I'm confused - please read.

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squeakysmallpaws

squeakysmallpaws

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I had to take one of my piggies to the vet recently. Turns out all is fine but the vet and I got on to the topic of diet.

He said to me that I should limit the amount of pellets that I’m feeding to a small handful per evening but should be feeding them copious amounts of ‘leafy greens’.

Now my piggies get fed – too much - according to all the literature. I can’t help myself when they’re wheeking away! They get fed morning and evening generally with a combination of three or four things out of the following the majority of the time:

Romaine lettuce
Red pepper
Broccoli
Carrots
Cucumber
Kale
Spinach
Parsley
Corn on the cob
Cabbage

They get a bowl of food each – medium size (one of the mason ceramic ones you can get in most pet stores for rabbits/guinea pigs).

All my guinea pigs are a good weight. None are over-weight, there’s no dragging tummies or double chins. My three eldest all weigh over a kilo but don’t weigh more than 1.3kg.

I’m just confused about this whole ‘limit the pellet thing’.

I’d generally be inclined to just ignore him but yesterday he proved me very wrong and that he was very right. I thought one of my piggies had cystistus and I got exceptionally cross when the vet point blank refused to give me any medication until I’d taken a urine sample. Angry I went back with a urine sample and....he was right, there was no sign of any infection.

He seemed to know his stuff to I just don’t like him because he’s kinda patronising with it. But if I hadn’t of been forced to listen to him, well right now one of my piggies would be on a course of antibiotics they didn’t actually need. I mean I guess in his mind, my piggy was still sprightly, still eating, we had time to take a urine sample to make absolutely sure - for me I was like, panic - give me the drugs, he might die. I have it programmed in my head that 'guinea pigs go down hill and go down fast' - pretty much a sneeze has me running around in a frenzy.

Is he right about the diet too? Am I feeding them too many pellets and not enough veg?

I love my guinea pigs, more than is normal. I love them an abnormal amount. I take more photo's of my guinea pigs then some people do of their children - you know? I'm a proper weirdo about my guinea pigs.

I'm pretty upset to be told I'm not doing it right, when I've spent the last 9-10 months running around like a mad woman trying to get it right!

Anyway - thoughts if you could spare some?

Leaving work early to go to the supermarket and get MORE 'leafy greens'.

x
 
I disagree with the vet. I think too much vegetables stop them eating hay and that is the most important thing they need. Guinea pigs will always ask for more vegetables and make you feel guilty about them starving! I give my girls vegetables twice a day and unlimited pellets. I know people say you should limit the pellets but I do not care. My girls get through a lot of hay and that is what they really need. I would say you are doing the right thing. Too much vegetables can cause bloat and upset tummys. Surely two portions is enough? I know your vet was right about the infection but that is a medical matter and food is not. This is just my opinion. I have also heard too many green vegetables are not ideal and they need some colour!
 
my exotics vet also says limited pellets. he goes as far as to say no pellets but this may be different for babies/elderly etc. my two are healthy adults.

anyway, i give them a small amount at night. basically enough to lightly cover the bottom of the bowl and that's it until the next night.

i was also told to feed leafy greens and natural foods/weeds/etc. i give them a small plate of leafy greens twice a day. the only non leafy green foods i feed are cucumber and green pepper although they don't have much of these. also things like dandelions, grass etc.

i never feed anything high in sugar like carrots and corn and no fruit except a small piece if meds are ever needed.

like the vet said, they just don't need these and it's not the best things for them so why feed it. :{ he said people seem to think animals need treats when they don't and the best thing is to give them a natural healthy diet and i tend to agree.

my two do great on this. if i feed anymore pellets they pack weight on. :{

loads and loads of hay and a small plate on leafy greens twice a day and a very small amount of pellets is fine. my two eat ridiculous amounts of hay. basically they need to eat a handful of hay to match pellets (energy wise) so if there are no pellets available they will eat more hay.

:)
 
How much do you give them each feed? I don't really know what is best. Mine probably get more pellets than veg and leafy veg seems hard to come by at the moment if it isn't iceburg lettuce or cabbage (which I don't like feeding much).

If I were you I'd be inclined to just keep doing as I was as your pigs are used to that and seem happy. Hopefully someone else will be able to give you some better advise.
 
Until pigs are 9 months old unlimited pellets are ok - then gradually reduce the amount to a max of 50g per pig per day, smaller framed adult pigs require less, so 30-50g is fine. If they leave some after 24 hrs give a little less the next day, until they clear the bowl.

The recommended amount of veg is approx 50g per pig, per day.

