Finally Discovered A Pellet That My Piggies Will Eat!

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Stewybus

Stewybus

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I've tried for ages finding a pellet that my piggies will eat & at last I've got one. It's Burgess Excel Guinea Pig Blackcurrant and Oregano. I had to get some more Fibreplex & Bio-Lapis from Vet UK & needed to spend a little more for free postage. I saw they had an offer on this @£3.32 for a 2Kg bag so thought I'd give it a try. I've put it out 3 days running & the bowls are always empty a few hours later so maybe I can finally say goodbye to muesli & the wastage & selective eating. Does anybody know of a better price for this or can it be bought in 10Kg or 15Kg bags. I've done a quick search & the price per 2Kg bag seems unbeatable but haven't found a larger bag yet. Here's the offer:- http://www.vetuk.co.uk/guinea-pig-f...uinea-pig-blackcurrant-and-oregano-2kg-p-3202
 
it is great you have found something. My lot love the original flavour.
 
When i first bought this home my piggies went made for the blackcurrant and oregano pellets, they like they tasty ones with mint too!
 
My pair have a mix of the 2 Burgess pellets. One picks out the mint one and the other picks out the black currant and oregano. Well suited.
 
My boys loved that too.

I'd give you mine as I no longer feed my piggies it but sadly you're too far away.
 
it only comes in the smaller bags as far as I know. I keep hoping they will do it in the bigger bags, as my boys prefer it.
 
Because the price is so good at Vet UK, I've just ordered 9 2Kg bags which takes me just over the £29 threshold for free postage. The way it's going I think a bag will do 8 piggies for no more than 2 weeks so it's just over 4 months supply. I looked for the mint pellets but they don't do them.
 
I'm glad that you found a pellet that your piggies enjoy. Some can be rather fussy!

However, I had a look at the composition of the food and found some ingredients which may be of concern:

Composition:
Grass, Maize, Wheat, Lucerne, Soya Bean Hulls, Peas, Soya, Oat Bran, Unmolassed Beet Pulp, Yeast, Soya Oil, Ligno-Cellulose, Molasses, Calcium Carbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Vitamins, Fructo-oligosaccharides 0.25%, Salt, Minerals, Blackcurrant Flavour, Oregano Oil, Contains Natural Antioxidants. No artificial colours or preservatives.

It does contain lucerne (alfalfa) and maize (corn) as major ingredients, plus a few other things which make me raise my eyebrows. I understand that it is difficult to find pellets in the UK that don't contain these kinds of ingredients (I live in Australia and it is equally as difficult and expensive to find quality food), but I would be hesitant to feed this to adult guinea pigs :(
 
What a relief for you to find a pellet that your piggies like.
PiggieLove said:
I'm glad that you found a pellet that your piggies enjoy. Some can be rather fussy!

However, I had a look at the composition of the food and found some ingredients which may be of concern:

Composition:
Grass, Maize, Wheat, Lucerne, Soya Bean Hulls, Peas, Soya, Oat Bran, Unmolassed Beet Pulp, Yeast, Soya Oil, Ligno-Cellulose, Molasses, Calcium Carbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Vitamins, Fructo-oligosaccharides 0.25%, Salt, Minerals, Blackcurrant Flavour, Oregano Oil, Contains Natural Antioxidants. No artificial colours or preservatives.

It does contain lucerne (alfalfa) and maize (corn) as major ingredients, plus a few other things which make me raise my eyebrows. I understand that it is difficult to find pellets in the UK that don't contain these kinds of ingredients (I live in Australia and it is equally as difficult and expensive to find quality food), but I would be hesitant to feed this to adult guinea pigs :(
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This concerns me too. I am having difficulty finding a pellet that my piggies enjoy but , every brand I look at has something dubious in it. Most seem to have alfalfa in them. Why do manufacturers add calcium carbonate? Most piggie owners are struggling to keep their GP's calcium intake down!
 
NewPiggieOwner said:
What a relief for you to find a pellet that your piggies like.


