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A question about eating poop, just out of curiosity...

HeatherRose

HeatherRose

Adult Guinea Pig
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I know guinea pigs are supposed to eat some of their poops, but how do they know which ones to eat? Do they reach down there sometimes and get the wrong kind and spit it out like “ew, that one’s no good”? Or do they know when the good ones are about to come out? Also am I weird for sitting here thinking about this? LOL
 
HeatherRose said:
I know guinea pigs are supposed to eat some of their poops, but how do they know which ones to eat? Do they reach down there sometimes and get the wrong kind and spit it out like “ew, that one’s no good”? Or do they know when the good ones are about to come out? Also am I weird for sitting here thinking about this? LOL
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Hi!

Guinea pigs digest their food twice to break up the tough fibre and get all the nutrients from it. There are waste poos from both runs.

The caecotrophs (the poos with the yet undigested fibre that get eaten for the second run) are produced at a different time to those poos and look slightly different in colour. The piggies know exactly when they are coming and tend to pick them straight up from their genitalia if they are mobile/agile enough. Older piggies that are no longer able to, need to turn around and sniff them out on the ground.

Caecotrophs are also what collects in impacted boars. Some will eat at least part of the built up mass, others won't. But that is why a very steady regular very high fibre diet is so important for impacted boars and can help manage the occurrance in the milder stages.

I hope that that helps you?
 
They know when one is coming cos they start wiggling and then put their head down to collect it from source!

I can tell when Silk is on my lap and one is coming! She never does the other kind, or wee, on my lap. Just before the eaty-poo she will tug at my clothes and get fidgety and then down goes her head! Then afterwards she'll settle down for a few more minutes, but it won't be long before she needs to go back home.

If she didn't need need to eat, drink and wee she'd happily snooze on my lap 24/7 (much like my youngest child.)
 
Jezzy floof fed her poops to Puggle when she had bad bloat, she was feeding her poops and licking Puggle's bottom trying to get her to poop herself, I guess mummy pigs would do this for babies usually? And Theo once tried to feed me a fresh poop he'd picked straight out of his bum which was very kind of him. I've seen Theo eats poops from his favorite girls too, maybe they have pheromone cues in? So my lot do quite a bit of poop sharing I think!
 
PigglePuggle said:
Jezzy floof fed her poops to Puggle when she had bad bloat, she was feeding her poops and licking Puggle's bottom trying to get her to poop herself, I guess mummy pigs would do this for babies usually? And Theo once tried to feed me a fresh poop he'd picked straight out of his bum which was very kind of him. I've seen Theo eats poops from his favorite girls too, maybe they have pheromone cues in? So my lot do quite a bit of poop sharing I think!
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Thats pretty impressive stuff 👍
 
PigglePuggle said:
Jezzy floof fed her poops to Puggle when she had bad bloat, she was feeding her poops and licking Puggle's bottom trying to get her to poop herself, I guess mummy pigs would do this for babies usually? And Theo once tried to feed me a fresh poop he'd picked straight out of his bum which was very kind of him. I've seen Theo eats poops from his favorite girls too, maybe they have pheromone cues in? So my lot do quite a bit of poop sharing I think!
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Aren’t they sweet to share such a special treat!
 
Wiebke said:
Hi!

Guinea pigs digest their food twice to break up the tough fibre and get all the nutrients from it. There are waste poos from both runs.

The caecotrophs (the poos with the yet undigested fibre that get eaten for the second run) are produced at a different time to those poos and look slightly different in colour. The piggies know exactly when they are coming and tend to pick them straight up from their genitalia if they are mobile/agile enough. Older piggies that are no longer able to, need to turn around and sniff them out on the ground.

Caecotrophs are also what collects in impacted boars. Some will eat at least part of the built up mass, others won't. But that is why a very steady regular very high fibre diet is so important for impacted boars and can help manage the occurrance in the milder stages.

I hope that that helps you?
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Wow, that is very interesting.
 
Ive always found nesquik cereal to be a bit bad, a rabbit for the mascot and they look just like rabbit poop. Really?!
 
PigglePuggle said:
I think Harrington's piggy food looks a bit too much like poops, Theo arrived with a bag of Harringtons and without my glasses on I could never be sure of he'd pooped in the food bowl or not finished his dinner!
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Yea they do actually. One of my pigs pees in the food bowl, havnt caught who yet, but my guess is Dot spraying
 
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