Do you feed your piggys dry mix?

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mum2jack07

mum2jack07

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I'm a fairly new piggy owner,and originaly bought the dry mix with vitamin c.Having went to"just for pets" for some advice last week on my piggy,I was told that the dry mix was awful and not to use it?The lady I spoke to has keeps piggys for many yrs herself,and seemed to know her stuff.She said that the mix in the bags is stuff you wouldnt even find in the wild and therefore not fair to feed to piggys?I did take her advice and now have the pellets,moons and stars food that is just all one colour and contains everything they need in one pellet rather than a variety of mix that does nothing!Hope I made the right choice,piggy seems to be much happier now with the food I bought...oooh and it is blackcurrant flavour :) he gets this along with his fruit and veg every day :) what are your thoughts on the above?
Bev
 
She is right in a way but it doesn't suit all piggies, the thing with muesli is, some piggies dont eat all of the mix and just pick out the bits they want which is called selective feeding and means they aren't getting all of the vitamins nuetrients etc they need from the food where as wih a pellet, they cant selective feed and everything they need is in the pellets. It does tend to be more popular with pigges, and i have heard Burgess and really good quality etc.

Do they get an unlimited supply of good quality hay and water also?

Fruit should be given as a treat once or twice a week due to the high sugar content. Foods like brocoli, cabbage, sprouts, de-seeded peppers, are all naturally high in vit C so these are good foods to give, iceburg lettuce should be avoided as it has a high calcium content and can cause bladder stones.

Dont hesitate to ask if you have any other questions, sorry if you already know all i have just blabbered LOL.
 
mum2jack07 said:
I'm a fairly new piggy owner,and originaly bought the dry mix with vitamin c.Having went to"just for pets" for some advice last week on my piggy,I was told that the dry mix was awful and not to use it?The lady I spoke to has keeps piggys for many yrs herself,and seemed to know her stuff.She said that the mix in the bags is stuff you wouldnt even find in the wild and therefore not fair to feed to piggys?I did take her advice and now have the pellets,moons and stars food that is just all one colour and contains everything they need in one pellet rather than a variety of mix that does nothing!Hope I made the right choice,piggy seems to be much happier now with the food I bought...oooh and it is blackcurrant flavour :) he gets this along with his fruit and veg every day :) what are your thoughts on the above?
Bev
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All guinea pig dry food should have vitamin c not just the muesli type.

Mine don't like the pellets and I've tried loads of different ones. I've just got (at great expense) some Kleenmama timothy pellets but it's not eaten as far as I can see. I give mine Wagg guinea pig crunch which is liked. If I put half and half of each into the dish the Wagg all disappears but not the pellets.

I think everyone's getting far too technical about food, so many 'experts' on the internet. I've kept guinea pigs for years and been happy (and they have) with Gerty Guinea Pig and various veg they liked.

My current guinea pig has bladder stones and he's the only one I've ever tried to feed the 'better' diet recommended by various discussion boards because of people throwing their hands up in horror at muesli foods etc.

So I think they should be fed a bit of everything they enjoy not what someone decides is better for them.

Since mine got stones I've realised that all the information on the internet is just opinions, and really my opinion on what I used to feed my former guinea pigs who never had stones is as valid as the information I've been following with this guinea pig.
 
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We feed Putt our old girlie gerty guinea muslie food. She does selectivly feed which means lots gets thrown and she doesnt eat the full range but at 5 1/2 i will not be changing her diet. If she was younger I would but at the time we had her gerty was the easiest food to get hold off.

We feed our younger girls wagg pellets, I do think this is better as 1. they cannot selectively feed and 2. it is cheaper.

They all have plenty of hay and fresh veg which is the most important thing.

Some people don't even feed dry (just hay and veg) and others will feed different types of dry on a cylce system to stop them getting bored.

To sum up I dont think it matters, choose the best for you.
 
My lot like the Burgess Excel ( both flavours ) I don't feed them muesli because of selective feeding ( and a huge amount of waste when they only eat their favourite bits! ) and I'm not too keen on colourings etc being put into the muesli chunks either.
 
Oh, and I can save the Burgess barcodes to help piggie rescues get a discount on their food! :) :) :laluot_03:
 
AndreaJane said:
Oh, and I can save the Burgess barcodes to help piggie rescues get a discount on their food! :) :) :laluot_03:
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OO really? I have a few burgess products, do they take any barcodes? Who do you give them too?
 
I feed the burgess excel pellets because I was throwing huge amounts of food out that wasn't being eaten. It works out cheaper and they can't selective feed.
 
My two boys get wagg guinea pig crunch. They don't selective feed on it which is a godsend since its relatively cheap. Years ago when I had all my other piggies my mum bought a 15kg bag of pellets all of those piges were selective eaters so she was putting an end to that. None of them would touch the flaming stuff we tried everything and they all turned their noses up at it.

