Large "guinea Pig Wheel" Ideas

rome_italy said:
it does not seem a bad food, althoguh as usual there are some weird ingredients, but all the pellets have some... wheat, SALT (!), cane molasses (this is a common bad ingredient unfortunately).
Try to read the label with the percentage of nutrients; there should be some label on the bag. Be sure that the % of fibres is higher than proteins and that the ratio calcium:phosphorus is something about 1,3:1 (a little more calcium than phosphorus)
It seems a vitamin supplement... usually pellets have some vitamins, but not so many.
What is the name of this pellet?
(anyway I cannot help you in choosing the best pellet; I don't trust any pellet...:twist: for too many reasons...)
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Sorry for the delay, I have midterms this week so I'm kind of busy.
I think the name of the pellets I am giving them is Mazuri timothy-based guinea pig diet.
I should probably mention that it's not the kind with the colorful bits. The cereal you saw in the photo was from the leftover food I was given when I adopted Blue.
After I read your suggestions, I got rid of the old food and emptied out the bowl & turned it into a water bowl. I think Blue is the only piggy that uses it, however.
I'm also limiting their pellet consumption to a very small handful.
Also, this might sound crazy or silly- but I decided I wanted to try growing some Timothy Hay.. but.. none of the stores near me have timothy hay seeds (or cattail seeds).. so I took some of my guineas hay and am trying to germinate the seeds. Not sure how well that will work, but it's worth a try.
 
yayoiharuko said:
Sorry for the delay, I have midterms this week so I'm kind of busy.
I think the name of the pellets I am giving them is Mazuri timothy-based guinea pig diet.
I should probably mention that it's not the kind with the colorful bits. The cereal you saw in the photo was from the leftover food I was given when I adopted Blue.
After I read your suggestions, I got rid of the old food and emptied out the bowl & turned it into a water bowl. I think Blue is the only piggy that uses it, however.
I'm also limiting their pellet consumption to a very small handful.
Also, this might sound crazy or silly- but I decided I wanted to try growing some Timothy Hay.. but.. none of the stores near me have timothy hay seeds (or cattail seeds).. so I took some of my guineas hay and am trying to germinate the seeds. Not sure how well that will work, but it's worth a try.
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if you have a garden you can give it a try! but if you go to the countryside maybe you can find wild timothy. In Italy there is a lot, it is a common grass, but I am not able to recognise it...
I think that the Mazuri pellet is not a bad food; only follow the rule of 5% of dried food, that is maybe 5-10g. Its level of proteins is a bit high compared with the crude fibres (both fibres and proteins are 18%, if I am not wrong), but if your piggie will eat hay and/or grass fibres will raise.
There is an advice on the australian guidelines for guinea pigs; I copy it for you:
When designing a diet for your cavy you must remember this rule: The rule of thumb is the fibre content should always be higher than the protein content. If you have a diet high in protein and low in fibre it can compromise the health of your cavy. You should never have an inverse ratio. The level of protein in the diet is determined by its percentage in the total diet, the bio-availability and its amino acid profile. Always ensure that your protein content in your pellets never exceeds the fibre content. A good protein level is 15-16% crude protein. Fibre must always exceed 20%. You should always aim for the highest fibre content possible and avoid high carbohydrate, sugary foods as they can cause the bacteria within the hind gut to subsequently change. You do not want this. You want the digestive system working efficiently to avoid Gastrointestinal ileus (malfunction of the digestive tract due to gut slowdown).

I also threw away the pellet given by a rescue... it was also an expensive brand, but its label was awful, worse than other ones...
Here vets consider pellet like a sandwich at Mc Donald's. A little piece of those sandwiches will never harm you, but if you eat three Big Mac a day your blood levels will worsen and you will develop inner damages (and obesity)...:roll:
 
rome_italy said:
if you have a garden you can give it a try! but if you go to the countryside maybe you can find wild timothy. In Italy there is a lot, it is a common grass, but I am not able to recognise it...
I think that the Mazuri pellet is not a bad food; only follow the rule of 5% of dried food, that is maybe 5-10g. Its level of proteins is a bit high compared with the crude fibres (both fibres and proteins are 18%, if I am not wrong), but if your piggie will eat hay and/or grass fibres will raise.
There is an advice on the australian guidelines for guinea pigs; I copy it for you:
When designing a diet for your cavy you must remember this rule: The rule of thumb is the fibre content should always be higher than the protein content. If you have a diet high in protein and low in fibre it can compromise the health of your cavy. You should never have an inverse ratio. The level of protein in the diet is determined by its percentage in the [you]total diet[/you], the bio-availability and its amino acid profile. Always ensure that your protein content in your pellets never exceeds the fibre content. A good protein level is 15-16% crude protein. Fibre must always exceed 20%. You should always aim for the highest fibre content possible and avoid high carbohydrate, sugary foods as they can cause the bacteria within the hind gut to subsequently change. You do not want this. You want the digestive system working efficiently to avoid Gastrointestinal ileus (malfunction of the digestive tract due to gut slowdown).

I also threw away the pellet given by a rescue... it was also an expensive brand, but its label was awful, worse than other ones...
Here vets consider pellet like a sandwich at Mc Donald's. A little piece of those sandwiches will never harm you, but if you eat three Big Mac a day your blood levels will worsen and you will develop inner damages (and obesity)...:roll:
Click to expand...
We live in the countryside which is why I'm not surrounded by a ton of stores, so we have a lot of farms. I could try asking around here to see if any farmers could spare some seeds.
When I get home I'll definitely check the fiber/protein content. I'll also lay off the carrots and try to switch them over to greens when I'm holding them.
And as soon as I'm done with the Mazuri pellets I'll probably get something better for them. To be honest, I'm a little skeptical of dry foods in general. Whether it's for my dog, my fish, or my turtle, I always have leaned towards non-dry foods. There just seems to be something questionable about dry food to me. It's convenient, but is it really good for animals? I'm not sure.
Would the pigs be okay with regular veggies and hay, or are pellets truly necessary?
 
Pellets aren't necessary but they can be beneficial. I debated whether to do without the pellets but worried about the weight drop and them getting the extra things they need. Instead I've opted for grain free pellets (perhaps you could try Selective Grain Free as you're in the US?) and they don't get a great deal of them. I use JR Grainless and Versele Laga from Zooplus but I don't know how easy they would be for you to get. Definitely steer clear of anything with wheat in it, I'm on a war against wheat in pet foods as it's a cheap filler companies put in to make more money. It's not beneficial for animals and in the case of some animals like cats it can be incredibly harmful.

There are some threads on here that I read a year or so ago about weaning off pellets that you could read. As they're only like 5% of a piggies diet and if you use the most natural ones I can't see it being a problem in any case :)

As for feeding them you could scatter feed, put them in an egg box for them to work to get it out or even encased in toilet roll tubes with some hay. I like to use my imagination with the pigs for a bit of enrichment :)
 
You could use it as a treat storage thing or something like that or a bowl maybe
 
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