Q) Is it necessary to feed a guineapig 50g of vegetables a day?

[ISAAQqwes]

I wanted to know this, because sometimes when I'm feeding my piggies, I think about the quantity and mass altogether.
(WARNING : might appear mathematical)
If you have one little gem lettuce which weighs 6g each, pepper which weighs 14g per 1/4 slice, cucumber which weighs 4g per thin slice, green beans which weighs 4g each, coriander which weighs 4g each.
--These aren't exact measurements, only an example but a good estimate--
That would give me around 32g for each guineapig in a day, which is below 50g.
SO
Is this a healthy amount (in grams) for a guineapig? Especially sometimes when there's limited types of vegetables in the fridge this amount will decrease, which means you'd have to feed a vegetable twice to get to a similar amount.
I've read throughout the forum that most people feed their piggies 4-5 daily veggies with 1-2 occasional veggies. I don't know how they get to 50g unless you feed a chunk of cucumber which weighs about 20g.

Another separate question involving water intake and vegetables:
If you know a piggie is drinking quite well, is it safe to feed very watery vegetables like cucumber at its normal recommended amount?
I was thinking, maybe feeding a well hydrated piggie more water from the cucumber might be considered as "excess drinking" (in terms of water)

 

[ISAAQqwes]

NOTE :
When you feed guineapigs like lettuce twice everyday, along with other repeated vegetables, it can be bad for the guineapig, causing greater excess of calcium.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I can honestly say that I have never actually weighed out the veg my boys have. If it comes to about a handful then that is good enough for me! Hay is the biggest part of their diet so as long as they get some vit c rich veg but aren’t filling up on veg (veg is a supplementary part of the diet) and instead are filling up on hay then I don’t tend to worry

You can feed a slice of cucumber a day, their water intake is going to depend on each piggy. Some may want to drink more water, some less. I don’t think there is such a thing as excess drinking in terms of a healthy pig eating watery veg and still drinking from their bottle.

 

[Piggies&buns]

NOTE :
When you feed guineapigs like lettuce twice everyday, along with other repeated vegetables, it can be bad for the guineapig, causing greater excess of calcium.

No, because you won’t feed excessive amounts of calcium rich foods in a day or even within a week (or at least you shouldn’t). The sample diet on this site is a good guide of a daily amount of veg based on nutrients so if that is followed then there won’t be excessive amounts of calcium in the diet.
The majority of a guinea pigs calcium intake can actually come from overfeeding of pellets and giving unfiltered water so that is often a good place to start when looking at reduction of calcium intake if required.
If you feed veg twice a day, then it can be easier to make up their total daily veg portion and then halve it - one half for morning and one half for the evening - rather than making their morning portion and then feeding it and then doing an evening portion later in the day as that way there is a risk of overfeeding veg. Equally, there are many of us who only feed the veg portion once a day. My boys get hay and pellets in the morning, hay throughout the day and then hay and veg in the evening so I know that they aren’t overeating veg.

 

[ISAAQqwes]

I can honestly say that I have never actually weighed out the veg my boys have. If it comes to about a handful then that is good enough for me! Hay is the biggest part of their diet so as long as they get some vit c rich veg but aren’t filling up on veg (veg is a supplementary part of the diet) and instead are filling up on hay then I don’t tend to worry

You can feed a slice of cucumber a day, their water intake is going to depend on each piggy. Some may want to drink more water, some less. I don’t think there is such a think as excess drinking in terms of a healthy pig eating watery veg and still drinking from their bottle.

Thank youu
This is rlly good to know, especially with my parents being conscious at how much I feed them despite the fact that I'm feeding the right quantities.
The idea of having to weigh it out was for me to know whether I was feeding enough vegetables, and for my parents to get off my bacckk, because they're always saying I feed my guineapigs little amounts of vegetables and think I'm starving my guineapigs.

