Feeding my piggies! Help I’m new!

[New Guinea Pig Mummy98]

I’ve had my piggies 5 days, I feed them fresh veg twice a day aswell as give them fresh hay every day.
I give them fresh pellets every day but no pellets are ever eaten.
Should I be worried or is this normal.

 

[Siikibam]

Hello and welcome to you and your two newbies. Pellets are the least important part of their diet - only a tablespoon a day for each piggy. Therefore, not eating them isn’t so much of a worry. Are they the same ones they were on before you brought them home? If not, you will have to introduce the new pellets slowly. But as they’re the least important part of the diet, they’re not essential. There are some members on here who feed them maybe 3-4 times a week, replacing non-pellet days with forage.

With regards to the veg, only 50g a day. This equates to roughly a lettuce leaf, 1-2 sprigs of coriander, a slice of cucumber and a slice of bell pepper (any colour). You can divide this up into two portions a day but shouldn’t be feeding more than the required amount. Were they already having the veg you’re giving them before they came to you? If not then you need to introduce any new one slowly.

Hay is the largest part of their diet (80% or more) so that’s the most important thing they have to be eating.

Have a read of the feeding guide I have linked to below. We would like to see your newbies, if you want to post photos. How old are they and what are their names?

Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

 

[weepweeps]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

 

[New Guinea Pig Mummy98]

Thank you, it’s really helped. There 8 weeks old, called Rodney and Del-Boy haven’t managed to take any photos only got videos but it won’t let me upload them.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Welcome to the forum

We cannot host video directly on the forum. You will need to upload any video to YouTube first and then post a link to it on here

 

[Adelyn]

to the forum!

 

[Merab]

Welcome to the forum.
Hope you find it fun as well as helpful.
Looking forward to the pictures

 

[New Guinea Pig Mummy98]

Rodney and Del-boy

 

[Adelyn]

They are just

 

[Free Ranger]

Welcome! What lovely little guys

It's pretty normal - my pigs actually only ate pellets in the evening even if there are some in the bowl all day. Occasionally some are eaten after an afternoon nap but only one or two. They mainly want to eat hay... all day and all night! Here's a link to the diet bit of the forum
Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
Section 1 shows an overview - a bit further down is a photo of a plate with a daily veg example on it.

The thing you'll see a lot is about calcium - we try to keep the intake down by limiting pellets (esp if we've got a greedy one) and either filtering tap water or using a low Ca bottled water if we don't live in a soft water area. Soft water is less than 60mg/L. You can find your level by googling your water company or just looking at the state of your kettle! My water is really scaly and scummy so we use a low Ca bottled water for the pigs. And we have a choice of bottles, and I put them near the pellet bowl and the bedroom areas to encourage drinking at night without having to give up the prime bed they have chosen! Dark green leafy veg like kale, spinach etc is also something to limit because of calcium: a little bit for a treat every now and again. They'd hog a bag full if you let them because they love it! And 'alfalfa hay' is unnecessarily high in Ca for normal piggies too... best avoided.

Our routine is a quick morning poop pick and some veggies, then we bring grass in, then napping. Hay nibbling goes on round the clock. Mine had me sussed by squeaking and running out every time I went into the kitchen so they sometimes got disappointed and broke my heart! But too much veg will make the poops really squishy so you'll know if you've overdone it. Someone on here suggested I just bung in another handful of fresh hay and that totally worked - they were delighted every time. They get the last of their veggies in the evening when we're making the tea, we do the main poop scoop then and add a lot more hay and do you know what? They never get bored of it. They'll look for pellets at this point too. When they've settled into a routine you'll find there's 2 main bouts of foraging - morning and evening. If you go to a pet food place or pets at home or something, look out for different types of 'treat' hay or something like a hay cube or carrot cottage which they love to eat up (it's just made of cardboard). All good fibre and fun! Welcome again

 

[New Guinea Pig Mummy98]

Thank you this has helped a lot