Feeding the guinea pigs at TEAS

SkyPipDotBernie said:
I'd start growing it inside on the window or something. Probably have to wait ages for a new load though after the eat it
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Good idea! I'll have to get some grass seed then. I can recycle old milk bottle cartons by cutting them in half lengthways, putting some drain holes in them, some potting compost and grass seed. :)
 
Betsy said:
Good idea! I'll have to get some grass seed then. I can recycle old milk bottle cartons by cutting them in half lengthways, putting some drain holes in them, some potting compost and grass seed. :)
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I might do it too for when the council mow the grass
 
SkyPipDotBernie said:
View attachment 132663

Here is my grass supply, I pick away from the road side of course, I do run into problems with the council trimming it in summer, but at the moment this grass on up past my ankles
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You must look so random picking grass while people drive past :)) :))
 
SkyPipDotBernie - that's what I do too! I drive around and stop at areas of hedge or verge where I know there is a good stock of dandelions, hazel, grass or whatever to stuff my carrier bag full. The side effect is the trauma induced on my guineas when I return home with a crackly carrier bag that is full of something else inedible and at this time of year that happens too frequently for them!
 
That's the back of my house in the pic, the woods shade my living room in the summer where the pigs are
 
Tonight’s dinner!
Just been thinking about what I feed and I go against all the current recommendations. I feed kale almost every day, parsley at least five times a week. This is in addition to babyleaf salad leaves, mixed leaf salad, coriander, peppers, cucumber, etc. I occasionally feed dill, sweetcorn, fine beans, apple and broccoli, but I never feed spring greens!


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Me too, they pretty much get given anything I can get my hands on, but most days get kale and spinach plus carrots "shock horror".( None of them are fat - and neither am I despite two spoonfuls of sugar in every coffee!)LOL What I do find interesting is how I can give them a total mix of stuff, and each one has his or her favourite. With one of the pairs, one loves cucumber and apple, the other won't touch apples and spits out the cucumber - he snatches it from his friend out of habit, then spits it out in front of him!
 
Bill and Ted love kale especially the black kale! Anything green and all herbs but not coriander. They also like root veggies like parsnips, carrots and beetroot. Apples and Pears from the garden along with green beans, corn leaves and corn from the allotment. They hate any peppers. Grass is given daily and that’s a firm favourite!
I try give a varied diet and what’s in season, we have the leftovers 🤣
 
Bill & Ted said:
Bill and Ted love kale especially the black kale! Anything green and all herbs but not coriander. They also like root veggies like parsnips, carrots and beetroot. Apples and Pears from the garden along with green beans, corn leaves and corn from the allotment. They hate any peppers. Grass is given daily and that’s a firm favourite!
I try give a varied diet and what’s in season, we have the leftovers 🤣
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My piggies hate fresh coriander too (weird that they like the dried ones from piggy parcels). I gave them apple and pear in the past but they aren't very keen on it, so I stopped giving it as treats. What they love though is cucumber, romaine lettuce and watermelon. They have parsely, spring greens and mixed salad leaves as well.
 
anyar.dris said:
My piggies hate fresh coriander too (weird that they like the dried ones from piggy parcels). I gave them apple and pear in the past but they aren't very keen on it, so I stopped giving it as treats. What they love though is cucumber, romaine lettuce and watermelon. They have parsely, spring greens and mixed salad leaves as well.
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yes, mine like dried coriander too but not the fresh that we grow from seed? they are weird and so individual aren’t they 🤣 Just like little humans with their fussing, likes and dislikes
 
We are currently feeding, gem lettuce/red gem lettuce, I picked up a bag of salad the other day which is a bistro mix I think, they get broccoli stalks ( courtesy of the school kitchen!) Pepper, cucumber, coriander, occasional carrot or Apple. This week baby corn was on offer so they have some of that, dwarf green beans they quite like so we normally save a few, they liked sugar snap pods. Haven't really tried them on parsnips or anything like that. They have lots of hay and minimal pellets. I think that's a reasonable variation, might start to pick some grass for them before we put them back out for grazing.
I've been watching this for a while wondering if we're doing the right things, our girls seen happy and healthy, growth has slowed but they're still putting weight on each week, well have had them a year in June so I'd thought this was normal.
 