The one thing that should always be unlimited is hay. Treat hays added for a bit of variety.

In their wild environment (not that they have lived wild for 1000's of generations) they would browse constantly through the day, mostly on grasses with low nutrition, this is why they are geared to constantly eat. Occasionally the herd would come across a plant in full leaf, flower or fruit/seed and each would grab some and run off the gobble it down - so each would get a small amount of the feast - though it's unlikely they would find a feast everyday. Their digestion is still geared to work the wild way so mimicking the same diet is to give loads of hay with the pellets to give the balance of vitamins, minerals and proteins/fats they need. Veggies are the mini feast they need too.

Everyone has their own view on what is a proper diet - I can only tell you how I do it - I don't have URI/UTI's, my pigs are fit and healthy with my own pigs usually living well past the 5 years average, Jenny lived til 9.

Suzy x
 
I limit pellets as if I give them unlimited I find they start to get overweight.

I think the most important thing to feed is hay and make sure they are getting their vit c through the veg.

I give mine veg once a day, unlimited hay and a handful of pellets each and they seem to be thriving *touch wood:))
 
Suzygpr said:
Until pigs are 9 months old unlimited pellets are ok - then gradually reduce the amount to a max of 50g per pig per day, smaller framed adult pigs require less, so 30-50g is fine. If they leave some after 24 hrs give a little less the next day, until they clear the bowl.

The recommended amount of veg is approx 50g per pig, per day.

The one thing that should always be unlimited is hay. Treat hays added for a bit of variety.

In their wild environment (not that they have lived wild for 1000's of generations) they would browse constantly through the day, mostly on grasses with low nutrition, this is why they are geared to constantly eat. Occasionally the herd would come across a plant in full leaf, flower or fruit/seed and each would grab some and run off the gobble it down - so each would get a small amount of the feast - though it's unlikely they would find a feast everyday. Their digestion is still geared to work the wild way so mimicking the same diet is to give loads of hay with the pellets to give the balance of vitamins, minerals and proteins/fats they need. Veggies are the mini feast they need too.

Everyone has their own view on what is a proper diet - I can only tell you how I do it - I don't have URI/UTI's, my pigs are fit and healthy with my own pigs usually living well past the 5 years average, Jenny lived til 9.

Suzy x
Click to expand...

That sounds very much like my piggies' diet hopefully! Out of interest what veggies & fruit do yours get fed regularly/occasionally?


I was worried mine get too much hay rolleyes They are never without it & also get limited pellets, so much so they always clear the bowl, they never have a bowl in there that has any pellets in at all because they eat them within a few minutes! They get pellets twice a day, about a level tablespoon each time which when I weighed it is less than they recommend on the bag. In the morning I always put new hay in & remove any left over from the night before then they get their veggies then they get their pellets. I do that morning & evening, then I top they hay up last thing again before bed.

They get very little kale, spinach or broccoli they are high in calcium so they are strictly limited here rolleyes
 
I tend to give a small amount of carrot, broccoli florets and the occasional apple. For a bit of variety I give red pepper, with spinach/celery/leafy greens once a week or less as I'm very wary of the calcium levels. I give brassicas once or twice a month, only ever the day or so before they get cleaned out on a Tuesday as I can't stand the pong of cabbagey wee. I do get veg donated now and then so they get a bit of whatever comes in the door, but only a small bit as there are so many to get round.

I crop grass when I have it and supplement their veggies with it.

I give dried grass (readigrass/graze on) once a week or so due to the calcium concerns.

So my lot get by on hay, hay and more hay - with some pellets and veg.

Suzy x
 
My piggies speak to me in such awful tones, they insist they are not wild animals and I must obey every wheeeek. I give about 4 pellets per pig, twice a day, along with a fresh helping of hay and a two soup size bowl of veggies between three pigs. Two thirds of the veggies is green leafy and the other third high vit c veggies, pepper, broccoli etc.
They think they are starved and within ten mins of feeding time all the bowls are upturned in disgust to hint for more!
 
Hi – thanks everyone for your responses! I really appreciate it. I was writing my response last night, thanking everyone and my internet died – grrrr!

I should of said that the piggies get lots and lots of hay all the time (I forget that this is also essentially food). They get hay before work, when I’m home from work and before bed. I get through approximately, 1 bag of Alfalfa King – Timothy Hay a week, it’s a compressed, the bag is 1.8kg. I have 5 guinea pigs and they are bedded on fleece, so this is purely eating hay, in their hay racks and hay tubs. I mix it up with chamomile hay at bedtime, and burgess dandelion forage hay – just for variety really. Their fav is the timothy hay by alfalfa king – it’s lush green.

