OK to not feed nuggets?

Countrylass

Countrylass

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Penny was spayed last month and is recovering well. Since the spay she started having squeaky noises when urinating. The vet checked her bladder while she was in for the spay and said there were no issues.

I've been a little out of sorts over the past week and forgot to sprinkle some pellets (we have the Selective grain free and Versale Laga ones plus the new batch of Piggy Parcel pellets which arrived Friday) in amongst the hay for several days at the start of the week. My brain temporarily kicked back in on Wednesday when they had pellets again. I give them 2 tablespoons amongst the 6 ladies.

They all tried the new Piggy Parcel pellets Friday night and the dried forage yesterday morning. Within a few hours, Penny was squeaking every time she urinated. Speaking to mom about it, she said Penny had the same reaction mid-week.

We feed quite a varied fresh food diet (they are currently enjoying kohlrabi) and they will get grass once it starts growing again so does she need to eat pellets? I've started her on Cystaid to support her bladder.
 
Pellets are the expendable part of the diet so provided you can provide the nutrients elsewhere then it’s fine. At two tablespoons between six they aren’t getting very many each anyway.
Mine don’t get pellets every day - I give forage instead and once there is grass/warm enough, I pick it/they spend a lot of time on it
 
Piggies don't need pellets in their diet. In Austria vets are very much against feeding pellets. They are more about snacking than about a valuable part of a piggies' diet.
I stopped feeding pellets many years ago. The piggies love them as s rare treat, but they don't get much or often. And usualy only hand fed.
 
Both my girls have issues with calcium so I don’t give them any pellets either c:

I used to give one or two as a rare snack but that alone seemed to cause painful calcium crystals in their wee that had to be flushed out.
 
Thank you for your replies. I've tested Penny with the treat hays (green oat and green wheat) early this morning- no reaction. We've then tried fresh parsley about 2 hours ago and again no reaction so far. I'll monitor for the rest of the day but it does seem like it is the nuggets which cause issues.

We will keep Carol on them as she has lost around 20-30g without them and she can't afford to lose too much weight.
 
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