New hay and grass.

TinyPiggies

TinyPiggies

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My piggies are 9 weeks old and love their veggies and pellets but never seemed too bothered about hay. I tried burgess with dandelion and some orchard hay the got a sample then a (larger that imagined) box of Timothy blend from hay box. They have gone mad for it. Haven’t stopped eating since this afternoon and have for the first time not finished their pellets. Is this normal? I also have them a handful of fresh grass for the first time yesterday and that was even more insane they were grabbing it and doing the eating the same piece from each end thing. Normal or crazy?
 

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That’s normal. It’s likely they prefer the timothy blend to others. Yes, they can be picky. How much are you giving them in terms of pellets?

Be careful with grass. You need to build up the amount slowly DK their tummies can get used to it.
 
Sounds exactly like our piggies they never seemed overly bothered by hay until that tried hay box! They only need a tablespoon of pellets as a Max each day, they are not overly important!
 
Yes it was just a small amount of grass yesterday and today. Would grass count as veggies ie to be limited or hay as much as they want once used to it?
 
TinyPiggies said:
My piggies are 9 weeks old and love their veggies and pellets but never seemed too bothered about hay. I tried burgess with dandelion and some orchard hay the got a sample then a (larger that imagined) box of Timothy blend from hay box. They have gone mad for it. Haven’t stopped eating since this afternoon and have for the first time not finished their pellets. Is this normal? I also have them a handful of fresh grass for the first time yesterday and that was even more insane they were grabbing it and doing the eating the same piece from each end thing. Normal or crazy?
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That is great! Piggies can do without pellets but not hay; pellets should ideally not make more than 1 tablespoon per piggy per day. The more hay the better because compared to it, pellets have a lot less crucial fibre. What most people are not aware of is that fresh growing grass is high in vitamin C and good quality hay also contains enough of it for good health. Since it is the mainstay on which they have evolved, it is the reason why they never had the need to make their own vitamin C in the first place.
Preferably green veg should fill the role of the natural supplementation for trace elements etc. in addition to the grass/hay. But you may be surprised to hear that we hardly ever deal with scurvy; and then it is mostly in cases of oversupplementing with vitamin C and not from lack of it.

You can find more information in our diet guide, which looks at all food groups and their role in the diet as well as at each food group in detail: Long Term Balanced General And Special Needs Guinea Pig Diets
 
I agree.
Haybox hay is lovely and since I switched to using Haybox (well over a year ago now), my piggies (and rabbits) will not touch any other type of hay, they can’t get enough of haybox! The more hay they eat the better! Mine are only having pellets a few days a week now and even then they only get half a tablespoon each (rather than the full tablespoon) scattered fed around the cage to forage for.
 
I’ve also noticed that the piggies are suddenly using their water bottle, they hardly seemed to drink before. Do you think all the hay would make them thirsty?
 
TinyPiggies said:
I’ve also noticed that the piggies are suddenly using their water bottle, they hardly seemed to drink before. Do you think all the hay would make them thirsty?
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Piggies will drink as much as they need - some drink more, some drink less but they will also get water from their vegetables.
 
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