Hay is there when they are out playing/free ranging or even out in the garden (although I use a cheap one for the garden). If they don’t have their head in the pellet bowl, or sleeping then they are chilling in the hay tub.

But I need to have a real think about the rest of their diet. I think I’m feeding them too much by the sounds of it. They are on a wide variety diet, but I always thought unlimited pellets was the correct thing. I will start to measure out the 50g and try to work out exactly how much pellets they are eating. I think maybe I hadn’t notice it creep up, Manny and Floyd didn’t really bother with the pellets before the girls arrived. At that time they were also on the plain burgess excel. Then I discovered the blackcurrent and oregano type and they love them. They can’t get enough. Maybe I should switch back so they have some of the plain burgess during the day and maybe a small handful of the their favourite in an evening.

But thank you all for your responses and advice, I will have a serious relook at their diet, see if I can try and make sense of it all and look at what works for them.

I’m thinking, I shouldn’t change anything too suddenly because that might cause them ailments since they’ve been used to this way of life for so long?

x
 
Sorry that last sentence was meant as a question, I don’t think I should change anything too suddenly?

I think any change should be a gradual one?
 
I also have piggies and get through around 2-3kg a week of hay depends how fussy the girls are being as they will not eat any hay that falls on the grounds .... :-)

My girls because there are three of them and one is a bit of a bully in that she head butts the other pigs out of the way when there is food I give them 150-200g a day between three and there is always some left so they all get enough food and are all maintaining their weights of 1kg, 1kg and 1.2kg. They get their hay racks filled twice daily and get a handful of veggies a day I usually feed these by scattering them all over the cage so each pig has a chance of getting something they like that way.

My boars I have just started scatter feeding them their pellets as one is overweight and eats a lot and one is slender (very active piggy though) this way fatty boy has to work for his food and thin boy has more chance of getting more before fat boy, thin boy seems to love rummaging for it. Providing their cage is cleaned out and on bedding I think this is fine as they only tip their bowl up anyway and they eat floor hay too. They only have a ferplast 140 so by the time I double everything food bowls would take up a lot of room and they insist on sharing the bowl anyway. The boys just get a pile dumped in their cage as they dont biccur over veggies as they both like different things.

My main veggie they go mad for is lettuce (round in particular) so they get a leaf each per day and other lettuces as they are all low calcium, the usually get a top or tail of a carrot each every few days, just bits and bobs really :-)
 
I have 4 piggies in one set up, rsnging from 3 - 4 months to nearly 4 years old, i dont see how i would be able to control that the baby gets unlimted and olders get 50g of pellets a day, so i ensure they always have a full bowl, they get unlimited meadow hay and 2 bowls of veg/salad a day, and a bowl of readigrass 2 - 3 times a week. They are all healthy weights, never had any UTI's, URI's, bloat or anything, only problem i've had in an abscess in one of their jaws which wasn't diet related.

Piggies like routine, mine know when its breakfast and dinner time, and inbetween i dont really hear much from them.

xx
 
Stop worrying! :laluot_32:


What's the point in having these fuzzy little creatures if you are going to spend all your time stressing over them? :))

I follow the "minimum 80% hay, ~15% veggies, ~5% dry food" theory. I watch calcium levels to the point where I feed high calcium veggies once or twice a week. I ration the dry food as mine get fat if it's fed in unlimited quantities.

Everyone does things differently. There is no instruction manual that says feed X amount of this on this day and X amount of that every third day apart from sundays etc.

Do what works for you and what works for them. If it doesn't work, change it so that it does!
 
I think I'm the same as Amanda, and I also agree we do stress a lot about their diets! It's easy to confused, different vets sometimes say different things, people do things differently and there's a lot of conflicting advise on the Internet. It's good to hear different folks opinions on here tho.
I make sur all mine always have full hay racks, small bowl of veg morning and night and one small bowl of pellets each day per pair, however I'm going to weigh my 'handful' tonight out of interest to see what it actually equates to.
 
After his last weigh in, my Burt could do with losing a little weight, so I have cut down on his pellets. I'd already been advised by my vet friend to give no more than 2 tbsp of pellets a day and now Burt is getting about half that. He is a reet squeaker and will cry and cry for food whenever I am in the kitchen or he hears the back door go (he knows that's where the grass is) but I don't feel bad as it's for his health that I am cutting down. He doesn't seem to have noticed the redcued amounts of pellets (yet), he just happily eats them then goes back to sleep!
 
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