Hi and welcome
HUGS
I am very sorry for your panic. Onion isn't one of the highly toxic foods but simply one that should not be part of a regular diet as the toxins will build up in the liver with repeated feeding. A one-off won't do any lasting harm. You will find that piggies are very good at eating what you want them the least, especially anything plastic and they have a toddler's knack at finding it before you.
They do however need to eat more than lettuce and dry mix or pellets.
Please take the time to read this our very helpful and practical diet guide which looks at diet as a whole and at every possible food group in detail, including which veg you can feed how often and in which quantity. Being edible doesn't necessarily mean that it is good to eat daily or often. We have done our best to give some easy but clear guidelines for new owners and have included a sample diet from which you can start off on your own.
Our food guide also contains a chapter with practical tips about what you can do when you run out of some food unexpectedly. You are by no means the first it has happened to.
A good, balanced mainly hay based diet can add 1-2 years to a healthy life span and take it from the lower end to the upper end so it is worth concentrating on it.
1 The recommended ratio of food groups
2 Hay and fresh grass
3 Vegetables, fresh herbs and fruit with an illustrated balanced sample diet
4 Special dietary needs
- Urinary tract infections, bladder stones and sterile IC (non-bacterial interstitial cystitis)
- Diabetes and long term digestive problems
- Impaction in boars
- Pregnancy and nursing dietary tweaks (only visible to registered members who have accepted our no intentional breeding policy)...
You and our son may also find our comprehensive New Owners guides collection helpful and may want to bookmark it, browse, read and re-read at need as you will pick up on different things at different levels of experience. .
The collection contains very practical tips on settling in new guinea pigs and making friends with them, understanding prey animal instincts and interactive behaviours, and even a little course in piggy whispering.
We feature detailed guides on housing, bedding, enrichment, hot weather care, grooming care, learning what is normal and not as well as spotting early signs of illness and advice on what to do in an emergency. There is also a bit more information about guinea pigs as a species.
Quite literally tens and tens of thousands of questions from the coming up to 20 years this forum has been in existence and personal experience going back half a century in some of us have gone into these guides. We have made them as practical and how-to precise as possible since we know that the devil is in the unforeseeable detail. After all, we have all started out knowing nothing at all and have made our own mistakes along the way.
Contents Overview
1 What This Collection Is About
2 Guinea Pigs as Pets
- Family and Classroom Pets
- Sourcing Your Guinea Pigs, Common Pitfalls and Your Customer Rights
- Pet Owners with Anxiety: Practical Tips for Sufferers and Supporters
- Naming your Guinea Pigs and Finding Out the Breed
- Guinea Pigs as a Species: Facts, Development and Social Aspects
3 Living Environment
- Housing (with sourcing tips)
- Bedding...
We also offer a courtesy guide for double-checking the gender of any new arrivals and run a second opinion courtesy service in order to help keep unplanned surprises to a minimum.
1 How to Sex a Guinea Pig
- When do I need to check the sex?
- How do I make sure that I have got the gender 100% right?
- What are the secondary areas that require a hands-on check?
(Nipples - Penis ridge - Testicles & Castration - Slit: What to check in sows and in boars)
2 How to Sex Babies after Birth and at Separation Age
- Newborn boar and sow (genitals)
- 2 weeks old boar and sow (genitals and slit)
3...
You are always welcome to ask any questions you have along the way in our various Care sections. We promise that we will answer them in a friendly and helpful way, no matter how little or big.
For showing off your piggies and chatting about them, we have got our various Chat sections with a lively and supportive community with members from all over the world.
Please note that the best way to upload pictures is via the Attach files button underneath your post when you write it (it works for all formats) and that we do not have a video upload facility. We recommend that you upload your video on a public setting on a platform that does not require a member sign in (youtube is best). Then you can simply copy it across into your forum post.
Our forum is not part of social media and is run entirely by voluntary member donations. We all do this for free in our free time. We do however think that the advantages of having total control over our friendly little place is worth some trade-offs.
We are UK based so our forum downtime is ahead of you during your evening. You may have to wait for answers until the next day.
PS: For your own online safety and to help us tailor any advice to what is relevant for your country, I would recommend that you change your location to your state. You can do that by clicking on your username on the top bar and then go to location in your account details.
They are active eating and drinking, but it hasn’t been a whole 24 hours yet.
running playing, eating like crazy. I’m thankful for this group and each of you to help us feel better when we were so stressed!
x