I forgot carrot! Carrot is Alfonso’s favourite! Last week Simon said to me, Alfonso loves carrot best, doesn’t he? I thought how the hell does he know that?!? Simon then said, the orange lipstick is a giveaway and shown me just how orange his lips are! 🤣
 
SkyPipDotBernie said:
Another huge pile of lovely fresh grass for the pigs tonight, went out with my head torch on and started picking loads, sometimes a local tabby cat chases me and starts thinking the grass is a play toy to slap out of my hand. When I got the grass to the pigs, I went to give it to them, and walked back out the room to see what they would do, they panicked like crazy, thinking they wouldn't get it. Then dived on it ASAP, I'm going through fleece changes like crazy now, just shows it's flushing their bladders through ✌

Anyone else think grass smells quite like apple?
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I'm so glad I'm not the only one rummaging around in the dark with a headtorch on 😂
 
Bluebell said:
Me too, they pretty much get given anything I can get my hands on, but most days get kale and spinach plus carrots "shock horror".( None of them are fat - and neither am I despite two spoonfuls of sugar in every coffee!)LOL What I do find interesting is how I can give them a total mix of stuff, and each one has his or her favourite. With one of the pairs, one loves cucumber and apple, the other won't touch apples and spits out the cucumber - he snatches it from his friend out of habit, then spits it out in front of him!
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It sounds like you feed in a similar way to me. Have you had any bladder issues with your piggies? I’m convinced my way of feeding is the reason my pigs have never had bladder stones, or urinary tract infections! However, current thinking, by owners, seems to suggest severely limiting veg, especially the higher calcium ones! I strongly disagree!
 
furryfriends (TEAS) said:
It sounds like you feed in a similar way to me. Have you had any bladder issues with your piggies? I’m convinced my way of feeding is the reason my pigs have never had bladder stones, or urinary tract infections! However, current thinking, by owners, seems to suggest severely limiting veg, especially the higher calcium ones! I strongly disagree!
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I agree with you 100%. My piggies absolutely love spinach & kale in particular and I feed them this (as well as carrots) every day along with anything else which is knocking about in my veggie drawer...they have the occasional corn on the cob & as there are 6 pigs and 4 cobbettes there is often one pig at one end and one at the other having a cob of war 😂. Interestingly too is that yesterday evening after tea, they then made a bee line for the hay & demolished that too (they are inside currently until i do a deep clean in the shed so i am seeing more of what they are up to). They will happily graze all day on grass normally also and i think the veggie combinations I give in the evening are probably seen as a tasty bonus but certainly dont impact hay consumption throughout the day or after a huge bowl of veggies when you'd think theyd be full up. No fatties or bladder issues here either. They havent been in the run for a few days as its been so windy & boggy but hopefully they can get back to grazing soon.
 
Darcey15 said:
I agree with you 100%. My piggies absolutely love spinach & kale in particular and I feed them this (as well as carrots) every day along with anything else which is knocking about in my veggie drawer...they have the occasional corn on the cob & as there are 6 pigs and 4 cobbettes there is often one pig at one end and one at the other having a cob of war 😂. Interestingly too is that yesterday evening after tea, they then made a bee line for the hay & demolished that too (they are inside currently until i do a deep clean in the shed so i am seeing more of what they are up to). They will happily graze all day on grass normally also and i think the veggie combinations I give in the evening are probably seen as a tasty bonus but certainly dont impact hay consumption throughout the day or after a huge bowl of veggies when you'd think theyd be full up. No fatties or bladder issues here either. They havent been in the run for a few days as its been so windy & boggy but hopefully they can get back to grazing soon.
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Our piggies eat huge amounts of hay, especially overnight! It amazes me how much has gone by the morning, despite me filling the cages to the top!
 
furryfriends no I have never had any bladder problems with them, nor ever any problems with their teeth. Don't laugh but on the one occasion I thought I did have a guinea with tooth problems - I had to explain to the vet that they had back teeth! In fact until the internet came along and I started reading forums I would have said guinea pigs were extremely healthy long lived pets. Now I see them having all these problems and being called old at five. Like I've said, I do understand the genetic component in all this (with the terrible breeding practices behind these pet store chains) - but I do also think diet must play a part.

