Aubergine - Could It Have Caused A 'slight' Illness?

[tabelmabel]

Hiya - in need of advice please as was very worried about mike this morning.

So basically, every morning i go into my kitchen (where the pigs live) and put a handful of pellets into their bowl on the upper cage level and it's always met with plenty of wheeks and great joy as both mike and benson scoff the pellets as fast as they can.

This morning benson was there as normal but no mike. This is the first time this has ever happened.

Looked downstairs to see mike sitting in the corner. Not good at all.

Worried, i thought what's the most tempting food i can offer - reddi grass. So i put a handful downstairs and he was over to it pretty much straight away and eating.

After taking the kids to school, i cleaned the upper level and filled the hay loft with lots of new hay and mike zoomed up immediately popcorning and twittering away looking perfectly fine - eating hay looking all good.


So - I'm not sure what to think. Yesterday mike (and benson for that matter) had aubergine for the first time. It had the skin on and possibly a few seeds (there didn't look to be many seeds at all)

Mike is a very greedy eater and I'm sure he would have eaten more than benson and very fast too - i put about 4 smallish offcuts of aubergine in.


My only other theory is could he have had a fright during the night possibly with the cat or did another cat come in through our cat flap. (The cage was closed as normal so no cat has been in the cage.) this theory less likely as our cat has been known to sleep on top of the cage before and the pigs aren't bothered.

I thought just hay today ( stop all veg) in case mike has an upset tummy. I'm not sure about poops as yet as i would need to isolate him from benson to see who's poop is whose!


I'll keep a close eye on him but he is certainly acting normally just now. Any ideas what could cause him to appear ill this morning but be zipping around popcorning and eating half an hour later?

 

[Elwickcavies]

It's hard to judge what has caused Mike to be a bit "under the weather". It may have been the aubergine, or something else, as you say. The only thing you can do is to keep a close eye, as you are doing and see how he goes.

 

[Wiebke]

All you can do is to switch from weighing weekly to weighing daily at the same time to see whether they are still eating regularly.

Aubergine is not exactly a food that I would feed to a guinea pig.

 

[tabelmabel]

Ha ha!Very diplomatically put @Wiebke! That's hilarious! It's not often a food i use tbh but yesterday a recipe called for 3 aubergines and when I'd chopped them, i had an enormous quantity and i thought far too many for my pot.

I did check online before feeding and saw that piggies love them safe once a week. Mine certainly did love them - i since see that they should be regarded as 'junk food for pigs' as they are full of sugar and empty calories. I don't think I'll risk them again. Mike seems right as rain now but it is a handy reminder as to how quickly they can go downhill.

Cheers also @Elwickcavies, i appreciate your reply too

 

[Veggies Galore]

Ha ha!Very diplomatically put @Wiebke! That's hilarious! It's not often a food i use tbh but yesterday a recipe called for 3 aubergines and when I'd chopped them, i had an enormous quantity and i thought far too many for my pot.

I did check online before feeding and saw that piggies love them safe once a week. Mine certainly did love them - i since see that they should be regarded as 'junk food for pigs' as they are full of sugar and empty calories. I don't think I'll risk them again. Mike seems right as rain now but it is a handy reminder as to how quickly they can go downhill.

Cheers also @Elwickcavies, i appreciate your reply too

I remember reading somewhere that aubergine was OK to give occasionally - but most sources don't mention aubergine as a guinea pig food . I stopped giving it -as it's better to be safe than sorry . Same with runner beans - I give green beans - but not runner beans.