How much to feed baby piggies

[Susye]

Read somewhere on here (I think it was here) a cup full of pellets in the morning and a cup of fresh veggies in evening, I am assuming that is for adult piggies, so how much to feed baby piggies please, is there a good chart anywhere

 

[Betsy]

A cup full of pellets is too much. If you read it on here, you must be remembering incorrectly. The recommendation for pellets is a tablespoon per piggy per day. Its a cup of fresh veggies in the evening. That's probably where you have got confused.

 

[Piggies&buns]

It is just one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day.
One cup of veg per pig per day.
With hay being 80% of what they need to eat in a day, and always needs to be available in the cage at all times.

Whether you feed pellets in the morning and veg in the evening or any combination or routine thereof is your choice. Some people chose do half veg and half pellets twice a day.

The amounts are the same whether adults or babies.

What is important is that you feed them the brand of pellets they are already used to, so make sure you buy that brand first.
If you wish to move them to a different brand, then it needs to be done slowly over a few weeks gradually decreasing the old brand and increasing the new brand until they are fully on the new.
If you are unsure whether the brand they are having or if the brand you are intending to use are suitable, do ask us. You are ideally looking for a grain free, grass or timothy hay based pellet. It should also not contain alfalfa.
Baby piggies do not need alfalfa once they are older than three weeks of age.

Any new veg needs to be introduced slowly so as to not cause digestive upsets.
The four safe daily veg are lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper and coriander.

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

 

[Piggies&buns]

Linked to feeding, make sure you weigh them once a week as part of routine care to ensure they are eating enough hay (hay intake cannot be monitored by eye)
Weight - Monitoring and Management

 

[Susye]

A cup full of pellets is too much. If you read it on here, you must be remembering incorrectly. The recommendation for pellets is a tablespoon per piggy per day. Its a cup of fresh veggies in the evening. That's probably where you have got confused.

Thank you for your reply, and correcting me, that is why I did say I thought I had read on here, and I can see where I got confused
I don't have a tablespoon in my house, but do have measuring cups for baking in the drawer, so how can I measure a tablespoon

 

[Piggies&buns]

Thank you for your reply, and correcting me, that is why I did say I thought I had read on here, and I can see where I got confused
I don't have a tablespoon in my house, but do have measuring cups for baking in the drawer, so how can I measure a tablespoon

You will need to get an actual tablespoon measure to be accurate.
If you try to calculate and use part of a cup measure then it will be inaccurate and you risk over feeding pellets

 

[Susye]

It is just one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day.
One cup of veg per pig per day.
With hay being 80% of what they need to eat in a day, and always needs to be available in the cage at all times.

Whether you feed pellets in the morning and veg in the evening or any combination or routine thereof is your choice. Some people chose do half veg and half pellets twice a day.

The amounts are the same whether adults or babies.

What is important is that you feed them the brand of pellets they are already used to, so make sure you buy that brand first.
If you wish to move them to a different brand, then it needs to be done slowly over a few weeks gradually decreasing the old brand and increasing the new brand until they are fully on the new.
If you are unsure whether the brand they are having or if the brand you are intending to use are suitable, do ask us. You are ideally looking for a grain free, grass or timothy hay based pellet. It should also not contain alfalfa.
Baby piggies do not need alfalfa once they are older than three weeks of age.

Any new veg needs to be introduced slowly so as to not cause digestive upsets.
The four safe daily veg are lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper and coriander.

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

So I can give a cup mixed of the four veg you said above every day and little bits of new veg every so often?

how come baby piggies need the same amount of food as older piggies, thought they would need less and you would increase food amount as the piggies got older.

This is all so different and new as to how we looked after our piggies when the children were small. We used straw, never used hay at all, used the muesli food all the time and just kept the big bowl well full and gave lettuce and cucumber a few times a week and all the piggies that were fed like that all lived to be of a good age, never weighed them or anything

 

[Susye]

You will need to get an actual tablespoon measure to be accurate.
If you try to calculate and use part of a cup measure then it will be inaccurate and you risk over feeding pellets

So will that be a tablespoon from the drawer, ie the next size up from a dessert spoon or a tablespoon on a ring when you get all the sizes from a tablespoon right down to half a teaspoon?
Have always wondered about these measurements as the tablespoon from the drawer looks mega large next to the tablespoon on the ring, surely they both can't be a tablespoon

 

[Piggies&buns]

So I can give a cup mixed of the four veg you said above every day and little bits of new veg every so often?

how come baby piggies need the same amount of food as older piggies, thought they would need less and you would increase food amount as the piggies got older.

This is all so different and new as to how we looked after our piggies when the children were small. We used straw, never used hay at all, used the muesli food all the time and just kept the big bowl well full and gave lettuce and cucumber a few times a week and all the piggies that were fed like that all lived to be of a good age, never weighed them or anything

You need to find out what veg and pellets they are used to having.
They can have the four I listed daily but you still need to introduce them slowly if they have never had them before.

Their main food intake is always hay - for babies and adults. Veg and pellets are just supplementary.

Straw has absolutely no nutrition so has never been a suitable food source. Things have changed in terms of mueslies and amounts, but them needing hay has always been the case.
The issue is that back decades ago, before most people knew better, it was thought that muesli and pellets was the main food and hay was supplementary. We know that to be wrong now.
Care, research and information has come a long way.

So will that be a tablespoon from the drawer, ie the next size up from a dessert spoon or a tablespoon on a ring when you get all the sizes from a tablespoon right down to half a teaspoon?
Have always wondered about these measurements as the tablespoon from the drawer looks mega large next to the tablespoon on the ring, surely they both can't be a tablespoon

The tablespoon on a ring is the right thing to use.
A tablespoon is 15ml.