Feeding different aged guinea pigs - 3 years and 12 weeks

[joanneswift813]

Hi all, if you've been following my other thread about bonding boars, you'll know that we lost dear Desmond almost 2 weeks ago now, leaving 3 and a bit year old Terrence on his own. In his best interests, we came home with 11 week old Patch a week ago on Saturday!

Patch still has a lot of growing to do, and I'm concerned about feeding. Terrence is a bit sludgy (Desmond didn't recover from a bladder stone operation, they were on a similar diet which at the time we didn't realise was high in calcium). So we've reduced pellets to 1tbsp per day, switched to filtered water and are following the recommended diet on this forum.

I've heard a few different things about what you should feed younger piggies - different pellets, alfalfa hay and 2tbsp of pellets because they are growing so much. I can't do that with Terrence in the cage because he eats at the same speed as Patch and will just have half of whatever is put in the cage! I also can't feed them separately because the bond has only just started to settle down in the last 48 hours (we are about 1 week and 3 days in) and the last thing I want to do is upset the apple cart by separating them for feeding.

So my questions are:

• Does Patch actually need different food/different quantities of food? Or will he be ok on the same stuff as Terrence?
• If the answer to that is yes, what is critical? And any suggestions on how I can go about doing that, without separating them and without Terrence eating any of it?!

Thanks in advance photos of the 2 of them for interest... sorry I don't have any better ones yet! the multi coloured one is Terrence, white and ginger is Patch, and the black one is Desmond who we lost.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Both piggies need to eat the same - normal hay, one cup of veg and one tablespoon of pellets.
By the time babies are weaned at 3 weeks of age they eat the normal adult diet. Consequently there is no need for alfalfa hay or baby pellets after 3 weeks of age.
The baby pellets are a bit of a gimmick anyway.

 

[joanneswift813]

Both piggies need to eat the same - normal hay, one cup of veg and one tablespoon of pellets.
By the time babies are weaned at 3 weeks of age they eat the normal adult diet. Consequently there is no need for alfalfa hay or baby pellets after 3 weeks of age.
The baby pellets are a bit of a gimmick anyway.

fantastic that makes life SO much easier! Thank you very much

 

[Freela]

We've never given alfalfa pellets to younger pigs paired with older pigs. They've just eaten timothy hay and timothy-based pellets from when we brought them home. Hope this helps!