I Don't Know If I Am Feeding My Guinea Pigs Right Amounts Of Food.

Julia sawicka

Julia sawicka

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I have six guinea pigs and i don't know if i am feeding them right amounts of food:
vegetables twice a day
pellets once a day and
herds once a day
 
Do the pigs have unlimited hay? It should form the basis of their diet and be ca. 80% of their food intake.

In my opinion, "once daily" is not a really clear indicator of the quantity of food you're actually giving. Ca. 50 grams of leafy greens and vegetables per pig per day are usually considered the norm. This includes herbs like parsley or coriander.

Pellets are usually less than 5% of the total food intake of a pig.

I really like this food pyramid:
rabbitfoodpyramid1.jpg

It's from a rabbit blog, Rabbit & Guinea pig Food, but I think it illustrates the diet of wild and domesticated pigs pretty well, too
 
You should feed 1 cup of veggies (https://www.guineapigcages.com/food/Veggie-and-Fruit-Charts.pdf) per pig daily. In your case, feed 6 cups a day.

Each piggy should get 1/8 cup of pellets daily. So you should feed your pigs a 3/4 cup of pellets per day.

...I’m not sure what you mean by “herds”...

Give your pigs an unlimited supply of hay (I use smallpetselect.com — mine prefer the second cut) no matter what their weight is.

You should also provide a vitamin C supplement if you cannot feed 25 grams of vitamin C a day per pig (see veggie and fruit chart I linked previously). Make sure not to get the one to put in water, as this might change the amount of water they drink.
 
1 cup of fresh veggies per piggy daily.
About 1/8 cup of guinea pig pellets per pig daily.
Constant supply of hay. (Just regular)
Lots of opportunities to eat grass (there is snow here right now, so I plant grass for them)
Timothy Hay once in a while as a treat.
And Vitamin C drops, as piggies need their Vitamin C intake.
 

The recommended ratio of food groups:
- ca. 80% hay
- 10-15% veg and fresh herbs (ca. 1 cupful / 50g / nearly 2oz)
- 5-10% pellets (amount depending on the age)
- plenty of fresh water daily

Unlimited hay should be available all day and night

We feed ours this roughly

Morning:
Cucumber -1.5 cm x 2cm chunks (twice)
Celery - 1 stick between 3 chopped up small
1/6th of Red/Green/Yellow Bell Pepper (de-seeded)

Evening:
Cucumber 1.5 cm x 2cm chunks (twice)
Two Little Gem Lettuce leaves or 10 sprigs Coriander. Twice a week we will swap in cabbage or parsley

We also add in to the above diet carrot, sweet potato, celery leaves and a few other things occasionally
 
Lorcan said:
What? No. Timothy hay can easily be given on a daily basis.
Click to expand...
I was talking about what I feed them. I live in a tiny farming community, so regular hay is what I give them everyday. Timothy hay I give them as treats because it is hard to get and I have to travel like 3 hours to get it since there is no pet stores or anything here. :)
 
VolleyBallStar said:
I was talking about what I feed them. I live in a tiny farming community, so regular hay is what I give them everyday. Timothy hay I give them as treats because it is hard to get and I have to travel like 3 hours to get it since there is no pet stores or anything here. :)
Click to expand...

Ah okay my apologies, to me it read like you were suggesting just giving it to them as a treat. Sorry about that, thanks for clarifying for me!
 
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