Guinea pigs eating less to no hay, please help!

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Gin1217

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Hello,

I recently got five guinea pigs, they are all between 4-5 months old (I've had them for 2 months now). For the last few days my guinea pigs have been eating less hay, but this morning I noticed that they didn't even touch the hay I placed all night. They eat their veggies as normal and their pellets, are full of energy, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with their teeth. So I was wondering if there was something wrong with the Timothy Hay that I bought a few days ago? This is how it looks like 61-A7-B695-B8-B3-4358-8-D26-12-E4-C05-C413-D 01424741-D3-EA-49-CB-8-CAE-2-A119-B2855-FB .I am relatively new so I don't know how to differentiate good from bad hay yet.

If the hay is not the problem, any ideas about what might be the cause?
 
Vegetable_Monster said:
Maybe you are being too generous with the pellets ? Try taking them away and see if they switch . Animals are like children . They want the junk before the actual meal
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Just to make sure I'm doing it correctly. Is it one tbsp of pellets per guinea pig?
 
The only way to know they are eating enough hay is to weigh them as hay intake cannot be judged by eye. If you have concerns, then switch from the routine weekly weight checks and instead weigh them daily. This enables you to step in more quickly if there is a health problem brewing.

If all of them start eating less, then its either the hay isnt to their taste (they can be very picky little things!) or the biggest concern would be a contagious illness so its definitely something to keep an eye on.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Yes, one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day.
 
Piggies&buns said:
The only way to know they are eating enough hay is to weigh them as hay intake cannot be judged by eye. If you have concerns, then switch from the routine weekly weight checks and instead weigh them daily. This enables you to step in more quickly if there is a health problem brewing.

If all of them start eating less, then its either the hay isnt to their taste (they can be very picky little things!) or the biggest concern would be a contagious illness so its definitely something to keep an eye on.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Yes, one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day.
Click to expand...
Which weighing scale would you recommend? Or any would do? I don't have one right now. Also, thanks for the help, I will start weighing them as soon as possible!
 
Gin1217 said:
Which weighing scale would you recommend? Or any would do? I don't have one right now. Also, thanks for the help, I will start weighing them as soon as possible!
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A digital kitchen scale is needed

are your piggies all sows?
 
Sometimes a switch in hay can put them off if they are all wary of the change and no-one wants to be the first to start eating! Perhaps if you offer your 'old' hay alongside the newer one? The only time I've rejected hay is because I've opened the bag and there was a strong smell of mushrooms. It turned out this was because the hay had got wet in the shop. I took it straight back for a refund - they said there'd been a leak but they didn't realise the hay had been affected. Fresh hay usually smells really nice but even if if smells of nothing at all they've tucked in. It's just the obvious 'bad' smell to avoid I think. If you have any grass that you can be sure dogs have not peed on you could try them with that?
 
I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for helping me out, I ran to the store and bought new hay and I saw the difference between the new one seems to be fresher and it did smell really nice like you guys said it should. My piggies seem to like it because they immediately started to eat some of it.
I'm still going to keep monitoring them and weighing them every day to see if any changes occur!
 
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