On the opposite end of the scale my boys love their guinea pig crunch a bit too much and I'm having to keep a close eye on how much they get, they're eating it far too quickly for my liking. I'm considering getting a bag of pellets and seeing how they get on with it and reserving the crunch as a bit of a treat.
 
I used to use the guinea pig mix - they seemed to like it - but i changed them onto pellets due to selective feeding.

I can certainly see the difference in them - they have much more energy and there coats don't get dull half as quick as they used to. They also seem to eat much more hay rather than pellets which is much better for them.
 
Thanks to you all,this place is very usefull! love it !
Yep,my little man "wheeks" for his breakfast in the mornings lol,so cute!He gets his carrot,cabbage,sprouts etc and loves them..he even "wheeks" for more!Greedy piggie! hehe. I did find that George was not eating that dry mix stuff anyway,so I am glad I did change the food.I have loads more questions but don't want to clogg up the forum!hehe
Thanks again.
 
I have tried mine with pellets but they won't eat them they will only eat the mixed food but have unlimited hay as well
 
I tend to lean towards pellets instead of mixed too, also've read that mixed could be a choking hazard.

All my past Guineapigs (I don't have any now due to allergy) are on pellet based.
 
Pertinent topic. I first bought Redemption some Kaytee "Fiesta" after reading the ingredients, plus it was colorful, not boring like the plain pellets. Well, that was mostly a partial waste of money as little Red loved the pellets but not the shaped and colored bits or the grains. I would watch what he ate every day to make sure I was doing it right. Finally I went through that bag of food and picked out all the things he wouldn't eat and threw them away.

The next type I bought were just pressed alfalfa pellets with all that other stuff like wheat middlings and corn whatever and soy protein thrown in. After that I bought timothy pellets because I read that too much alfalfa might have too high a concentration of calcium for the pigs. I also bought timothy/alfalfa pellets that had no other grains or legumes mixed in. Then I decided that I could mix the two types of plain pellets together and let them eat what they want. I have bought different brands searching for the most liked. Turns out that Salvatore eats them together but Red still picks out the alfalfa to eat. Oh well. We all have our preferences, I guess.
 
My piggies have the Pets at Home pellets, they seem to really like them. I think they tend to eat them later in the day though when they realise they've eaten all their veg, lol, but I almost always come down to empty bowls in the morning.

Just a note on some of the veg mentioned by the OP, try to give broccoli, cabbage and sprouts sparingly, maybe once or twice a week, else you could end up with some uncomfortable and windy piggies.
 
Rex was a selective feeder then I switched him over to excell pellets from vet advice, he loved them

Mojo and smudgy are on supreme selective, mojo doesnt seem to like them and just throws his bowl and the food everywhere, so I will be switching them over to excell since I have a bigbag left which was for rex
 
My piggies are on Wagg as it is quite lethal for me to be loose in P@H with some many lovely piggies tottering around! ... They do like the P@H pellets too though.
 
I will send mine off to them! Do they just need the numbers or the actual things cut out and posted?

thanks
 
Toffeewoffee said:
I will send mine off to them! Do they just need the numbers or the actual things cut out and posted?

thanks
Click to expand...

Cut the barcode out and send to the rescue. I'm collecting a few before I send them off rather than sending one at a time. :)
 
Mine are mostly fed on a mixed piggie food I buy from a mill who make their own animal feeds. It's a lovely moist feed, with added mollasses, which they really like and I think helps gives their coats such a nice shine.
Sometimes they have Gerty or Tesco/Co-op one if I run out (the mill is where I used to live, I moved 2 hours away, so I stock up when I visit family).

I tried them on pellets but they hate them. In fact, I've never known a pig to like them. I wasted a fair bit of money trying them, but go back to the cheap mix they love.

They get loads of veg and hay and fresh grass as well.

Mine are still mostly out at night as no frosts yet. Got some babies yesterday who are in the house at night though. The others will be going in their hutch in the stable once it starts getting really cold at night.
 
Rocky wont Eat The P@H stuff (he's the only one of our groups) we feed veg and excel in the morning then top up and add hay before bed so they have food to get thru the night
 
I give my piggies the pellets - when I have bought the muesli mix (because I've run out of their pellets and not had time to get to the few local shops that have it), they've only eatten bits of it - they really leave most of it behind.
 
I would strongly recommend carrot, GRASS!!!, cauliflower (leaves aswell), pepper(esp red ones!) and my ones love apple and pear. just try all sorts but NOT ICEBURG LETTUCE!
 
Sandradavis,my little piggie has his veg daily.Loves his cabbage,carrots,and cauli leaves but absolutely hates peppers!hehe
 
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