How About Juice?

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Sazzy

Sazzy

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I'm a first-time piggy mom and have questions about diet.

For myself personally, I like to maintain a very natural, organic and fresh diet. For example, I try to avoid fast food and things with truck-loads of preservatives as much as I can. This got me thinking about the typical pellets that are available commercially for piggies. While I agree that timothy hay is essential, I'm a little wary of the generic pellets and would prefer to provide my pets fresh sources of vitamin-C; they like the pellets so I don't want to eliminate them entirely, but I would like to supplement them quite often for unprocessed alternatives.

One thing I thought about was juice in their water. Is this a good idea, or no? I haven't done it yet, as I would like to obtain other opinions. By juice, I don't mean the typical supermarket stuff which is loaded with artificial flavourings and high fructose corn syrup. In my area, there is a brand called "Raw" which is comprised purely of vegetables/ fruit and the water which naturally occurs within the plants.

Any thoughts on this? Would the piggies respond well, or would it be too weird for their system?
 
I would be concerned that the may be put off by the taste (for example we often find on the forum that piggies drink less when vitamin c drops are added to their water) or high natural sugars content. Veggies, although important, make up a small portion of a guinea pigs diet and I believe you would be better feeding them fresh veg and fruit and just leaving the water plain.
 
plain water is best. pellets and even veggies make up a small part of the diet overall. you don't have to feed pellets if you don't want to and many vets recommend this, or as close to feeding none as you can get. you're right that pellets are really not great.

hays and grass contain vitamin c aswell so feeding a wide range, and a small amount of veggies each day will keep them as healthy as possible. veggies tend to be either a small amount of leafy greens, or a small amount of leafy greens with even smaller amount of other non-leafy greens generally :)
 
I agree I don't think juice is a good idea fresh veg and fruit is best. I feed a small amount of pellets a day but nothing like the amount recommended on the packet as this seem excessive, after all the manufacturers want you to buy lots of their product.
 
Ok, so basically keep up with the hay, don't mess with the water (apart from keeping it fresh) and provide a small lettuce/kale salad once daily maybe? Thanks so much for the input!
 
They seemed to enjoy carrots, but I think that's also due to their gnawing habits lol
 
I'd agree with the others, stick to plain fresh water and hay. Pellets don't need to be included if you don't want to but fresh veggies serve an important function in terms of vitamins and minerals even if they only make up a small portion of their diet.

Here's a link to the fruit & veg list which also includes vitamin C levels:
Edible And Forbidden Veg And Fruit List With Vitamin C Grading

I find a variety of fruit and veg goes down well. Lettuce is ok but as it is mainly water and has fairly little nutritional content then stick to things like Cos or Romaine lettuce and in moderation. Peppers are an excellent source of vitamin C and popular with most piggies.

Try new things with them gradually so it doesn't overwhelm them and their tummies. Piggies can have fads where they prefer one thing over another and this is normal so just because they don't eat it now doesn't mean they won't another time.
 
Thanks for the link MerryPip. I'm going to give the peppers another go today, yesterday they weren't too enthused about them though.
 
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