Advice please

Status
Not open for further replies.
Littleun74

Littleun74

Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Bedfordshire, UK
Hi, I'm new to the forum so please be gentle :)

I have two guinea pigs, had them a week now. At the moment they are housed outside, nice large hutch with run area and also have access to larger run. My question is do I need to be concerned at the lack of hay they appear to be eating?

They have access to hay and it is regularly changed, but I'm wondering if they are preferring to eat the grass, nuggets and veggies at the moment.

Apologies if this is a question asked previously but from reading through the forum I see a big emphasis on giving the piggies plenty of hay as part of a healthy diet.

Any advice greatly appreciated.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. It is really essential guinea pigs have hay as 80% of their diet so I would stop the grass as it is only a treat anyway and see if that encourages them to eat more. Not only does it help stimulate their gut but it also keeps their teeth from being overgrown. How much pellets and vegetables are you giving them? They only need a handful of vegetables twice a day.
 
They have nuggets and some muesli (weaning them off muesli onto nuggets), which I change daily and a bowl of fresh veg daily (a variety of lettuce, celery, broccoli, carrot, cucumber, spinach, kale) occasionally they have some pear or melon. At the moment I'm still gaging what veg they like.
 
If they are not eating as much hay as you feel they should then just cut back on the nuggets and I am sure they will start to eat more.
 
Thanks for the replies, I'll try giving them a bit less dry food and veggies see if this helps.

As they are outside it's difficult to limit their access to the grass but I'll try putting some hay down in their run rather then just in hay box and see if this encourages them to eat more.

Thank you very much for your help :)
 
I put my hay in a big pile and my lot just play in and burrow underneath. They love it. Maybe you could try that with yours?
 
Thanks I'll try that tomorrow. They love burrowing in the hay where they sleep and jump in and out of their hay box. Perhaps they're munching on it at night :)
 
Hay is grass dried by man and is not something piggies would have had access to in the wild. Piggies came from the grasslands of the Andes and so their natural diet is grass. The reason most of us feed hay is because we cannot provide 24 hour grass grazing for our piggies. Piggies do prefer grass to hay. If your piggies are eating grass, there is nothing to worry about. Some piggies do get upset tummies if they are not used to grass and suddenly have unlimited access to it.
 
Thanks Lily that's put my mind at ease. They don't appear to be suffering from upset tummy and are very happy, healthy looking piggies :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top