Guinea Pig Eating Own Droppings

[Toraks mummy]

Hi, I wonder if anyone else has had this? I saw Torak do a poo this evening, then turn around and eat it! Never seen that before, only in a rescue German shepherd at home when I was a kid!
Torak & Kasi mummy.

 

[VickiA]

This is entirely normal and healthy piggy behaviour. Piggies produce 2 types of poop. The first is not fully digested so they eat it again. The second is complete waste. How they know the difference as they are passing them is unknown to me, but it’s amazing that they do - and to see them duck their head down and eat the good poop is always entertaining. Your little chap has good taste

 

[Wiebke]

Hi, I wonder if anyone else has had this? I saw Torak do a poo this evening, then turn around and eat it! Never seen that before, only in a rescue German shepherd at home when I was a kid!
Torak & Kasi mummy.

Hi! In order to get the maximum out of their hay based diet, guinea pigs need to digest everything twice. After the first run through the guts, they produce poo that they eat again. These are called caecotrophs. Because they are so important, guinea pigs usually pick the straight from their anus, but occasionally they drop one and then look for it.
The discarded poos from the second run through are produced at a different time and look different; guinea pigs will not confuse the two!
Guinea Pig Facts - A Short Overview

 

[Kellykels]

It's normal. Rabbits do the same thing. It's because their gut can't fully their grass based diet. Ruminants such as cows and sheep have longer intestines (with special parts humans don't have, longer parts) and extra stomach chambers. Carnivores lack the extra long parts of the intestines completely as they don't need to digest plant matter like herbivores and omnivores. Sorry I go off on a tangent with animal biology....its normal.

 

[Freela]

All guinea pigs do this (as do rabbits), it's part of their digestive process. It's a way for them, as herbivores, to maximize the nutrition that they actually take in, as plant cellulose is very difficult to digest completely. It serves the same function as cows chewing their cud- allows them another opportunity to fully break down the nutrients in their diet.

 

[Toraks mummy]

Thank you all for the reassurance. I never saw my last guinea pig (who lived to 7.5 years - indoor pig as mine are) do that so it freaked me out a bit! He shot round n collected it back up immediately!
On another note the diet, I have tried a couple of salt licks (more recently the hymalayan one) and they don’t seem to like any! Any advice please?
Torak & Kasi mummy

 

[Kellykels]

Thank you all for the reassurance. I never saw my last guinea pig (who lived to 7.5 years - indoor pig as mine are) do that so it freaked me out a bit! He shot round n collected it back up immediately!
On another note the diet, I have tried a couple of salt licks (more recently the hymalayan one) and they don’t seem to like any! Any advice please?
Torak & Kasi mummy

I thought they didn't really need salt licks. Unless yours has special dietary needs. The advice I saw here is salt licks aren't needed.

 

[Betsy]

Hi, I wonder if anyone else has had this? I saw Torak do a poo this evening, then turn around and eat it! Never seen that before, only in a rescue German shepherd at home when I was a kid!
Torak & Kasi mummy.

All perfectly normal piggy behaviour! I think its rather cute how they pull it out of their bums! How they know the difference is quite beyond me.

 

[Toraks mummy]

All perfectly normal piggy behaviour! I think its rather cute how they pull it out of their bums! How they know the difference is quite beyond me.

Cute? Yuk! (Lol)

 

[Toraks mummy]

I thought they didn't really need salt licks. Unless yours has special dietary needs. The advice I saw here is salt licks aren't needed.

Ok that’s good then as they don’t use it!