Young and growing animals are more susceptible to deformities of the bones. The scurvy guinea pig can die from starvation within 3 or 4 weeks. At least every three days. Recovery within less than a week. 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 ususual 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. This causes an other problem, called Pseudo Scurvy , in the guinea pig. Where I live, in Sweden, even breeders with over 100 guinea pigs gives fresh vegetables or grass daily. When you give vitamin C, the guinea pig retain it for approximately 4 days.