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Protein percentage

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I think that is close enough to be OK!

Please be aware that most members are British; most look in "new posts" on the top bar. If your post goes off the radar overnight, it won't be seen. You have to sometimes bump up your thread to get an answer.
 
Yes, it is.

Please don't get carried away with your research - things should to be OK overall, they do not need to be absolutely perfect! Otherwise, you will only worry yourself sick and will lose all the joy piggies are supposed to bring you. Animals are quite adjustable, you know, much more than you give them credit for! Please don't forget that pellets are only a comparatively small part of a piggy diet.

The guinea pigs I grew up with in the seventies and eighties didn't have half as good and balanced a diet as my current ones (there were no pellets to be had, just a very crude muesli mix with seeds for instance) - and yet they lived perfectly healthy, happy long lives, they oldest to nearly 10 years old! In Germany, it is recommended not to feed pellets at all, just hay and fresh veg; and as far as I can see, the piggies are as healthy as they are with a pellet diet.
 
Thanks for the advice. I'm learning. I want my girls to be healthy. I will be switching to a pellet food soon. I was just wondering if it mattered. I did check some foods out that were like junk food to them. You get what you pay for sometimes. I don't care for the foods that remind me of bird food. Alot of that it stuff they don't like or shouldn't have. I have to remember that pellets are a small part of thier diet. They get unlimited timothy hay, veggies everyday and a fruit every other day.
 
It sounds like they are on a good diet. You are right, anything that looks like bird food or has lots of fatty, sugary or dairy stuff in, is piggy junk food!

Here is a list of what veg they can eat. Ideally, you include one high vitamin C veg like a slice of pepper, some broccoli, a bit of parsley, dill or cilantro (coriander) everyday. Have you though about having fresh herbs in pots? Parsley, cilantro, basil, dill, mint, celery leaves can all be eaten and are a good source of minerals.
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42

Don't add anything to their water. You can't control the intake, things go off very quickly and are an ideal breeding ground for nice green algae which are a pain to get rid of!
 
I knew about not adding anything to the water. Herbs..hmm. They won't eat any peppers. Romaine is a fav. I have parsley for cooking.
 
Sorry i dont mean to hyjack this but, we feed our piggies Wagg guinea pig food, (in the green bag) and it has some seeds in it which they just don't eat, they are very small seeds looks like rice grains, also i think there might be some dried lentils? in the mix too which they don't eat, and you've mentioned about it not being very good if it looks like bird food, is wagg not very good then? Would you reccommend i change to something else? They do get P@H GP nuggets mixed in sometimes too.

They also get sald/veggies twice a day too, usually cucumber, celery/leaves, small amounts of cherry toms, lettuce and spinach, dandilion leaves, green beans, brocoli.....erm.....cant think at the minute. They get carrot too but tend to spit it out or leave it.

At the moment they are on Jollies meadow hay which they have a constant supply of and seem to go mad for. They get fresh water Every other Day too. Please tell me what you would change and remove/add from/too thier diet, be as honest as you like.
 
I'm in the *.s. so i don't know anything about that food. I know i've read just a pellet form is best. My husband said why do they sell stuff they shouldn't have, i wish i knew why. I know corn is bad since they can choke on it and its hard to digest. Alot of foods here look like bird food w/ corn. I'm switching to pellet once their current food is gone. I simply don't buy the "bird food" because they pick out what they don't like and it gets wasted. I'm mainly going to pellets because i can get a bigger bag of that for less and its based from timothy hay. I have 5 piggies and need food that'll go further. Its healthier too.
 
i think the problem with the 'other' type as in not pellet is, they pick out the bits they want so dont end up with a balanced diet.

Tell your hubby, the reason they sell stuff like this is so they can make lots of cash as they know people will buy it!

my boys have corn on the cob sometimes. :))
 
Corns ok sometimes. My hubby probly already knows that. Why sell yogurt bites if they're lactose intolerant? That way vets can make $$ too when they become ill from it.
 
Sorry i dont mean to hyjack this but, we feed our piggies Wagg guinea pig food, (in the green bag) and it has some seeds in it which they just don't eat, they are very small seeds looks like rice grains, also i think there might be some dried lentils? in the mix too which they don't eat, and you've mentioned about it not being very good if it looks like bird food, is wagg not very good then? Would you reccommend i change to something else? They do get P@H GP nuggets mixed in sometimes too.

