rome_italy
Adult Guinea Pig
thank you for all your interesting posts I always read! and what gorgeous girls you have!Vegetables can be controlled more easy - peeling, cutting in small pieces, soaking and washing thoroughly is effective for excess NO3, pesticides, insecticides, bacteria and viruses. Not all, obviously, but to a reasonable extent. I do all that for every vegetable they eat, morning and evening.
I've been keeping pigs since 1996 (when I was 6 years old, so my parents were the primary caregivers), but over the years, I have gotten to know piggies pretty well. I know from experience that a piggy can have a long and healthy life on a diet that is based on hay + vegetables (my first piggy, ingeniously named Piggy, lived between August 1996 to March 2005, died of old age and broke my heart) It's really in the past couple of years that I've started considering alternative diets for them and doubting if hay and veggies is really the best for them. In all honesty, I don't feel like I know for sure. My husband, who is also making decisions for the piggies' care, is very much against feeding grass from the city and feels its dangerous. I could convince him to give it a try, but if it goes wrong, it will be on me.
I think I'm overthinking it, to be honest... Plus, there's no grass right now. I'll update you in the spring to let you know what me and hubby decided for the big grass question.
Thank you all for your input, you've been incredibly helpful! Kisses from Maya and Alice
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don't do things that don't convince you, even if other people say it would be right. Nothing can give us the guarantee our piggies won't fall ill. I lost a young pig THANKS to the wrong advices of the most idiot vet (lucky man as I have forgotten his name and his face...); the diet was totally wrong, but maybe at that time researches were few (and there wasn't the net). I also believe in the power of prevention and the diet also for us humans and I solved chronic (?) and serious troubles just eating differently (and other people I know have had even more incredible results). About the matter of the grass, you can take the car and drive towards some zone where the grass is safer. There are certain herbs and some musk/lychen (unfortunately I don't remember which) which can grow only where there is no pollution and chemical products. Such musk is also on the trees in some isolated zones of Rome... and Rome is polluted. Then you can wash the grass. Consider also that the grass grows up fast in 1-2 days only if it rains. Today I found out that the grass I cut last week is now 20cm tall (I recognise it because the tops are cut
).But don't do anything that doesn't convince your head; you are very informed and not stupid; don't follow other brains, use yours!
plus it's cheaper than bland brown meadow hay brought from homebargains But nothing against home bargains as I love that place.
). Sometimes we would get a bag full of grass only for my piggies to reject them and not eat at all. So off we go find other areas again. There's always a scissor and bags in our car in case we are going some where and we see areas with good grass to cut.
