I'm looking at getting two guinea pigs and like most new pet owners, I want to make sure I know what to do and what is best for them.. especially since they will be my responsibility. I read on a few different platforms that you can get your pigs on whatever schedule you would like so I was wondering about feeding. If I fed them once in the evening time ( around tea time maybe 4/5 ish) and made sure they had hay and stuff before bed ( around 10) would that be okay or would they go hungry?
Hi!
Hay is making around 80% of the daily food intake; please make sure that they have enough of it to eat at all times. It is the silica rich hay and grass fibre that their teeth have evolved on being ground down against and that their digestive system is laid out for with breaking it down in two runs through the gut.
Veg (1 small bowl/ca. 50g of preferably green and leafy veg and cucumber) replaces the role of wild forage to supplement the grass/hay diet with additional vitamins, minerals and trace elements. It should make only about the equivalent of a human afternoon snack, whereas hay/grass are breakfast, lunch and dinner.
1 tablespoon of pellets per piggy per day (1/8 cup is the exactly same amount recommended in the USA) is the about the equivalent of a dessert; please do not overfeed.
Guinea pigs are crepuscular, i.e. they are most active and move in a herd in single file along established paths through the thick undergrouns to their feeding grounds at dawn and dusk, so a morning and/or evening feed would best. If you wish, you can split the veg and pellets into two small servings or feed the pellets and the veg allowance at different times.
If your working hours don't allow for a very regular schedule, then aim for the main feed around a time to are most reliably at home. Your piggies will adapt to a regular rhythm/schedule and will remind you when you are coming up to dinner time.
You can hold back a little veg from their daily allowance if you want to use it as good night treat for your piggies to come out for a last check on them. Please also be aware that any treats need to come out of their veg and pellet allowance. A good hay based diet can add 1-2 years to a healthy life span, taking a piggy from the lower end to the upper or beyond.
You can find lots of detailed, practical advice in our comprehensive diet guide, which looks at diet as a whole and at all food groups (including treats and good/bad veg) in detail. It is well worth reading:
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
PS: In terms of dying from hunger, I define guinea pigs as a compact black hole with a furry event horizon that emits space piercing wheeks instead of gamma rays. What has been swallowed is firmly in the past the moment it has gone down...
As to pester power, you may find the last chapter in the diet guide and this guide link here both interesting and helpful. Piggies are very good manipulators and dab hands at training their human slaves!
Who is the boss - your guinea pig or you?
