Fresh food shortage

Mclayton

Mclayton

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
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Location
Stoke on Trent
Hi. I'm really worried as to what to feed my guinea pigs as a shortage of their main items starts. I always buy lettuce, cucumber, coriander & peppers. I'm really struggling to get these items, as I don't drive, so can't travel to different supermarkets. What alternatives can I give them, as I know fresh food is vital for them. Thanks
 
If you really get in a pickle, I use these guys when I don't have access to fresh grass. Delivery is always reasonably fast as well. If you make sure the trays get light so it doesn't go yellow you can generally get about 3 cuts and regrowths out of the trays, but they also sell bags of precut grass.

https://wheatgrass-uk.com/shop/wheatgrasses-greens/trays-punnets.html
 
eileen said:
ive been to tescos just now,ive got all the veg i need for a week,and loads of corriander,peppers,only two lots of romaine.but they can have peppers corriander and spring greens on the other days ! That website looks great @Eriathwen .
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I know you can freeze peppers, but when I buy coriander, it goes off in 3 days. Can that be frozen?
 
Mclayton said:
I know you can freeze peppers, but when I buy coriander, it goes off in 3 days. Can that be frozen?
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Please do not feed any frozen/defrosted foods to guinea pigs.

When I buy coriander it stays fresh all week. in a cup with a little water at the bottom in the fridge.
With that said, I’ve also left coriander in the plastic bag it comes in in the salad drawer of the fridge and forgotten about it - it’s been fine a week later.

Coriander is easy to grow from seed on a windowsill. It needs a bit of warmth to germinate but after that it goes well.
 
Eriathwen said:
If you really get in a pickle, I use these guys when I don't have access to fresh grass. Delivery is always reasonably fast as well. If you make sure the trays get light so it doesn't go yellow you can generally get about 3 cuts and regrowths out of the trays, but they also sell bags of precut grass.

https://wheatgrass-uk.com/shop/wheatgrasses-greens/trays-punnets.html
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What about other vegetables other than grass? Mine are indoor piggies, so don't eat grass. I don't have any grass anyway
 
I no longer have any guinea pigs or rabbits that eat the fruit and veg, however, I'm on a diet so I'm eating it instead. 👍
 
Mclayton said:
What about other vegetables other than grass? Mine are indoor piggies, so don't eat grass. I don't have any grass anyway
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do you have friends or family with access to safe grass and weeds that you could pick? there isn’t a huge amount growing at the moment but you might find something
You just won’t want to pick a lot at a time as it will start to degrade from when it is picked but it might be a possibility if you really can’t get any veg.
Dont forget though that veg is not a main part of their diet so if it takes you a few days to get some veg, then they will be absolutely fine without it for a little while (probably not happy about not getting veg but they will be fine!)
 
Mclayton said:
Hi. I'm really worried as to what to feed my guinea pigs as a shortage of their main items starts. I always buy lettuce, cucumber, coriander & peppers. I'm really struggling to get these items, as I don't drive, so can't travel to different supermarkets. What alternatives can I give them, as I know fresh food is vital for them. Thanks
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Hi I was on guinea pigs uk on Facebook yesterday and they are saying if you csnt get hold of peppers for vitamin C then next best is corgette, unfortunately but I don't blame them as its gross but allot of piggies ( not all) won't eat corgette ect like mine.
I'm managing only just go get some peppers but they said if really despret you can buy and syringe feed them PRO C PRO BIOTIC you can buy it off Amazon, they also said aswell to make sute your feeding good quality pellets science selective grain free pellets at same time ( mine get these anyway), hope this helps x
 

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M&S seem well stocked, hubby got everything we needed, two large little gem lettuces, plus bagged lettuce leaves for us, tomatoes, a nice Norfolk cucumber, kale and they will have a treat of carrots next week if I’m stuck. No peppers though. Will be off foraging now the grass and weeds have start to grow too.
 
