Sweet Potato

[LMPigs]

Hello,

Sweet Potato has been mentioned as something that can be fed to pigs who need to gain weight. We would like to try it out with Marshmallow. I just wanted to check: you feed it raw, right? I'm assuming yes since its for a guinea pig but I've seen people refer to "mashed" sweet potato and I struggle to see how that would work on a raw sweet potato! He has no teeth problems so we can just give him slices of it if that's appropriate.

Also, and other suggestions of food for weight gain would be gratefully received; we're already offering a serving of oats, sweetcorn as well as adding in some mashed fruit such as strawberry and banana. He seems to get bored with the same thing every day though so looking to widen the repertoire!

For background, he's got an untreatable kidney issue which is causing him to drop weight. He (and his healthy brother) get unlimited hay, a tablespoon of pellets and a serving of veggies a day, and on top of that Marshmallow is having twice daily extra feed with some high energy Guinea pig mush such as Emeraid, an extra serving of cucumber (for fluids) and this would be something in addition to that. Because of the terminal nature of his condition we're not as worried about the long term impact of a very high sugar diet as we might otherwise be.

Thank you!

 

[Swissgreys]

I have fed raw sweet potato cut into slices and grated - some piggies love it and some hate it.
Ruby is quite partial to a shrinking of grated sweet potato on top of her pellet mush (she has ongoing dental issues so grated works best for her).

 

[Two_Wheeks]

Hi. Sorry to hear about Marshmallow's kidney issue..

I've never tried sweet potato, but I am going to with my older boy! He loves porridge oats, they have helped keep his weight stable. Lots of people give them raw, but our boy loves them warm (we use oat milk, not dairy) - it's his favourite (and especially when the weather gets cooler, like now!).

Worth a try!

 

[Black piggies]

I've always found that wheat bran is preferred by piggies above anything else. It's finely ground, very easy to eat and very fattening! Local rescue advised me about it. You can get it in health food shops or Amazon. Piggies go wild for it.

 

[LMPigs]

Thanks all for the advice. We happen to have a Holland and Barrat downstairs from my office so I popped down to pick up some wheat bran in my lunch break and will grab some sweet potato on the way home.

He eats plain oats on some days but not others, its in interesting idea using oat milk though. If we can get one that is just oats and water we'll keep that in mind as an option to mix into the pellet mush for added interest! We've previous tried using cucumber juice mixed into science selective recover food which was well recieved!

I think he just gets bored because we've found he'll enthusiastically eat things on a few occasions and then another time turn his nose up at them, so its good to have options.