In the veeeery old days, you looked after your animals by paying close attention to them and feeding etc according to each individual's requirements - now we have the internet issued 'rules' and people tend to follow them blindly rather than go by the animals themselves. It is strange how much power the media seems to have on the younger generations! I'm as fussy with all my animals' food as it is possible to be, and when it comes to dog food have my own set of criteria which have to be fulfilled by their food. There is currently a fashionable food being touted all over the media which on research fails all my criteria - but they have very clever advertising behind it - and THAT is what sells it. No one seems to research anything for themselves any more!
 
Betsy said:
@furryfriends (TEAS) Do you always wash your veg in a bowl of water before throwing it in the general direction of the piggies in your care?
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No, I don’t wash the veg, I just throw it all into a washing up bowl, mix it around with my hand and then grab handfuls and scatter it into the cages! 🙂
 
Do you never have bloaty piggies @furryfriends (TEAS) who cant handle all that veg? I love seeing your fancy veg bowls but we always have to careful with bloaty Puggle, its hard as she wont eat away from her friends and she loves a good scatterfeed, the vet thinks from her xrays she maybe has a slightly malformed and tight valve at the bottom of her stomach and/or a narrow small intestine and too many leaves has almost killed her before... more than once! She can be fine for ages then one spinach leaf too many... she's never bloated with cucumber or carrot or peppers, its always been straight after one (or several) leaves too many after a scatterfeed... she'd been fine for over a year then last saturday she was very greedy at the spinach and kale playpen scatterfeed and an hour later we had the tummy ache noise again :(
 
PigglePuggle said:
Do you never have bloaty piggies @furryfriends (TEAS) who cant handle all that veg? I love seeing your fancy veg bowls but we always have to careful with bloaty Puggle, its hard as she wont eat away from her friends and she loves a good scatterfeed, the vet thinks from her xrays she maybe has a slightly malformed and tight valve at the bottom of her stomach and/or a narrow small intestine and too many leaves has almost killed her before... more than once! She can be fine for ages then one spinach leaf too many... she's never bloated with cucumber or carrot or peppers, its always been straight after one (or several) leaves too many after a scatterfeed... she'd been fine for over a year then last saturday she was very greedy at the spinach and kale playpen scatterfeed and an hour later we had the tummy ache noise again :(
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Puggle is fine I should add she's very good now at eating lots of hay and her friends poops to balance her guts when she feels a tummy ache coming on and it settled very well last weekend... but I can never quite relax with unlimited leaves because of Puggle! We are on strict rations of leaves this week because of Puggle but making up for it in bonus carrots probably :)
 
PigglePuggle said:
Do you never have bloaty piggies @furryfriends (TEAS) who cant handle all that veg? I love seeing your fancy veg bowls but we always have to careful with bloaty Puggle, its hard as she wont eat away from her friends and she loves a good scatterfeed, the vet thinks from her xrays she maybe has a slightly malformed and tight valve at the bottom of her stomach and/or a narrow small intestine and too many leaves has almost killed her before... more than once! She can be fine for ages then one spinach leaf too many... she's never bloated with cucumber or carrot or peppers, its always been straight after one (or several) leaves too many after a scatterfeed... she'd been fine for over a year then last saturday she was very greedy at the spinach and kale playpen scatterfeed and an hour later we had the tummy ache noise again :(
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No, since stopping feeding spring greens, cabbage, celery and only occasionally feeding broccoli, I’ve never had a piggy with bloat. If a piggy has an issue, I keep a food diary. I’ve found celery not good at all as that caused gut issues in a few piggies, so haven’t touched it for years.
 
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