I think everyone should be quite careful of responding to knee-jerk reaction newspaper headlines with panic, that only promotes panic buying and makes any perceived temporary food shortages worse!
Some items, in some supermarkets, in some areas, are less adundant than usual. On a very temporary basis- it is after all the end of winter.
My online Sainsburys delivery today certainly has everything I ordered- 6 peppers, cucumber, 2 lettuces, a salad bag, parsley, spinach, blueberries...
please keep calm people and dont believe the headlines- there is plenty veg for everypig and every human to meet their daily requirements, perhaps a bit less chouce, and not as many, and you might have to shop around a bit more than usual, or shop twice in a week instead of once, or shop online- but there is certainly no evidence yet of any extreme shortages! Newspapers headlines do far more damage than the problems they report on, exaggerating things to scare people, its very irresponsible :(
 
PigglePuggle said:
I think everyone should be quite careful of responding to knee-jerk reaction newspaper headlines with panic, that only promotes panic buying and makes any perceived temporary food shortages worse!
Some items, in some supermarkets, in some areas, are less adundant than usual. On a very temporary basis- it is after all the end of winter.
My online Sainsburys delivery today certainly has everything I ordered- 6 peppers, cucumber, 2 lettuces, a salad bag, parsley, spinach, blueberries...
please keep calm people and dont believe the headlines- there is plenty veg for everypig and every human to meet their daily requirements, perhaps a bit less chouce, and not as many, and you might have to shop around a bit more than usual, or shop twice in a week instead of once, or shop online- but there is certainly no evidence yet of any extreme shortages! Newspapers headlines do far more damage than the problems they report on, exaggerating things to scare people, its very irresponsible :(
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I agree. I remember at the start of the pandemic when people started panic buying fresh produce once they had panic bought all the dry goods, then not long after you could see all the untouched veg in people's bins.
All veg contains vitamin C, pellets contain vitamon C. If piggies don't have peppers or other of their usual daily veg for a little while, having varieties of veg normally given once a week, more often isn't going to harm them.
 
The biggest trouble I have when some foods are scarce is the lack of transport - trying to go to different places to get 100% appropriate foods isn't possible. But I also know if all the goblins could eat was green beans and hay...they'd eat green beans and hay and wonder where the other green beans were hiding.
I'm used to buying slightly more than required - it doesn't always keep the way it should, and I'd rather not be caught short, but I did well out of yesterday's Tesco order and that means I can breathe easy over it til next week. And if it's a problem next week, I can go from there.
 
Today in my large Tescos.no peppers,cucumber,tomatoes,Rationed to two items each when in stock.I'm not panic buying,but dependant on where you live it maybe more difficult to buy.I'm not concerned if my piggies are not fed veg for a few weeks.But having the number of piggies i have,it will be very difficult on those rationing qoutas, to feed all of them adequatley.so everyones experiences will be different to where you live,and transport to get to the shops.
 
Eat turnips instead of tomatoes during shortages, Therese Coffey suggests

Just shows how out of touch the government is, no turnips in the shops today or any other veg except potatoes in our Aldi's veg section today. Luckily I didn't need any veg I was there for other shopping. I agree with @eileen it's going to be the luck of the draw, we will just have to adapt for a while.
We have Aldi and a small M&S food shop here. Since they introduced the clean air zone it costs an extra £9 on our food bill to go any where else. My partner's good at going out on his bike for me for small amounts but he's not going to spend hours hunting around. We are really lucky as we have access to grass and weeds, the piggies won't go hungry. They get vit C from their hay and pellets so they won't hurt for a while without veg if you can't get any.
 
There was someone very sensible on R4 this morning who was describing the rationale behind the limits in supermarkets. It shouldn’t really impact a family but when there are shortages you find restaurants that cannot get what they want in trade markets will try and buy up all they can from supermarkets instead. Even smaller greengrocers might go and buy up all they can to resell at a mark up. The fair use type policy is to stop this so they remain available for households.

Does fuel panic buying though. We are nearly out of veg and so I’ll need to think. Coriander, grass, a piece of carrot a chunk of broccoli might have to do for now.
 
I'm thinking of getting some grass seed and growing grass in trays. In the meantime, we're trying to eat frozen veg and keep the fresh stuff for the pigs. It won't be long now until the weeds start growing where we are, and then we can forage for the pigs.
 
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