Herbs

[Daisy Lennon]

How many fresh herbs are too many? Hurricane loves thyme, coriander, basil and flat-leafed parsley and will also eat mint. He eats these before anything else and would easily eat nothing else if given half a chance. I give him about 2 stalks of a couple of varieties of the above herbs twice a day. Is this too much? I know it won't do harm as such but it's not that high in vitamin c and if he stuffs himself on that it may prevent him eating other things. I have continued to do it as he doesn't like lettuce, cabbage, kale, broccoli or sprouts and I think he should be having some greens. I have started growing cress and microherbs too.

Thanks!​

 

[Julesie]

Try him with pepper. Pepper wins all of my pigs around. I have one pig who dislikes green pepper but tears into red or yellow. Green beans are usually a winner too with mine.

As for too much. I really don't know. I'll let someone else answer. I tend to give my guinea pigs 5 pieces of coriander per pig and occasionally as a treat I give them one piece of dill.

 

[Nicola_]

I'm not 100% on all of those herbs, I know coriander can be fed a couple of stalks everyday (or a little more every other day) and flat leaf parsley I think should just be once or twice a week. I'm fairly certain mint and basil would be an occassional treat but as I say, not 100% sure so hopefully someone else can clarify.

Just to let you know what my piggies like to help with some extra ideas; carrots and babycorn are their favourites; they also love pretty much any salad mixes; they'll also eat cucumber, celery, brocolli, green beans and pepper. I give them the occassional cherry tomato as well but I don't think they're too bothered about fruits in general which suits me as I believe you need to be quite cautious when feeding fruit.

 

[Stewybus]

Mine love coriander, parsley & garden mint. They get 1 or 2 pieces of these a day. Some of them also like rocket. Since we got a pair of bunnies & got Spinach for them we tried it with the piggies & they love that too. When they were younger, they wouldn't touch it so if there's something you tried last year & they didn't like it, try it again because it seems that their tastes do change over the years.

 

[Daisy Lennon]

Great advice from everyone. Thanks! Hurricane does enjoy pepper and carrot as well but he isn't bothered by fruit of any sort really. As Nicola said, that's probably a good thing! ,