Trying To Find Some Foraging Treats For The Piggies And Came Across This....

[Kylie80]

But a couple of the ingredients i'm not sure about and wondering if you have heard of piggies being able to eat them. The company that sells it makes forages and chews specifically for rabbits and guinea pigs from organic products and claim to feed it to their own guinea pigs. I've bought their apple chews before and they were good (the piggies liked them not me). so here are the ingredients.

oregano, continental parsley, chicory flowers, dandelion, gota kola, plantain and sweet potato leaves.

It's the chicory flowers and gota kola i'm worried about as I have never heard of them. I found a list of plants you can and cannot feed somewhere floating around on the internet but i can't find it now.

they also have peppermint hay sprinkles and lavender and mugwort hay sprinkles.

 

[rome_italy]

Gota Kola is an important medicinal herb used in oriental medicine and tested also in guinea pigs (especially topic applications for wounds and other troubles). You can read something more in this article:
Pharmacological Review on Centella asiatica: A Potential Herbal Cure-all
Chicory flowers: my piggies have never ate flowers, but they are eating every day some leaves of wild chicory; they love it and the only reason for I give them only few leaves is that chicory has got a high amount of calcium.
Oregano is safe, too, but rich in calcium.
Dandelion is just the same, very high amount of calcium.
Plantain just the same; my pigs have some leaves here and then, but I see they don't go nuts for them.
On Guinea Lynx there is a calculator for calcium and phosphorus, as a good balance is important in a pig's diet. If your pig has no issues with bladder and kidneys that forage can be a good treat, anyway you can always have a look at their wee and its calcium sediment, if you are using newspapers as bedding.

 

[Kylie80]

I don't use newspaper for bedding but I see excess calcium deposits on the fleece if there is any. If I did buy them anything to use for foraging it would be a once weekly treat since they have run out of their botanical hay. They have treat Friday where fruit and treat hay is given and mummy has ice cream or pizza lol.

 

[rome_italy]

yes, I agree and I am even sure that they can eat that forage even more than once a week; and in those days you can feed them with low calcium vegs (or vegs with phosphorus, as what counts seems to be the balance of these two minerals; visit Guinea Lynx website)

 

[Kylie80]

I can never understand the ratio's. Terrible at maths I'm afraid to say. I am right I'm assuming the lower the ratio the better or am I sounding like a idiot.

 

[rome_italy]

I can never understand the ratio's. Terrible at maths I'm afraid to say. I am right I'm assuming the lower the ratio the better or am I sounding like a idiot.

ahahah! don't worry! there is an online calculator and you need only a scale (but I don't go insane for that... it is just for not doing great mistakes...). Anyway I have never understood a thing and also my vet has no sure answers (but only a personal opinion as a owner of two old piggies who grew up without any bladder issues): am I safe if I keep an eye at the right ratio even when the calcium of a meal is high? I mean: high calcium and high phosphorus together and well balanced is a safe choice? It seems that there are different opinions about this topic also among vets...