This concerns me too. I am having difficulty finding a pellet that my piggies enjoy but , every brand I look at has something dubious in it. Most seem to have alfalfa in them. Why do manufacturers add calcium carbonate? Most piggie owners are struggling to keep their GP's calcium intake down!
Click to expand...

I agree! I use Oxbow Adult Guinea Pig Pellets, and even they have calcium carbonate. Except they list it as "Limestone" (I'm sure most of us know that limestone is calcium carbonate).

I think we need to accept that there is no such thing as a perfectly healthy, perfectly refined pellet, but as far as all of the brands go, KM's Hayloft TC Pellets (only available in the USA) and Oxbow (available worldwide) are the two best. If any of my UK-based guinea lovers are able to find an Oxbow pellet supplier, I would highly recommend buying the Adult Guinea Pig Food.

I'm not based in the UK, so haven't had experience with any of the brands there, but from what I have read about the composition of all Pets At Home stocked guinea pig foods, none are nutritionally balanced for adult guinea pigs. Unfortunately Burgess and Science Selective are both alfalfa based, and while the Pets@Home nuggets aren't alfalfa based, they have about as much nutritional value as toilet paper.
 
PiggieLove said:
I agree! I use Oxbow Adult Guinea Pig Pellets, and even they have calcium carbonate. Except they list it as "Limestone" (I'm sure most of us know that limestone is calcium carbonate).

I think we need to accept that there is no such thing as a perfectly healthy, perfectly refined pellet, but as far as all of the brands go, KM's Hayloft TC Pellets (only available in the USA) and Oxbow (available worldwide) are the two best. If any of my UK-based guinea lovers are able to find an Oxbow pellet supplier, I would highly recommend buying the Adult Guinea Pig Food.

I'm not based in the UK, so haven't had experience with any of the brands there, but from what I have read about the composition of all Pets At Home stocked guinea pig foods, none are nutritionally balanced for adult guinea pigs. Unfortunately Burgess and Science Selective are both alfalfa based, and while the Pets@Home nuggets aren't alfalfa based, they have about as much nutritional value as toilet paper.
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Thank you for this reply. I am desperately trying to get my piggies on to a decent dry food but they will only eat the P@H ones. This is causing me a lot of anguish as my new years resolution is not to buy products from pet shops that sell live mammals. My intention was to use up my P@H packet whilst gradually introducing Oxbow but the little tinkers pick out the p@H nuggets and leave the Oxbow. It's like having a pair of teenage boys!
 
PiggieLove said:
I agree! I use Oxbow Adult Guinea Pig Pellets, and even they have calcium carbonate. Except they list it as "Limestone" (I'm sure most of us know that limestone is calcium carbonate).

I think we need to accept that there is no such thing as a perfectly healthy, perfectly refined pellet, but as far as all of the brands go, KM's Hayloft TC Pellets (only available in the USA) and Oxbow (available worldwide) are the two best. If any of my UK-based guinea lovers are able to find an Oxbow pellet supplier, I would highly recommend buying the Adult Guinea Pig Food.

I'm not based in the UK, so haven't had experience with any of the brands there, but from what I have read about the composition of all Pets At Home stocked guinea pig foods, none are nutritionally balanced for adult guinea pigs. Unfortunately Burgess and Science Selective are both alfalfa based, and while the Pets@Home nuggets aren't alfalfa based, they have about as much nutritional value as toilet paper.
Click to expand...

Another point to mention is that I emailed p@h asking them for a nutritional breakdown of their nuggets and they haven't got back to me . perhaps I should go down there and see if there is a cute little Labrador pup that can give me an answer.
 
