Newbie, Hay question

[Hadi]

Hi everyone,

Currently in the process of preparing a c&c cage for my soon to be pet piggies, i have never done this before.

Ive been researching about guinea pigs diet, how can i know what exact hay i should be providing for them, are they picky when it comes to what hay they eat ?

If i have 2-3 Guinea pigs, how much hay would they be going through per day?
Roughly how much do you all spend on hay per week for around 2-3 piggies?

Cheers

 

[weepweeps]

Hi. I buy soft Timothy hay for them to eat as their main hay. Then I provide a stalkier Timothy hay for them morning and night as a treat. In their bedrooms (boxes) I buy a cheaper meadow hay from a horse supply shop. There is no set amount as such. The more they eat the more you give. Once you have yours home you’ll be able to work out a monthly budget.

 

[Piggies&buns]

You just need to make sure they never run out of hay - there always needs to be a few piles of it in the cage at all times. Refilled daily/a few times a day - whatever works for your piggies, with any areas of wet hay removed daily

The way you’ll know that they are eating enough is by their weekly weight checks. You need to weigh them each week and keep a record. Any significant losses or downward trend means they aren’t eating enough hay and vet checks etc would be needed.

Some prefer one type of hay over another.

How much you’ll go through is a tricky thing to answer as each piggy and set up is different.
Mine have meadow hay and timothy hay. Meadow hay is everywhere in the cage as they are bedded on it, wet areas removed one to two times per day. They have a few piles of timothy hay around their shed which I top up morning and night.
Due to that, I go through 20kg between my five animals (two pairs and a single) every four weeks. So it works out to about 5kg for my pair of piggies per month but that’s not exact (sometimes it’ll be more, sometimes slightly less).

 

[Hadi]

Hi. I buy soft Timothy hay for them to eat as their main hay. Then I provide a stalkier Timothy hay for them morning and night as a treat. In their bedrooms (boxes) I buy a cheaper meadow hay from a horse supply shop. There is no set amount as such. The more they eat the more you give. Once you have yours home you’ll be able to work out a monthly budget.

You just need to make sure they never run out of hay - there always needs to be a few piles of it in the cage at all times. Refilled daily/a few times a day - whatever works for your piggies, with any areas of wet hay removed daily

The way you’ll know that they are eating enough is by their weekly weight checks. You need to weigh them each week and keep a record. Any significant losses or downward trend means they aren’t eating enough hay and vet checks etc would be needed.

Some prefer one type of hay over another.

How much you’ll go through is a tricky thing to answer as each piggy and set up is different.
Mine have meadow hay and timothy hay. Meadow hay is everywhere in the cage as they are bedded on it, wet areas removed one to two times per day. They have a few piles of timothy hay around their shed which I top up morning and night.
Due to that, I go through 20kg between my five animals (two pairs and a single) every four weeks. So it works out to about 5kg for my pair of piggies per month but that’s not exact (sometimes it’ll be more, sometimes slightly less).

Thanks so much for the info, greatly appreciated

 

[Free Ranger]

Mine are bedded on soft hay which is actually a pre-mixed bag of Meadow and softer Timothy. They love the stalky Timothy but it's too much of a risk in the enclosed bedroom areas for a poke in the eye. They get the stalky type out in the open. I tried just soft meadow in the bedrooms once, but everything was much wetter with pee - it seemed to absorb more rather than letting the pee drain through to the absorbent bedding beneath.

My older boar is prone to impaction and recently we had a couple of days without Timothy. I noticed he was more bunged up than usual after this, but when the new stalky hay arrived he improved again. I know a higher fibre diet is supposed to help - he's quite fond of chewing a cardboard box and that helps too - but I didn't think about the different types of hay having an effect as it's all hay and he eats all day long! It didn't make any difference to the others...

We've had some Aussie posters struggling to get the hay they wanted in manageable loads - one poster said she could either pay a great deal for the pet store bags or get a giant bale much cheaper per kilo... if only she had a barn to put it in! There was no in between. Faced with that prospect any hay is good hay!