{"topic_id":"exotic_nutrition_guinea_pig","category":"exotic-pet-nutrition","context":"---\ntopic_id: exotic_nutrition_guinea_pig\ncategory: exotic-pet-nutrition\ntitle: \"Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"Merck Veterinary Manual — Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_guinea_pig_vitamin_c.txt\ndate_parsed: 2026-07-28\ntokens_estimated: 0\nverified: true\nverification: c1_substring\nsource_document: \"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"Merck Veterinary Manual\"\n  title: \"Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement\"\n  url: \"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-07-28\"\n  ref: \"\"\n  doc_type: \"professional veterinary reference\"\n  needs_review: false\n---\n\n# Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement\nVerbatim first-hand facts from Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference). All bullets are exact substrings of the cited source and C1-substring verified. Numeric nutrient values are NOT asserted (NRC 2006 quantitative data unavailable).\n## Nutritional facts\n- Guinea pigs lack L -gulonolactone oxidase, which is involved in the synthesis of ascorbic acid from glucose.\n- Because of this, they require a regular source of vitamin C , which typically ranges between 10 and 25 mg/kg daily for adults and 30 mg/kg or more for growing, pregnant, lactating, or ill individuals ( 1 ).\n- Many commercial guinea pig pellets contain a stabilized form of vitamin C, which is more shelf-stable and resistant to breakdown by heat and light.\n","sources":["exotic-pet-nutrition — Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement (retrieved 2026-07-28)"],"source":{"authority":"exotic-pet-nutrition","title":"Guinea pig nutrition — dietary vitamin C requirement","url":"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals","retrieved":"2026-07-28","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)","verification_file":"pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_guinea_pig_vitamin_c.txt"},"source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)","source_file":"pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_guinea_pig_vitamin_c.txt","tokens_estimated":260,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}