Dill

[mls18]

How often can I give my guinea pig dill?
I was having trouble feeding my guinea pig antibiotics, but I figured out a way to sneak it in while he's eating chewing on a dill stalk. Considering I need to give him medicine twice a day, it turns into 2-3 pieces of dill(the stalk and leaves) a day. I wanted to know if this is ok or if it's too much.
Thanks!

 

[superka]

Its by weight. so 50g a day of veggies... now dill is low in vitamin C but its not listed as having too much calcium ect on the websites guides. i dont think its great for the piggy to just be eating dill but at the same time its the lesser of two evils in this case... the piggy NEEDS to take its medicine.. if this allows you to do that its not terrible.. i'd more be considering how long they'll be on that medicine for... for a week? should be fine.. for a couple of months? maybe try and find an alternative that isn't low in vitamin C like parsley, or suppliment it some how. like with vitamin c drops in their water bottle...
or if you weight what you're giving them with a kitchen scale and it turns out you're only giving them like 20-25 grams of dill a day you could feed them the rest of their diet in only stuff high in vitamin C. they do need their vitamin C to live. its not that dill has none its just low in it.. not enough to maintain them for long periods of time but again short periods like a few days should be alright. if you're feeding them more then 50G a day then that i would really cut back on to not be over... but worst comes to worst the medicine should come first imo...

 

[mls18]

Its by weight. so 50g a day of veggies... now dill is low in vitamin C but its not listed as having too much calcium ect on the websites guides. i dont think its great for the piggy to just be eating dill but at the same time its the lesser of two evils in this case... the piggy NEEDS to take its medicine.. if this allows you to do that its not terrible.. i'd more be considering how long they'll be on that medicine for... for a week? should be fine.. for a couple of months? maybe try and find an alternative that isn't low in vitamin C like parsley, or suppliment it some how. like with vitamin c drops in their water bottle...
or if you weight what you're giving them with a kitchen scale and it turns out you're only giving them like 20-25 grams of dill a day you could feed them the rest of their diet in only stuff high in vitamin C. they do need their vitamin C to live. its not that dill has none its just low in it.. not enough to maintain them for long periods of time but again short periods like a few days should be alright. if you're feeding them more then 50G a day then that i would really cut back on to not be over... but worst comes to worst the medicine should come first imo...

Ok great thanks so much! I feed it alongside other High vitamin C Veggies, just wasn't sure if maybe Dill had too much of something to have every day. He's a week through his medicine so still one more week left.

 

[Piggies&buns]

In this case you are simply looking to take something nice to take the taste of the meds with/away after each dose. It has nothing to do with his vit c needs or intake - his diet is taking care of that.

The safe herb they can have daily is cilantro. If he likes that then use it to give the medicine. Even if it means he ends up having several more sprigs of cilantro than he normally would then that is absolutely fine.

Dill and parsley are not herbs we recommend feeding daily. They are both higher in calcium so it may not really be appropriate to use those all the time and in higher quantities than would be normally suggested for those items - high calcium items is one small amount once a week. I appreciate it is a temporary thing to get him to take his meds and it’s fine to use them but I wouldn’t use only that daily for the whole course of meds.

I would stick to something we know is fine for daily use - hence the cilantro suggestion - but the reality is you can mix it up to keep him interested. You can use anything which is safe from the daily diet and add in other items on rotation for interest, as you would feed in any other scenario.

Please don’t add anything such as vit c supplements into drinking water.

You can’t measure veg by weight due to the differing densities of veg. You go by volume - so one cup of veg rather than 50g of veg per day.

 

[mls18]

In this case you are simply looking to take something nice to take the taste of the meds with/away after each dose. It has nothing to do with his vit c needs or intake - his diet is taking care of that.

The safe herb they can have daily is cilantro. If he likes that then use it to give the medicine. Even if it means he ends up having several more sprigs of cilantro than he normally would then that is absolutely fine.

Dill and parsley are not herbs we recommend feeding daily. They are both higher in calcium so it may not really be appropriate to use those all the time and in higher quantities than would be normally suggested for those items - high calcium items is one small amount once a week. I appreciate it is a temporary thing to get him to take his meds and it’s fine to use them but I wouldn’t use only that daily for the whole course of meds.

I would stick to something we know is fine for daily use - hence the cilantro suggestion - but the reality is you can mix it up to keep him interested. You can use anything which is safe from the daily diet and add in other items on rotation for interest, as you would feed in any other scenario.

Please don’t add anything such as vit c supplements into drinking water.

You can’t measure veg by weight due to the differing densities of veg. You go by volume - so one cup of veg rather than 50g of veg per day.

Thanks so much for the reply! I actually do have cilantro, not sure why but I thought cilantro was the one with high calcium not dill- probably got it mixed up with parsley. Ill try using cilantro tomorrow, thanks!