Introducing A Wider Diet

Fweeper

Fweeper

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Dec 13, 2016
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Location
East Sussex
Hello all, just wondering if anyone had any suggestions on some more varied veg for my two boys? Currently, they're on a breakfast of lettuce and their pellets, with a mountain of hay because this seems to keep their tummies sound and cause no problems. Then they have any combination of the following for their tea: spring greens, broccoli, lettuce, cucumber, sometimes some coriander and about twice a week some carrot.

They also go from run to cage after tea, where there's another, fresh mountain of hay, so they're hardly starving, but still.

I've been gently introducing them to a wider variety, but they're not overly keen on the things other pigs love, so I'm getting a bit stuck! They won't even SNIFF a pepper, cherry tomato gets nibbled a BIT, but it's no love affair, even coriander is taking some time to be introduced because some days it vanishes in seconds and some days it's untouched. They're not interested in fruit really, raspberries and strawberries were ignored, apple skin went down ok, but they ignored it the last 3 times I tried it. Pear was a bit more sucessful, but only the skin again. They did quite like parsnip, but only sometimes. I'm going to try them on some parsley, because we grow it, but is there any sure fire winner I could attempt here? I'd like them to have a more varied tea than they're getting, but they're pretty fussy still, sadly.
 
Something all of my pigs have liked, but they're not available yet is sweetcorn leaves and silks. All of my boys would happily murder me for some.

They'll start popping up in the shops and markets soon. I go to my local market and ask for a bag of leaves and offer 50p or so. I usually get them for free as they're going in the bin anyway. Or if I'm in the supermarket I'll bag up all of the leaves that have fallen off the corns and I usually get them for free too.
 
My piggies are a fan of silks off sweet corn too. Dill, basil and mint are also a hit for a occasional treat. They like silverbeet and kale also occasionally because they are high in calcium. How long have you had your piggies? For the first month or so after getting my two they would only eat cucumber and cherry tomato and I couldn't get them to eat much else. Now 7 months on they eat everything. Hay is a problem with my piggies. It's a constant battle to get them to eat it.
 
Blitzen loves mint as a treat, although Comet won't touch it. Comet loves kale, but Blitzen doesn't like it much. They both go daft for parsley though, they're not as fussed on coriander (although they will eat it). Occasionally they'll eat mangetout and sugarsnap peas, occasionally they'll eat parsnip. They like savoy cabbage leaves but only if they're really really green. They'll go demented for salad leaves though - rocket, spinach etc. Trust wise there's always blueberries (though they're expensive and if they won't eat them that's an even bigger expense). I know fruit is generally only a treat but if you want to try them on something new what about seedless grapes or banana?

Hilariously my two won't eat cucumber lol. They won't eat courgette either but I can't blame them for that, yukky stuff.
 
Mine like cucumber and corriander. They also like mixed salad leaves. They are not fond of peppers.

I went over the fields with a rucksack and a carrier bag in order to get them fresh grass which hadnt come into contact with dogs. They loved it for a few days but just now they were whistling like crazy for food whilst standing beside large piles of fresh grass!
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone, I'll try some out and hopefully report back on some good results! :)

They've been with me since October last year, btw, so I think this is just them not having the greatest nutrition before they came here, and being unused to veggies very much, sadly.
 
I've just read over my previous post and I have no idea how autocorrect got "trust" from "fruit", sorry about that o.o
 
@Lorcan I like to assume all phones have a secret language using autho correct, and they just like to have a chat with eachother on the stealthy ehehe
 
Fweeper said:
@Lorcan I like to assume all phones have a secret language using autho correct, and they just like to have a chat with eachother on the stealthy ehehe
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If that's not what's actually going on, I will be very very surprised lol.
 
My pigs didn't like pepper to start with but now they love it. I don't think they're fussy, they're just over cautious about new foods. It's always worth trying a few times (I sometimes eat a piece in front of them and they watch me like "woahh" haha) to see if it improves, took a few tries with peppers but now they eat it with gusto! They didn't like blueberries to start with but now they snatch it from my hand when I come near!
 
Cavy Kung-Fu said:
My pigs didn't like pepper to start with but now they love it. I don't think they're fussy, they're just over cautious about new foods. It's always worth trying a few times (I sometimes eat a piece in front of them and they watch me like "woahh" haha) to see if it improves, took a few tries with peppers but now they eat it with gusto! They didn't like blueberries to start with but now they snatch it from my hand when I come near!
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Maybe I was too hasty to stop with the peppers, I tried them on it for about a week, but they're funny lads, these two, so I'll give them another go! Thanks for the suggestion!
 
Mine have the following:
pepper ( all colours), green beans (daily), spring greens ( every other day) dill ( daily ) coriander (usually daily), parsley ( occasionally ) lettuce ( every other day ) cucumber ( their least favourite) banana skin ( treat ) apple ( treat ) sweetcorn ( rare )
the daily stuff i rotate - good luck
 
Tiamolly123 said:
How about changing the hay Kylie they may just think that hay is Yuk.
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Lol they literally have 15 different hays from different brands. I got desperate and just bought them different hays trying to get them to eat some. They go through stages where they will eat heaps and then stages where they will turn their noses up at it. It's always available for them though, they get minimal pellets to try and get them to eat mostly hay. At the moment they will only eat the really green Timothy hay (they have four brands of that) and orchard grass but I guess it's something.
 
Fweeper said:
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone, I'll try some out and hopefully report back on some good results! :)

They've been with me since October last year, btw, so I think this is just them not having the greatest nutrition before they came here, and being unused to veggies very much, sadly.
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Just been reading this and another similar post, and I'm a wee bit concerned now about what I'm giving my 3 piggies. I have been treating strawberry greens and runners, leaves from gooseberry/raspberry bushes (which they love) as veggies - should these be treated as fruit and only given occasionally? Because I have so much of this, and dandelion leaves, I have been using this with about a quarter/half a pepper and/or a bit of cucumber (this has only been for the last week or so, until then it was romaine lettuce, pepper, cucumber etc.) I vary what they get every day. I only feed them veggies and nuggets once a day (their bowl for veg is about 6inch by 3inch by 1inch deep, and I have it nearly full but loosely, not packed in. I give them a handful of nuggets each. They are about 4 months old. They also have Timothy hay constantly available, and if the weather is nice, I pop them out on the grass for a couple of hours. I live in Scotland though, so that's only once or twice a week, lol.
 
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