 

[Wiebke]

I wanted to know this, because sometimes when I'm feeding my piggies, I think about the quantity and mass altogether.
(WARNING : might appear mathematical)
If you have one little gem lettuce which weighs 6g each, pepper which weighs 14g per 1/4 slice, cucumber which weighs 4g per thin slice, green beans which weighs 4g each, coriander which weighs 4g each.
--These aren't exact measurements, only an example but a good estimate--
That would give me around 32g for each guineapig in a day, which is below 50g.
SO
Is this a healthy amount (in grams) for a guineapig? Especially sometimes when there's limited types of vegetables in the fridge this amount will decrease, which means you'd have to feed a vegetable twice to get to a similar amount.
I've read throughout the forum that most people feed their piggies 4-5 daily veggies with 1-2 occasional veggies. I don't know how they get to 50g unless you feed a chunk of cucumber which weighs about 20g.

Another separate question involving water intake and vegetables:
If you know a piggie is drinking quite well, is it safe to feed very watery vegetables like cucumber at its normal recommended amount?
I was thinking, maybe feeding a well hydrated piggie more water from the cucumber might be considered as "excess drinking" (in terms of water)

Hi!

50g or a bowl full is just a general guideline as some people tend to grossly overfeed on veg in the mistaken idea that veg and pellets aere the main part of the diet and not the dessert course for guinea pigs. That is the reason why I have included a picture of a sample diet in order to really show what those recommendations and amounts really mean.

Guinea pigs will drink less water when you feed a lot of veg (keep in mind that all veg is over 90% water). They only need so much fluid (which varies massively individually).

 

[PigglePuggle]

I think you are rather overthinking things @ISAAQqwes , I have also never weighed or measured veggies- my piggies routinely get a slice of cucumber each for breakfast then a slice of red pepper and a bit whatever leafy stuff is on offer in the evening usually! Once or twice a week I add one slice of carrot each with breakfast if I know their dinner will be late (like 12 hours after breakfast!), and once or twice a week they might get a bit of babycorn or green beans with their dinner veg too- and on saturdays they live it up with a bag of scatterfed bistro salad in the playpen and beansprouts for dinner!
There's no need to feed lettuce every day, and anyway lettuce has little calcium- its rather watery in fact and has little nutrition. Nor should you be feeding any high calcium veg (kale, spinach, cabbage, parsley) every day. The sample diet shown in the guide is a helpful example of what can be fed in a day, not exactly what should be given every day!
Over time you'll hopefully get a feel for what veggies are appropriate in what amounts, but the most crucial element of the piggy diet is hay- hay, hay and more hay

 

[ISAAQqwes]

No, because you won’t feed excessive amounts of calcium rich foods in a day or even within a week (or at least you shouldn’t). The sample diet on this site is a good guide of a daily amount of veg based on nutrients so if that is followed then there won’t be excessive amounts of calcium in the diet.
The majority of a guinea pigs calcium intake can actually come from overfeeding of pellets and giving unfiltered water so that is often a good place to start when looking at reduction of calcium intake if required.
If you feed veg twice a day, then it can be easier to make up their total daily veg portion and then halve it - one half for morning and one half for the evening - rather than making their morning portion and then feeding it and then doing an evening portion later in the day as that way there is a risk of overfeeding veg. Equally, there are many of us who only feed the veg portion once a day. My boys get hay and pellets in the morning, hay throughout the day and then hay and veg in the evening so I know that they aren’t overeating veg.

This is very insightful, and I agree with you.
In my experience at first when I had my guineapigs, within the first week I was feeding them romaine lettuce like honestly more than twice (don't kill me please) in a day and I know now that it was a bad decision after digging into diet guides, when I read you can only feed lettuce once a day, and romaine is high in calcium relative to red lettuce.
and OMG I just checked my pellets, they have calcium in them and Tata, who is the cloudy urine culprit , loves munching on them. I get a handful of pellets and place it in a bowl in their cage. I repeat this in the morning and night so they have a stack of pellets. I know they're only supposed to be 10% or 5% of their diet, I've never really considered calcium in their pellets so I ignored it as a cause.
THANK YOUU

 

[Piggies&buns]

It definitely sounds like you are overfeeding pellets. They should have just one tablespoon of pellets per pig once a day.

