Burgess Excel Or Oxbow Cavy Cuisine?

[Georgiacait]

Hi, I'm doing my research about guinea pigs and i'm struggling on deciding on pellets. All along I was going to get burgess excel nuggets but when doing my research I found out they were alfalfa based (on the packet in says Lucerne which is another name for alfalfa) so I carried on with my research and a lot of people use oxbow which is timothy based and in turn is lower in calcium. The problem is it is quite hard to get hold of but i could feed a large variety of vegetables. Burgess excel is readily available but i couldn't feed as many veg. What do you all prefer? do you have any problems with burgess excel?
Any insight will be helpful x
Thank you x

 

[annaa]

I have been feeding our guinea pigs burgess excel for years without any problems - I wasn't aware of the alfalfa issue until recently. Saying that however, looking at the list of ingredients I wouldn't say they were alfalfa based as it is 5th on the list of ingredients, with the number one being grass. This is significantly different to something like science selective (which I've also used in the past) which has alfalfa as it's number one ingredient.
I am personally more concerned about the things like the calcium phosphates that are listed which has prompted me to look and see what else is available. Got a big bag of excel to get through first though, so I'm still looking. I am quite interested in the JR Farm nuggets though as they seem to be made up entirely of grass and herbs with no additives.

 

[tabelmabel]

Mine loved burgess excel blackcurrant and oregano which pets at home used to sell. Now i can only get it online. when p@h stopped stocking the blackcurrant one, we tried science selective which was quite popular.

I then switched them to oxbow cavy cuisine which was a big hit. It is easily available online. The problem with it is that is is available as baby or adult. So i have the adult one which was fine until i got a baby pig.

I have gone back to ordering burgess blackcurrant and oregano online but ill likely move back to oxbow once th baby is 6 months or so.

I never have had any problems with burgess. The minty one isn't as preferred by my pigs but it all gets eaten and the pigs do well on it.

 

[Georgiacait]

i've seen the JR farm pellets and it's something i'm looking into. Thank you for your opinion.