They also get sald/veggies twice a day too, usually cucumber, celery/leaves, small amounts of cherry toms, lettuce and spinach, dandilion leaves, green beans, brocoli.....erm.....cant think at the minute. They get carrot too but tend to spit it out or leave it.

At the moment they are on Jollies meadow hay which they have a constant supply of and seem to go mad for. They get fresh water Every other Day too. Please tell me what you would change and remove/add from/too thier diet, be as honest as you like.
 
Sorry i dont mean to hyjack this but, we feed our piggies Wagg guinea pig food, (in the green bag) and it has some seeds in it which they just don't eat, they are very small seeds looks like rice grains, also i think there might be some dried lentils? in the mix too which they don't eat, and you've mentioned about it not being very good if it looks like bird food, is wagg not very good then? Would you reccommend i change to something else? They do get P@H GP nuggets mixed in sometimes too.

They also get sald/veggies twice a day too, usually cucumber, celery/leaves, small amounts of cherry toms, lettuce and spinach, dandilion leaves, green beans, brocoli.....erm.....cant think at the minute. They get carrot too but tend to spit it out or leave it.

At the moment they are on Jollies meadow hay which they have a constant supply of and seem to go mad for. They get fresh water Every other Day too. Please tell me what you would change and remove/add from/too thier diet, be as honest as you like.

Can you get hold of Wagg Optimum? If yes, switch over slowly by mixing the two brands. I feed mine p@h home pellets (my piggies like them better than Burgess and they are a similar quality) with some Burgess Excel with oregano and yes, some muesli mixed in occasionally, just to keep things interesting because that is what I can get hold of easily. You can order pellets via the internet if you want to. (These are all UK brands.)

Hay sounds OK. I vary the varieties, as I have at times run out of a specific brand (not in stock, mouldy or just bad quality) and then the piggies wouldn't like anything else.

I would recommend trying to introduce some of the higher vitamin C herbs and veg (like peppers of any colour) into their diet, as listed above; keep on even if they don't eat it initially. Go lightly on spinach (very calcium rich and should be only fed about once a month, like kale). But you could also try cabbages like sweetheart, savoy, spring greens or pak choi if you introduce them slowly; it can cause gas in some guinea pigs.

Change the water daily, especially in summer when algae can grow quickly.
 
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Thanks, we can get hold of the Wagg optimum, we've used it before, but i'm sure that a was bag we gave my father in law for his pigs as ours weren't too keen, might see if i can get a small smaple of packet and try them again on it. Do you mean instead of the muesli mix or P@H nuggets?

They do get spring greens ocassionally, and kale but they tend to leave the core of the kale, they wont touch savoy cabbage, tried this many times ut will try them on peppers.

They are kept indoors so the algae thing in the water isn't such a problem as their is no sunlight gets to it. (I work in water analysis for a living, very boring i know)

Thanks for the reply, i will try them on the optimum and peppers.
 
P@h nuggets. They are actually pretty similar in composition to Burgess, but harder (which is better for their molars). I used to feed Burgess, but the Tribe went off it. Muesli has the additional problem that piggies eat selectively. I only give very little with the normal pellets as a special treat - and then it gets all eaten!

I find that varying pellets and hay is a bit like us eating different bread - occasionally you just enjoy the change in your staples. It also makes it easier if you HAVE to shift from a brand for whatever reason. I admit that it is easier for me now - any picky piggy learns quickly to eat what is served, or it's gone into any one of ten other greedy guts...

It is usually not easy to shift piggies off muesli; my old lady Dizzy took three failed attempts of gentle shifting and held out for a full three weeks during which I served a bit more veg and herbs when I went cold turkey. After that, she was OK, but not happy. However, she'd been eating very selectively and was throwing half the muesli away uneaten.
 
Just been reading this thread with interest and I wonder if any of you could help me? I have 3 guineas and 2 of them have had problems with episodes of bloat. They were switched over to excel blackcurrant and oregano pellets which they love, the thing is that whenever they eat veg it bloats them up, Bradley especially. He had a little parsley a couple of weeks a go and the morning after his tummy was huge and distended and he was so uncomfortable that he couldn't poop. They are fine at any other times when they aren't given veg, I know pellets have added vitamin C so my question is that if they go without veg will it do them any harm? They get so bloated but are fine on a pellet and hay diet, they can also eat the dried herbs that come in hay with no problems.
 
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