Food for younger guinea pigs and weaning off pellets

[WombleandBear]

My pigs Womble and Bear are finally arriving home this Wednesday (I'm so excited!) and I'd really like them to be on a full veg diet as my research has shown me that a veg diet is better than a pellet one. However, currently they've been fed pellets. I'm not sure how to wean them off pellets without upsetting their stomachs and how much veg they should start off with as to also avoid stomach upset. Any advice would be hugely appreciated

 

[Piggies&buns]

Hay needs to be the biggest part of their diet, not veg. Veg should only make up 10% of their diet. While a wet diet can help flush the system, there may be areas of nutrition that could be lacking if you don’t get the mix of veggies right and then remove pellets altogether.
Pellets provide the supplementary nutrition where hay and veg may not cover everything. Getting the diet exactly right with a hay and veg only diet may be doable but you’d have to know what you were doing.
Pellets are such a tiny part of their diet anyway - one tablespoon per day. Provided pellets aren’t overfed, they are not bad to have in the diet and unless complete nutrition can be met from hay and veg, cutting then out altogether may not be a good idea.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

 

[WombleandBear]

Hay needs to be the biggest part of their diet, not veg. Veg should only make up 10% of their diet. While a wet diet can help flush the system, there may be areas of nutrition that could be lacking if you don’t get the mix of veggies right and then remove pellets altogether.
Pellets provide the supplementary nutrition where hay and veg may not cover everything. Getting the diet exactly right with a hay and veg only diet may be doable but you’d have to know what you were doing.
Pellets are such a tiny part of their diet anyway - one tablespoon per day. Provided pellets aren’t overfed, they are not bad to have in the diet and unless complete nutrition can be met from hay and veg, cutting then out altogether may not be a good idea.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

I've seen a lot of people just giving them a small dish of veg in the morning and evening, and a measured amount for each pig, But hay is available 24/7. I'v been looking up what kind of veg balance they need because it seems easy to get the wrong mix. If its not working for them I'll make sure to provide them with pellets I heard that some companies put a lot of extra stuff in pellets to fill them out so I just want to find out the general consensus on pellets v.s veg

 

[Wiebke]

My pigs Womble and Bear are finally arriving home this Wednesday (I'm so excited!) and I'd really like them to be on a full veg diet as my research has shown me that a veg diet is better than a pellet one. However, currently they've been fed pellets. I'm not sure how to wean them off pellets without upsetting their stomachs and how much veg they should start off with as to also avoid stomach upset. Any advice would be hugely appreciated

Hi and welcome

Unlimited hay should make over 80% of the daily food intake for long term health and a longer life span. Veg is about 10-15% and 1 tablespoon of pellets makes about 5%.

If your piggies have never had fresh veg before and nor has their mother (so there is also no traces in the milk), then their guts won't prepared for them and you will have to gradually build up tolerance and a gut microbiome that can cope with a different diet. Poor piggies!
Never introduce more than one new veg in a small quantity in any meal. Piggies learn what is edible and what not from their elders, often by sniffing their lips and snatching food from their mouths. The same also goes for drinking from a bottle; it is a learned and not an instinctive skill.
You have to brace that your babies may not even recognise veg as edible food in the first place when they haven't even had a whiff of it and neither had their elders to introduce them to it!

More practical tips and information on the different food groups in this comprehensive guide here: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets


Please use our piggy whispering techniques to make your babies feel welcome and to establish yourself as the leader of their group; this gives them an identity and authority that normally a chosen 'teacher' piggy in the group would have that they shadow to learn to master their environment and navigate the intricacies of the complex social interaction which they would learn at the age they are at when they are being sold as pets. This should also help you getting them to accept food.
You can find the relevant guides via this link here and should find it very interesting! Settling In And Making Friends With Guinea Pigs - A Guide

 

[Piggies&buns]

I've seen a lot of people just giving them a small dish of veg in the morning and evening, and a measured amount for each pig, But hay is available 24/7. I'v been looking up what kind of veg balance they need because it seems easy to get the wrong mix. If its not working for them I'll make sure to provide them with pellets I heard that some companies put a lot of extra stuff in pellets to fill them out so I just want to find out the general consensus on pellets v.s veg

I give mine their pellets in the morning and their veg in the evening (hay topped up up to five times a day normally) as that is what works best for us but many do split it and give half veg in the morning and half in the evening. I certainly don’t measure though - some days they may get more, some days less. But, as wiebke has pointed out, they need to adjust to veg slowly. It’s the same when they go out on the lawn for the first time each spring - after having been in all winter, they have to build up to grass again each year, a little at a time.

The best types of pellets are one which are grass/hay based. Yes some do add fillers - such fillers are grains (wheat, wheatfeed) and I purposefully avoid those pellets and I instead feed a grain free pellet. The amount they get literally amounts to just a few pellets each though.

 

[PigglePuggle]

Great advice you've been given there above, personally I would hesitate to go completely pellet free especially for youngsters as pellets have a lot of added vitamins and minerals that are probably helpful for good growth and development. We feed 12 pellets each twice a day most days to our adult piggies which I feel is a good compromise. Since they are all full grown chubby adults we do carefully limit pellets and sometimes we skip them if they have extra veg and hay or oats or forage type snacks. None of this filling a whole bowl with pellets business. Unlimited hay, veg twice a day, very few pellets. But with new youngsters you do need to be guided by what they are used to and make any changes gradually!