How much pellets to feed my guinea pigs?

[Kyogre386]

I was looking at the Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets guide and noticed something that didn't look right. It says

no more than 2 tablespoons of pellets or 1/4 cup max for mothers around 4 months and 1 tablespoon or 1/8 cup for any older sows)

I don't have female pigs, but now I am confused to what units are actually being used here. I live in the United States, and for us there are 2 tablespoons to a fluid ounce and 8 fluid ounces to a cup. That's 16 tablespoons per cup. But this seems to be using a conversion of 8 tablespoons per cup. I checked both of the UK measurement systems, the current one (metric) and the old one (imperial). According to this site, with the imperial system, there are still exactly 16 tablespoons per cup, albeit both are bigger than in the US (tablespoon is 17.75 mL instead of around 14.8 mL in the US). With metric it's 15 mL to a tablespoon and 250 to a cup, or 16 and 2/3 tablespoons to a cup. So I don't know if I have the wrong information or what because I don't see how the conversion would ever be 1:8. I've been feeding them each a US tablespoon, because the guide says near the top to give one tablespoon, and based on those conversion ratios it seemed pretty close to a UK tablespoon. But with the numbers not adding up I'm unsure whether the guide meant 1 metric tablespoon (15 mL) or 1/8 a metric cup (31.25 mL), in which case I need to double it. Can someone from the UK tell me what the conversions are so far as you're aware?

 

[Merab]

Don’t worry about exact measurements.
I worked on the basis that a handful of pellets was fine for 2 piggies.
You can just use a tablespoon rather than try to measure the exact amount.
A tablespoon of pellets is a guide, not a rule.
Conversions across different systems are confusing - I still work best in Imperial as that’s what I grew up with.

 

[Piggies&buns]

A tablespoon is 15ml. Use that measurement.

What you don’t want is to give more than that.
Yes it may be a guide but over feeding pellets can have health consequences so it’s always better to give less than more.

I don’t measure using a tablespoon, instead mine get around 10 pellets each about 3 times a week (I never give pellets daily). I know that this works out to less than a tablespoon per pig at each serving.