Hey guys I’m quite new to all this I have 4 girls between 16-20 weeks I think! I have just ordered them a carrot cottage I picked up a hay tunnel from p@h a treat ball and very excited to order some forage and pea flakes from piggy parcels but… if I have a carrot cottage
hay tunnel
forage
Pea flakes
Pellets
Veg
Hay in general…
How often would you give these things at a time… just don’t want to over do it as I have seen some people saying they miss out pellets if giving forage just want to be safe and make sure the girls arent at health risk because I dunno how much and when to give things I only give 4 tablespoons a day pellets spread out which they don’t seem impressed with but I hand feed and monitor because queen Dolores likes to eat them all very fast she’s a brilliant forager too lol many thanks in advance I think I’m the worst person on here for asking the most annoying questions apologies in advance hope everyone is having a good day with thier piggy’s I want more and more but 4 is the limit for us I love piggy’s! Here’s my 4 Marshmallow Dory Dolores & Poprcorn lol x
Hi and welcome
Please take the time to read our very comprehensive and detailed food guide. It looks at diet as a whole and then at all food groups in the precise and practical detail that new owners need; epsecially the chapter on veg. You should find it very helpful in terms of amounts. Try to keep your diet green with a mix of leafy veg and herbs high in trace elements and vitamins and watery veg for good urination.
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Getting the food group proportions right. You are still overfeeding pellets slightly and can now go down to 5 tablespoonfuls of pellets (sprinkle the extra spoonful around Dolores to ensure that the others get their bit - feeding access is also a matter of hierarchical privilege) since pellets take away from eating hay. It is actually the silica in the hay that grinds down the chewing back teeth and keeps the dental system balanced as well as the digestive bacteria in the gut happy, so the more hay/grass fibre your piggies eat, the healthier and longer lived they will be.
Fresh green growing grass is high in vitamin C (the reason why guinea pigs have switched off their vitamin C making gene) but needs careful introduction, as too much too quickly on an unprepared tummy can cause major tummy upsets and at the worst cause fatal bloating. Please continue to offer hay on lawn days. The diet guide gives you advice how to factor in grass in your diet.
Feeding Grass And Preparing Your Piggies For Lawn Time
As to your treats:
- the carrot cottage is fine but cut in a second door if there is only one. Piggies don't chew that quickly that the amounts of carrots and herbs are an issue. It makes great enrichment.
We do have a popular carrot cottage antics thread on here for you to join in if you wish to:
Carrot Cottage Demolition Thread
- be careful with treat balls. Like so much you buy in a pet shop it can cause accidents with heads of greedy piggies getting stuck.
Potentially Dangerous Cage Accessories And Toys
Alternative enrichment ideas:
Enrichment Ideas for Guinea Pigs
- pea flakes: please use it as a special occasional treat and perhaps more in the way of a reward? Too much every day is not good and piggies are treat junkies with real pester power! Peas are pulses which are generally high in protein if overfed. And protein is already in pellets, not that piggies need lots of it.
- For detailed information on veg (the good, the bad and ugly with a sample diet picture), please see our diet guide link above. Not all edible or high vitamin C veg is equally good; there are lots of different considerations to achieve a long term balanced mix. Our guide is putting veg into classes as to how often you can feed it and how much to help you.
- Fresh garden or wild forage counts as veg. BUT: Any dry forage is a treat and should given in pinches rather than handfuls. Dried herbage means that what is left is higher in calcium (as that doesn't evaporate with the water) and it is more concentrated.
You can feed more dried forage if you drop pellets completely from the diet since forage, veg and pellets together replace the supplementary role of wild forage (about a quarter of the daily food intake altogether) in addition to the fresh and dry grass diet on which guinea pigs have evolved on. Grass is very nutritious but tough to break down and needs two runs through the gut in guinea pigs (they eat poos from the first run).
If you want to find out more about guinea pigs as a species, you'll find this guide link here very interesting:
Guinea Pig Facts - An Overview
I hope that this answers your questions?
Please take the time to read our guide links. We cannot always type out all the little details and still answer as many threads as possible in our own free time, just the broad brushes.
But for new owners it is very often the precise amounts and the exact how-to details that trip them up. For this reason we have written our in-depth practical advice guides which are based on our 15 years experience on this lively forum and on our own long term ownership. We have taken care to make them as easy to follow and as precise, clear and step-by-step as possible.
You may like to bookmark these information collection links below. The first contains all the information and tips to help new owners to a good start and the other contains our full extensive information resource, which is one of the largest currently around. They are great for browsing, reading and re-reading at need, as you will pick on different things with different levels of experience and freshening up on the little how-to details never hurts! You will also find us linking guides from this collection into posts for more in-depth practical information.
Getting Started - Essential Information for New Owners
Comprehensive Owners' Practical and Supportive Information Collection
