How much to give guinea pig the nuggets in grams

How much to give nuggets?

  • 30g

    Votes: 2 100.0%

  • 40g

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 50g

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    2
  • Poll closed .
E

Edj23

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Hello,

just aadvice about giving nuggets to two girls about 4 months old and wasn’t sure how much to give per pig per day.
It says 30g-50g per guinea pig daily. Is that sound bout right?
 
I think that sounds far too much, my piggies get 5g of nuggets each per day, the most important part of the diet is hay, then fresh veggies! I can see you might want to feed youngsters a bit more to make sure they get enough of the vitamin and mineral supplements in the dried food while they are still growing, but really you should start as you mean to go on diet wise, not get them too reliant on processed foods- a hay and veg based diet with very limited processed foods is the best thing you can do to keep your piggies in good health for a long life with healthy teeth and no kidney problems later on!
 
:agr:
Thats far too much. One tablespoon is all that is needed. It really won’t come to anywhere near the weights you mention.
 
Edj23 said:
View attachment 139407
used 2 heaped tablespoons for two piggies. Says 60g on there, 40g not heaped
Click to expand...
That still looks rather a lot, but I believe if you actually weighed that out it would be less than 60g... anyway, you have our recommendations! I usually just count pellets, 12 per piggy twice a day...
 
The take home message anyway about limiting pellets is that even grain free lower calcium pellets contain very high levels of calcium, at least 4x or 6x more calcium than is found in any high calcium veg.
Guinea pigs are very susceptible to getting kidney and bladder stones, formed from deposits of excess calcium. This at the very least makes them pee blood and painful gritty bits, and in some cases requires surgery, and sadly in some cases if a stone gets stuck in the urethra, the tiny narrow tube they pee through, is fatal.
Which is why limiting pellets is so important!
 
You want to give a tablespoon per piggy per day. That is ca. 20-30g.

Piggies up to 4 months can either have 1 tablespoon ofspecial baby pellets or 40g of normal pellets. The actually extra amounts are in fact minute. my babies have never had any special pellets and still lived to 8 years.

The more grass hay your piggies eat (timothy, orchard or meadow hay), the better - that is the one food that is really important and that your piggies cannot do without. It should make around 80% of what a piggy eats in a day. Pellets and a careful mix of preferably green leafy veg that is a mix of water low nutrition and some high calcium, high vitamin and trace element veg are more in the way of a daily snack.
Here is our practical and detailed diet guide that looks at all areas of diet and has a picture of a sample diet: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

This guide is part of our much more comprehensive new owners guide collection, which addresses all the areas we get the most questions and problems with in a practical but precise way where most books tend to gloss over. It is worth bookmarking and having a look at! You will find interesting stuff in there that you have likely never thought about!
Getting Started - New Owners' Most Helpful Guides
 
Wiebke said:
You want to give a tablespoon per piggy per day. That is ca. 20-30g.

Piggies up to 4 months can either have 1 tablespoon ofspecial baby pellets or 40g of normal pellets. The actually extra amounts are in fact minute. my babies have never had any special pellets and still lived to 8 years.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm a bit more restrictive with pellets than some people, but here is a photo of my monthly hay-to-pellets ratio for 8 piggies! And they are all in very good health :)
20200419_194713.webp
 
:agr:
Mine is very similar! Four boxes of hay per month and I opened the bag of pellets (also use science selective grain free) two months ago and I’m guessing there is still about another two months worth left in the bag. (2 piggies)
 
PigglePuggle said:
Maybe I'm a bit more restrictive with pellets than some people, but here is a photo of my monthly hay-to-pellets ratio for 8 piggies! And they are all in very good health :)
View attachment 139410
Click to expand...

I simply went and actually weighed a flat tablespoon of pellets as per RSPCA recommendation... it weighed more than you would expect!
 
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