Guinea Pig diet

[Vanny]

Hello, I’ve been concerned on my piggies diet and want to make sure that I’m not feeding a diet that is neither too low or too high in calcium and I was hoping to get some advice on my diet I give my pigs. The diet includes green leaf lettuce(morning and evening), a sprig of cilantro, a slice bell pepper, cucumber, and one tablespoon of small pet select pellets (0.40%-0.60% calcium). I’ve been trying to get a good diet since one of my pigs is a bladder pig.

 

[Roselina]

Diet Guides

Hello the above link gives you a great info for a good diet
A tablespoon ( about 15ml) of pellets per pig per day but they aren’t essential
A cup of veggies per piggy per day - the ones you are giving are fine but not too much of them
And of course unlimited hay hay hay
I hope you find the link useful and keep asking questions

 

[Wiebke]

Hi and welcome

We generally recommend to filter the water as the UK is majorly a hard water country and most of the calcium in the diet is actually not coming from veg but from the water and pellets. You will have to look up the water hardness in your local area.

Apart from hay and fresh grass, all the other food groups together essentially replace the supplementary role in wild forage, so you can for instance feed a 1 inch slice of collard greens or kale once weekly (they contain mangesium which is not in pellets) if you feed half a tablespoon of pellets on the day. Or you can replace pellets altogether with fresh and dry forage. In the same way you can vary your herbs for different trace elements whenever you use some fresh ones in your own cooking. Cilantro/coriander herb is the mildest that can be fed daily.

Generally, your basic diet is fine. If you are in a soft water area you have a little more leeway with higher calcium veg or herbs. Keep in mind that the veg highest in calcium has still go less in it than the same weight of pellets; even no added calcium ones.