New owner - when is it oK to put them on grass

[Ladycakes]

Hi,

We're new owners of guinea pigs (thought to be 8-12 weeks old) and were told when we bought them at pets at home last wednesday that we can't put their run on the lawn until they are at least 4 months old.

Does anyone know is this true? We have the run on concrete for now but it just looks so boring for them! We do have a few little logs, hay piles etc in there though.

Any advice much appreciated

Thanks

 

[Sarah from Chucklebunnies]

When I introduced Chamomile to my herd of older girls she was about 8 weeks old too. I started off by introducing different veg as her veg before then was limited, then gave her a small amount of fresh grass each day from the second week. She got a dandelion leaf plus fresh grass (I kept going out and pulling it up) every day for the next two weeks before I allowed her out onto grass to graze.

Their gut has to adjust to grass if they haven't started off on it. Your piggies will have a further drawback as they have no poos from older piggies to eat, thus getting good bacteria to help them along. So introduce grass at a slow and gentle pace, delicately, watching for any soft poos or excessive wind. You may even find that they aren't that keen at first and need a few gos at it to like it much. This also indicates a gut that isn't prepared.

When Chamomile finally got onto the grass, despite only being out for fifteen mintues, she ate herself completely stuffed. And I do mean stuffed. So the preparation was essential, lots of grass on an unprepared gut can lead to an upset gut and the runs which is no fun.

So my experience is simply to take it slowly, allow the gut to get used to grass, take extra care if you have no older piggies to pass on the good bacteria and they will enjoy it thoroughly! Leaving them until they are four months and then giving them all they can eat is not a good way I think.

Hope this helps, Sarah