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Feeding Grass And Preparing Your Piggies For Lawn Time

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Wiebke

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Warmer spring weather is on the way - and that means the start of the lawn season!

How to provide the run
- Provide a shelter against wind and weather, as temperatures can drop quickly as soon as the sun has gone or a sudden shower crops up. Make sure that your piggies have access to hay to help balance the digestion and ideally a place slightly above the ground that is dry and warm, so they don't catch UTI (urinary tract infection).

- Remember to make a run safe against predator from above!

- Part of the run should always be out of the sun. Unless the day is really unseasonably warm, limit the first few times your piggies are outside to let them get used to it.

- Make sure that any plastic hideys are out of the sun, as they quickly heat up and turn into ovens in full sun, especially on hotter days.


How to best prepare indoors guinea pigs for the lawn season

- It would be good if you started to gradually accustom your piggies to fresh, rich grass once the new grass starts growing out again in early Spring and then Autumn again (depending on the country).
Start with small ripped grass portions and then up the amount every time in order to avoid diarrhoea or, at the worst, bloat on their first full stay on the lawn with an unaccustomed gut microbiome. This is especially important for young, frail or elderly guinea pigs!
This video here from Cavy Corner (with their permission) shows you how much grass you should give your guinea pigs that have never had any before.
Mother Myrtle arrived in rescue with dad and babies and then had another lot of babies because dad had not been separated before her giving birth and coming into season straight away again. Here she is with her three daughters from two litters.

- Treat your guinea pigs like tender plants and accustom them to the outdoors slowly on sunny, warmish afternoons with sheltering away from wind if wished and well insulated from the still cool ground.

- Please remember to put indoors piggies only out on the grass for the first when the lawn is warm and dry to your own bare feet for at least 5 minutes in order to prevent UTI (urinary tract infection). Guinea pigs are alot closer to the ground. If your feet are cold and damp, they will be, too!

- A freshly cut short lawn for the first outings means that your piggies are less likely to overeat. Also start with shorter trips to the lawn and not put them out all day/afternoon on their first trip.


Beware!
- Do not feed soaking wet, not properly dried long grass in the days after plenty of rain (stick to any dry tips of a damp clump; the lower bits can start fermenting) or any frozen grass; it can all cause tummy upsets.

- Please do not feed lawn mower clippings; they ferment very quickly and can cause digestive problems.

- If you have treated, freshly sown (most seeds - including 'pet safe' products - are coated for better growth) or laid new lawn, you need to wait until you have mowed the grass 3-4 times before it is safe for the piggies to graze.
This also applies if you have treated in the autumn and want to put out the guinea pigs in the spring.

- Please remember that dog and fox pee is poisonous to guinea pigs; make sure that you don't let them have any grass or fresh greens from places where dogs could have toileted - this applies parks and road verges, too. Fresh dog pee can (and does) kill! Always carefully rinse any wild forage or grass that you bring home.

- Creeping buttercup and moss are poisonous. Too many daisies are also not good to eat.
 
This might be a stupid question but what about cat pee? I'll be spending some time at my parents' house for a few weeks and they have a garden with grass, would love to let the pigs out on it for a bit, definitely no dogs will have been in it but there are quite a lot of cats in the neighbourhood that toilet in their garden sometimes, would this be poisonous too?
 
good point, the grass out the back of our home has dogs walking through lots of the day, so would it be a bad plan to let them out there? x (in a run of course!)
 
good point, the grass out the back of our home has dogs walking through lots of the day, so would it be a bad plan to let them out there? x (in a run of course!)

I would recommend to fence off an area for the guinea pigs where the dogs can't go to make sure that the grass is not contaminated. We have sadly had at least one case on the forum where piggies died after eating grass that a dog had freshly peed on.
 
I want to take mine outside for playtime. I have been picking grass for them and giving it inside. For their first time in the grass how long should I let them be out and eat? I don't want the
To get sick. @Wiebke
 
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