 

[ISAAQqwes]

I think you are rather overthinking things @ISAAQqwes , I have also never weighed or measured veggies- my piggies routinely get a slice of cucumber each for breakfast then a slice of red pepper and a bit whatever leafy stuff is on offer in the evening usually! Once or twice a week I add one slice of carrot each with breakfast if I know their dinner will be late (like 12 hours after breakfast!), and once or twice a week they might get a bit of babycorn or green beans with their dinner veg too- and on saturdays they live it up with a bag of scatterfed bistro salad in the playpen and beansprouts for dinner!
There's no need to feed lettuce every day, and anyway lettuce has little calcium- its rather watery in fact and has little nutrition. Nor should you be feeding any high calcium veg (kale, spinach, cabbage, parsley) every day. The sample diet shown in the guide is a helpful example of what can be fed in a day, not exactly what should be given every day!
Over time you'll hopefully get a feel for what veggies are appropriate in what amounts, but the most crucial element of the piggy diet is hay- hay, hay and more hay

Okay, I think this clears up the air for me. Thank you a lot

 

[ISAAQqwes]

It definitely sounds like you are overfeeding pellets. They should have just one tablespoon of pellets per pig once a day.

That is a very big oof of me. Thank you for letting me know :/ I was doing the wrong thing of filling the deep food bowl with a lot of it

 

[Wiebke]

This is very insightful, and I agree with you.
In my experience at first when I had my guineapigs, within the first week I was feeding them romaine lettuce like honestly more than twice (don't kill me please) in a day and I know now that it was a bad decision after digging into diet guides, when I read you can only feed lettuce once a day, and romaine is high in calcium relative to red lettuce.
and OMG I just checked my pellets, they have calcium in them and Tata, who is the cloudy urine culprit , loves munching on them. I get a handful of pellets and place it in a bowl in their cage. I repeat this in the morning and night so they have a stack of pellets. I know they're only supposed to be 10% or 5% of their diet, I've never really considered calcium in their pellets so I ignored it as a cause.
THANK YOUU

Please keep in mind that feeding too little calcium can also cause milky pees. Since water hardness differs massively from location to location there is simply no way that any diet recommendation can get it absolutely correct for everwhere. The fine tuning is always left to you. As long as you don't have calcium deposits on fleece bedding nearly every day, you are OK.

Please also keep in mind that changes in diet need some time to filter through as calcium absorption is a very complex process and is not quite as straight forward as you would like. The calcium deposit pees are just the most visible and noticeable bit.

Look, you can feed Romaine lettuce and you can feed high calcium pellets - in the first case you feed either a little less or not feed another element on the day, and in the second case you cut back accordingly on the amount of high calcium pellets you are feeding in a day. Generally we recommend to feed 1 tablespoon of lower calcium pellets in a day as the 'sum' to aim for, the way our sample veg diet is a also 'sum' within which you can change components to your liking.

Please don't get hung up too much in details. It is not quite an exact science. What you are aiming for is finding the kind of mix that works for you and piggies in the location you live. And that is always a process or trial and error at the start.

Overall piggy food intake is more like math sum, but how you combine the various components is up to you.

 

[PigglePuggle]

If it helps (as I am just fixing piggy dinner!) this is dinner for 2 of my piggies, they have a similar size portion for breakfast

 

[PigglePuggle]

And also if it helps, this is my after dinner hay portion for 2 piggies you really can never feed too much hay! I only need one 1.5kg bag of grain free pellets per month to feed 8 piggies, but they go through over 20kg of hay (half meadow, half timothy)