vitamin.

Your guinea pig must have a regular source of vitamin C or it will perish. There are two broad classes of vitamin: water-soluble vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin. Fat-soluble vitamins (like vitamins A, D, E and K) are dissolved by lipids – fat globules. Once these vitamins are absorbed by lipids, they are stored up in your body’s tissues.

The good news is that you cannot give your pig (or yourself) an overdose of vitamin C. The body cannot store a significant quantity of vitamin C. It will simply excrete the excess in the urine. However, there is also bad news: because vitamin C passes so quickly through your cavy’s body, they must be given supplements on a daily basis.

A great way to insure that your pig’s diet contains sufficient amounts of C vitamin is to feed them a diet rich in dark leafy vegetables such as parsley, kale or romaine lettuce. Be sure to avoid iceberg lettuce as it is mostly water and empty calories. Iceberg lettuce is essentially devoid of any nutritional value. As a general rule of thumb – the darker and richer the color of a fruit or vegetable – the more vitamins it contains and the more nutritionally desirable it is.

To insure that your pig is getting sufficient amounts of daily vitamin C, it is also recommended that you supplement its diet with vitamin C supplements in the form crystals, tablets or liquid drops. Tablets or crystals can be ground or crushed into a fine powder and sprinkled on food. Or the powder can also be dissolved in your cavy’s drinking water. Liquid supplements can be added to drinking water or sprinkled on your guinea pig’s food.

Be careful when adding vitamin C to your pig’s drinking water. Vitamin C can be destroyed by substances found in tap water in certain regions. Your safest bet is to use distilled or purified water.

Your cavy needs vitamin C to survive. While supplementation is recommended, it should not be the only source of vitamin C for your guinea pig. Your pig’s diet should also contain plenty of dark green vegetables and rich, colorful fruits. Since vitamin C is water-soluble, there is little danger of giving too much vitamin C to your cavy. Excess vitamin C is not stored in the body. It will be safely eliminated from the body in the urine.