Is Timothy Hay necessary?

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Cla76ire

Cla76ire

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OK, when purchasing guinea pigs, I was advised to use timothy hay. for the last three weeks I have been using a mixture of ordinary hay and timothy hay. my question is - Is Timothy hay necessary if the piggies are getting a diet of pellets, varied veg every day, grazing on grass every day, vitamins in water and meadow hay. If the answer is yes, then of course I will continue to buy it, but if this is not really necessary then obviously I would prefer not to pay the hugely marked up price!
What do others do?
 
I think it depends on the type of meadow hay you have as it's important that pigs have long-stranded hay to wear down their teeth. I give my pigs lots of good quality farm hay but also give the odd handful of other types, such as timothy and orchard, for foraging (and enrichment).

:)
 
Mine have a good quality meadow hay as well as other forages, but because timothy is one of their favourites and I know that they will eat all that I give them, they have it as a regular park of their diet.
 
My pigs get a few different types of hay (they live on regular hay too) but don't actually seem that keen on Timothy hay. They seem to love 'grass' hays the most with their favourite Oxbow Orchard Grass :)
 
I'm with Little Piggles... I've tried mine on Timothy and all of them barely pick at it. However they LOVE soft meadow hay.

I buy mine 10 bale packs of Soft Meadow Hay from dustfreehay.co.uk . It is excellent quality.
 
Quality hay is necessary, but it doesn't have to be timothy. I like to mix up a few different ones, both for variety and nutrition. :)
 
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