Pigs in Kathmandu

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jade_c

Hello,
I live in Kathmandu, Nepal. I recently adopted 3 male guinea pigs. The previous owner has a number of pigs and feeds them on fruit, veg and porridge oats and they seem to be doing fine. Mine get lots of vitamin c from fruit and veg, and lots of green leaf veg as well. Is it ok that they're not getting hay or pellets? there is no access to that at all over here.
Any help with this would be great! Thanks!
 
have you got acsess to grass? I'm no expert but i know hay/grass makes up 80% of their diet and its a must x
 
Ideally, they should get at least 50% or more of their diet from hay. Access to fresh grass also helps, but hay is the most important of a good guinea pig diet. Most good quality pellets are hay based, too.

Would it be possible to get one or the other over the internet?
 
so green leaf veg isn't enough?
i can try and find some grass for them to graze on. it could be quite difficult though and not very often. how much of it do they need to eat?
importing things over the internet is almost impossible. expensive due to so many customs regs.
 
Presumably you could get rice straw in Kathmandu - Does anyone know if guinea pigs can eat that?
 
I'm worried now they'll get ill if I don't find some sort of grass. I've had them now for about 10 days. I can ask my local greengrocer if he can supply some sort of grass twice a week, that might be an option. it is difficult to get it myself with no transport and living in the city.
I'll post back here if I can get it!
 
may be a really silly idea but any way you can get hold of a tray, such as litter tray, fill it with soil and just order a packet of grass seeds and kinda grow you own ?
 
Welcome!

Hay is important to piggies to wear their teeth down and for their digestive system. Rice straw is not available in Sweden :) but I can't imagine it would be dangerous. It may be a good product to wear their teeth down it it's what you can get hold of. I know the rescue I got mine from sometimes give their piggies straw to play in and chew.

I feel a little uneducated... but what kind of climate do you have? Would it be possible for you to grow wheat, oat or barley grass on your balcony or in the window sill? It may be a good way to get them grass! Another thing could be to get branches from apple trees or willows (again I have NO idea if they grow in Nepal :) )for them to chew on, or just untreated wood. It will help wear down their teeth too!

Just to ease your mind about the hay, rabbits are also supposed to have hay all the time, but the one I had as a kid lived for 10 healthy years without it... (I had no idea it needed it) Funny enough he ate mainly porridge oats, like yours, and sometimes muesli food with some veggies and fruit every now and then.
 
I'm gonna try and get some hay delivered from somewhere but I'll try growing my own on my balcony. I've got a feeling they'll just devour it in about 5 mins and i'll have to spend most of my time dedicated to growing grass! They're taking up most of my time as it is! And they take up 3 shelves in the fridge! All i get in return is poo ;)
The climate here at the moment is monsoon so it would be difficult to dry out grass but someone somewhere here must supply it. I'll let you know how I get on.
 
A great thing with grass is that once it's in the soil it takes very little care, it grown on its own :)) If you start something each week you should have a pretty steady supply!

The hay would be dried in another season... Few countries have good weather all the time. In Sweden we've got 6 months of winter...
 
I would try and see whether you can get hold of some rice straw or other dried cereal stalks locally. Grass seeds are a good idea if you can start them in batches - although I would feed it fresh and not dried.

Rice is a member of the grass family as are wheat, barley, rye etc. and is definitely safe to feed! Just make sure that they won't be able to poke their eyes if it is very hard and rough.
 
Try contacting the Nepal Agricultural Research Council - they have an Animal Nutrition Unit in Kathmandu that have published a detailed nuritional analysis of feedstuffs and fodder available in Nepal ofr livestock

It looks like wheat straw and rice straw are two of the main fodder crops produced that would be suitable for guineas.......(hay is not mentioned as such) ...so NARC may be able to tell you how to get your hands on a bale of something suitable

Worryingly they have highlighted a fodder shortage in Nepal.......

http://www.narc.gov.np/


HTH
xx
 
thanks for the weblink!
this forum is great! everyone's been so nice!
i'll get onto this first thing tomorrow and let you know what i find. i need a constant source from one of the farms on the outskirts of the city, shouldn't be too hard to set up. and now i know they definitely need it for their diet.
 
Right, I managed to get some straw for them, don't know what kind of straw. The grocer said he can get something delivered each week for me so that's good. Trouble is, they're not eating it! grrrr They're not babies but they probably haven't seen/eaten it before. Will they figure out what it is for?! I think they're used to grass and greens. I have grass seeds on the way so I can start growing it for them.
I'm trying to get hold of a vet so they can have their nails trimmed, have a check up etc and the local carpenter is building them a deluxe hutch for the balcony so we're nearly there!
 
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