I've been getting paranoid...

Chaz

Chaz

Junior Guinea Pig
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I have owned guinea pigs for years and 3 of them lived til old age.
Since coming on here I have been really worried that I am doing things wrong. I have been feeding the same foods for all 9 of my girls over the years, but am getting worried now.
They get excel nuggets (Used to be woodland for a while, because that's the only thing Daisy would eat in her last days, but they don't seem to do them anymore.) So Luna and Trixie ate them for a bit too.
Obviously hay.
Veg/ fruit( Kale, broccoli, apple, spring greens, tomato.) Basically whatever I have. I don't feed all that at once, that's just what they will eat.
Now I'm worried about their water because of the hardness, although all my girls have had that and had no problems.
My mum thinks I worry too much because she says that I have kept them alive all these years and they would've died if I was doing it wrong, which I guess is true, but I worry that I was just lucky.
 
What is it exactly that is worrying you?
 
Chaz said:
That I've been caring for the wrong all this time and i've been luck with them surviving.
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Oh bless you. Please don’t be so hard on yourself. You haven’t been doing it wrong, you clearly care for your piggies and want what is best for them. You’ve done a great job.

You clearly are concerned though, so in order to ease your concerns, why don’t you have a look at everything and see if you would feel more comfortable making changes if necessary. I am not saying that you’ve done anything wrong at all but just that you do sound concerned so sometimes clearing your mind and going back to basics can really help put things in focus - you’ll see you’ve done a great job!

I am always going back to the feeding and care guides and noticing something which I hadn’t seen before or something I’d forgotten to do for them. It’s just important to not see that as a negative thing and not worry that ive done something wrong but instead see it as a positive change for the future. None of us ever stop learning and more information and advice comes to light all the time.
 
Piggies&buns said:
Oh bless you. Please don’t be so hard on yourself. You haven’t been doing it wrong, you clearly care for your piggies and want what is best for them. You’ve done a great job.

You clearly are concerned though, so in order to ease your concerns, why don’t you have a look at everything and see if you would feel more comfortable making changes if necessary. I am not saying that you’ve done anything wrong at all but just that you do sound concerned so sometimes clearing your mind and going back to basics can really help put things in focus - you’ll see you’ve done a great job!

I am always going back to the feeding and care guides and noticing something which I hadn’t seen before or something I’d forgotten to do for them. It’s just important to not see that as a negative thing and not worry that ive done something wrong but instead see it as a positive change for the future. None of us ever stop learning and more information and advice comes to light all the time.
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Its mostly the hard water and the nuggets I'm worried about. I am short of money at the moment, so my parents would have to pay for a filter(And they refuse on the grounds that they were fine before) and they would have to pay for new nuggets (when I have a bag full already.)
 
Please don’t worry.

Ensure that the nuggets are kept limited as that will, in itself, go a way to ensuring they aren’t getting too much calcium. One tablespoon is enough, measure them out to be sure you aren’t overfeeding them as it is so easily done. It really comes to such a small amount - a tablespoon of pellets come to around 6g, or about 12-15 inidividual pellets.
Perhaps you can then save up to buy a water filter jug
 
Piggies&buns said:
Please don’t worry.

Ensure that the nuggets are kept limited as that will, in itself, go a way to ensuring they aren’t getting too much calcium. One tablespoon is enough, measure them out to be sure you aren’t overfeeding them as it is so easily done. It really comes to such a small amount - a tablespoon of pellets come to around 6g, or about 12-15 inidividual pellets.
Perhaps you can then save up to buy a water filter jug
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Yeah, I already feed around that much. If I just limit the nuggets, will I need the filter?
 
Chaz said:
Yeah, I already feed around that much. If I just limit the nuggets, will I need the filter?
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That’s good - see, please don’t worry, you are doing a great job!

Ideally yes, you’d still filter, particularly if you live in a hard water area. The two things in combination - limited nuggets and filtered water - are the two main things which keep their calcium intake down, and then only feeding high calcium veg occasionally is the next step.
Filter jugs on amazon aren’t very expensive. The cartridges cost will add up but they last a while to give you time to get money together to buy the next batch.
 
Piggies&buns said:
That’s good - see, please don’t worry, you are doing a great job!

Ideally yes, you’d still filter, particularly if you live in a hard water area. The two things in combination - limited nuggets and filtered water - are the two main things which keep their calcium intake down, and then only feeding high calcium veg occasionally is the next step.
Filter jugs on amazon aren’t very expensive. The cartridges cost will add up but they last a while to give you time to get money together to buy the next batch.
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Okay, I'll get it when I have the money.
 
Also you can a buy Brita jug quite cheap but the filters are not but you can use the amazon filters instead - I do that and it doesn’t work out v expensive - don’t worry too much - you’re doing a wonderful job of looking after your piggies .... as everyone was saying we can all learn new things and sometimes things change - 😊
 
It sounds like you have had piggies for a while. As with humans, we learn more and more about health and diet over time. As we learn more, we can update our practices - this doesn't mean that in the past we were being reckless or wrong, we've just learnt to information and adapted accordingly.

Since your concerns seem mainly to be about diet, I just wanted to check you've read the diet guide: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

As you'll see, the main thing is to ensure they have plenty of hay. Regarding what you said you are doing, we also use the Excel Burgess nuggets. I would make sure you are not feeding the apple or tomato too regularly, these should just be treats.
 
LMPigs said:
It sounds like you have had piggies for a while. As with humans, we learn more and more about health and diet over time. As we learn more, we can update our practices - this doesn't mean that in the past we were being reckless or wrong, we've just learnt to information and adapted accordingly.

Since your concerns seem mainly to be about diet, I just wanted to check you've read the diet guide: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets

As you'll see, the main thing is to ensure they have plenty of hay. Regarding what you said you are doing, we also use the Excel Burgess nuggets. I would make sure you are not feeding the apple or tomato too regularly, these should just be treats.
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Hi
Yes I have had piggies for 14 years almost
I have read the guide. They hardly ever get apple and their first time with the tomato was 2 weeks ago.
 
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