DrinkIng water

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

emma bailey

Joined
Jun 23, 2012
Messages
267
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Location
Leeds west yorkshire
Hello,
My guinea pigs have a water bottle attached to there cage and although they both now what it is they climb up and sniff it I have only seen one of them use it they really don't drink much, should I put a water bowl in ? If so how deep?.
They eat fresh fruit and veg every day and have fresh grass and hay. Oh and some pellet food.
Thanks Emma x:)
 
How long have you had your piggies ?
Do you put anything in the water like vitamin c drops ? These can put piggies of there water,
Putting a water bowl in isn't the best option as its not very sanitary, piggies *** get dirty bedding and poops in it and will also get wet and then cold from walking in it.
My guinea pig marmite doesn't use his bottle when it's hung from the outside of his cage in as it's a little too high so i use hair bands to let it hang on the inside so its a lot lower he uses it then.
 
Usually its because they're getting enough water content from their fresh veg. I wouldnt worry.
 
I agree with Hanwombat for sure. Generally, a piggy won't drink much if they're getting a lot of wet fresh veg. Their ancestors came from the dry slopes of the foothills of the Andes where there isn't much water so they naturally get a lot of their water form their food.

However, having said that, one of our boars is really bad at drinking from the bottle. He generally manages to get more on his face and the floor than in his mouth. What we do is to put a bowl down during floortime just in case he wants a quick drink.

The thing with bowls in cages is that they will get very dirty very quickly or can get flipped over so I wouldn't recommend it.
 
So glad you posted this!
I had my rescue piggies since sunday evening. They dont seem to have touched a drop of the water. Ive changed it every day but they just havent touched it.

Thier poops are quite wet so they cant be dehydrated and the vet on monday said they defo were not dehydrated.

So should i just keep putting the water in and then checking to see if thier poop gets drier for signs of dehydration? They go nuts for juicy carrots so ive been putting them in once a day with plenty of kale and brocolli so fingers crossed this will be enough.

They came with this cheap tesco bargin price musli mix and i want to change them onto plain crunchy pellets of a better standard as advised by my vet. I'm a little worried that this could tip the balance though......

any advice?
 
i find that my piggies drink less when its wet, i wouldn't worry they know where the bottle is. just check that there is nothing blocking the spout and the water is coming out ok.
also i would only feed your piggies kale occasionally as its high in calcium and thats not good for them. try spinach instead, mine love it!
 
OO thanks for that i didnt know that about kale! I only just put some in as a treat because the cabbage i got them went all cacky and i didnt want to feed them it.

They had loads of spinach this week so I'm going to look at intoducing some new foods soon.

They are only used to carrots. brocolli and spinach.. not sure what to try them with. They had a tiny piece of cucumber when we were travelling and i was taking them to the vets and they loved it! But i was always told to avoid cucumber because of its high water content (thus why it was used for travelling)

The vet said a little bit of cucumber was fine as long as they were eating thier pellets and i didnt give them too much.

I'm going away next week and my housemate is going to be looking after them and she is a novice so i'm thinking i might get her to stick 2 small bits in every other day to make sure they are getting something whilst I'm away :S
 
It sounds as if you may be giving a little too much veg, their poop should not be wet, it should hold its shape and not be mushy if that makes sense.

I also made the change from muesli to pellets, they didnt like it to begin with but I just kept reducing the muesli and increasing the pellets and it worked.

FYI carrots are high in sugar so should not be fed alot and brocolli and kale are both high in calcium so watch how much you feed of them too, there is a lot of threads about what veggies to eat and how much etc.

Hope you are enjoying your piggies, dont worry if all the information is a bit confusing to begin with, this place is great and you learn something new every day :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top