NewPiggieOwner said:
Another point to mention is that I emailed p@h asking them for a nutritional breakdown of their nuggets and they haven't got back to me . perhaps I should go down there and see if there is a cute little Labrador pup that can give me an answer.
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Hahaha :lol:

Keep at it with the Oxbow pellets. You're doing the right thing by introducing them gradually. My guinea pigs didn't particularly like them at first, but they will learn to like them when it's the only thing that's in their bowl! Now mine gobble them up :)
 
PiggieLove said:
Hahaha :lol:

Keep at it with the Oxbow pellets. You're doing the right thing by introducing them gradually. My guinea pigs didn't particularly like them at first, but they will learn to like them when it's the only thing that's in their bowl! Now mine gobble them up :)
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Yes , I think I'll persevere.
 
I fed all mine on burgess excel for years - now I have a boar with a kidney stone and sludgy bladder ,as well as a sludgy sow ,they are very high in calcium - I now always look at calcium content and mine are on either Vetcare multimodal food from vetuk or fibrefirst - both 0.8 and 0.6 calcium per kilo as opposed to 8gms per kilo.
 
TAN said:
I fed all mine on burgess excel for years - now I have a boar with a kidney stone and sludgy bladder ,as well as a sludgy sow ,they are very high in calcium - I now always look at calcium content and mine are on either Vetcare multimodal food from vetuk or fibrefirst - both 0.8 and 0.6 calcium per kilo as opposed to 8gms per kilo.
Click to expand...

Thank for telling us about this, I'm concerned now as I've been feeding mine of Burgess excel since i got them but i will defiantly make a switch now to something better for them as i don't want them to get any health issues.

:)
 
TAN said:
I fed all mine on burgess excel for years - now I have a boar with a kidney stone and sludgy bladder ,as well as a sludgy sow ,they are very high in calcium - I now always look at calcium content and mine are on either Vetcare multimodal food from vetuk or fibrefirst - both 0.8 and 0.6 calcium per kilo as opposed to 8gms per kilo.
Click to expand...

And a thank you from me too -it just goes to show how important it is to check the labels when deciding to change onto a different dry food. I'm going to have to get some notes on paper - bit like when you click the compare button on some shopping websites.

I don't want my piggies having health issues because of their dry food . I
 
TAN said:
I fed all mine on burgess excel for years - now I have a boar with a kidney stone and sludgy bladder ,as well as a sludgy sow ,they are very high in calcium - I now always look at calcium content and mine are on either Vetcare multimodal food from vetuk or fibrefirst - both 0.8 and 0.6 calcium per kilo as opposed to 8gms per kilo.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify this, the vetcare multimodal is 0.5% calcium, fibafirst monoforage is 0.6% calcium and the Burgess excel ones (both types) are 0.9% calcium. The oxbow ones are between 0.35% and 0.85% as they list a minumum and maximum.

The blackcurrant and oregano pellets are only available in 2kg bags, it says so on the Burgess website.

I just got some of the fibafirst monoforage it's a different type of feed to pellets and comes in long sticks - my boys ran off with a stick each all excited but I'm not sure if they've actually eaten them yet!

Calcium intake should be considered in the whole diet (hay and veg as well as pellets) and the appropriate calcium:phosphorus ratio should be maintained. It is also possible to feed a pellet free diet consisting of hay, veg, grass and other plants.
 
Hermes said:
Just to clarify this, the vetcare multimodal is 0.5% calcium, fibafirst monoforage is 0.6% calcium and the Burgess excel ones (both types) are 0.9% calcium. The oxbow ones are between 0.35% and 0.85% as they list a minumum and maximum.

The blackcurrant and oregano pellets are only available in 2kg bags, it says so on the Burgess website.

I just got some of the fibafirst monoforage it's a different type of feed to pellets and comes in long sticks - my boys ran off with a stick each all excited but I'm not sure if they've actually eaten them yet!

Calcium intake should be considered in the whole diet (hay and veg as well as pellets) and the appropriate calcium:phosphorus ratio should be maintained. It is also possible to feed a pellet free diet consisting of hay, veg, grass and other plants.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this info which is really useful. It would be interesting to see what calcium content there is in different types of hay & vegetable. Maybe someone has done a list on these already!
 
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