Vitamin Supplements - What's Best?

they don't have to take multivitamins because an excess of certain vitamins is very dangerous. But they need vit C and a little supplement is never harmful and can prevent a deficiency due to the fact that most of vegs on sale, being stored into the fridges, don't contain what they should contain...
Here in Italy vets suggest only Cebion drops for children, because it is the only product dosable in each drop, which of course you have to put directly into the mouth of the piggie, because the vit C disappears with air, light and time... it is not possible to put it into their bottle then.
each drop contains 6mg of vit C and the suggested daily amount for a piggie is 20-40mg/kg (a day). here vets suggest different doses; some suggest one drop a day or two drops a week... it depends on piggies diet.
I don't give them a normal ration of pellets, I give them a lot of fresh grass (rich of vitamins) but for being on the safe side I give them 2 drops of Cebion, too. It is only my choice.
You might use also other specific supplements by Oxbow, but maybe their dosage is higher.
Anyway, never use the multivitamins for us humans.
If the diet is correct and the veg is genuine we all could avoid supplements. But there are piggies who develop scurvy eating fortified pellets and right vegs... and I see that scurvy is never found in piggies who are given a little supplement... Moreover vit C boosts immunitary system.
It is only your choice...
Cebion sold in Italy costs 5-6€ and 2 drops a day for two piggies lasts one month.
 
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I did mean vit c!
My guys are on a pellet food, have veggies and grass and of course hay.
I just wondered what vit c supplement they might need, if it is needed.
Thanks
 
if your piggies eat fresh grass you can avoid supplements because the grass for sure contains enough vitamin, but as I have told you, if you want to use a little supplement which can be simply thrown away with the wee (wasted money in that case) you can use human drops, keeping the dosage quite low...
I don't know what to suggest, because also the vets have not the same opinion... I guess that a little dosage can never be harmful and can have a lot of benefits. Have a look on the label of pellets, maybe they contain a lot of supplement and maybe you are giving many grams of pellets.
 
PiggyOwner said:
they shouldn't need Vit C supplements if they eat veggies rich in Vit C such as bell peppers
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there is only a "little" problem: bell peppers arrive at the supermarkets after a lot of days (and weeks) from the harvest and they are usually picked up totally immature (just like tomatoes and bananas which are picked up green and then put into special room with ethylene gas; the same ethylene is used with kiwi and other fruits). How much vit C can have a similar bell pepper or a similar fruit? why do many piggies eating bell pepper, vegs and pellets still develop deficiency of vit C? :roll:
This is a fact: scurvy still exists although all the pellets are fortified and all the vegs are available... something sounds wrong...
 
Choccawocca said:
Hi
Where are the best vitamin supplements for pigs?

Thanks
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A good balanced vegetable diet is enough for a healthy guinea pig. This can be supplemented by a boost of vitamin if your guinea pig is sill or stressed to help support the immune system.
Too much vitamin C on a regular basis can ironically lead to scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) as soon as the vitamin C input drops and can lead to problems in the long term.

Our sample diet is based on a careful balance of nutrients, including three different veg and herbs daily to provide plent of vitamin C. Most of our long term members use a similar diet and have never had any problems with scurvy or other deficiencies.
Recommendations For A Balanced General Guinea Pig Diet
 
Wiebke said:
A good balanced vegetable diet is enough for a healthy guinea pig. This can be supplemented by a boost of vitamin if your guinea pig is sill or stressed to help support the immune system.
Too much vitamin C on a regular basis can ironically lead to scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) as soon as the vitamin C input drops and can lead to problems in the long term.

Our sample diet is based on a careful balance of nutrients, including three different veg and herbs daily to provide plent of vitamin C. Most of our long term members use a similar diet and have never had any problems with scurvy or other deficiencies.
Recommendations For A Balanced General Guinea Pig Diet
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can you please give me the font of this news? because honestly I have never read it and even the vets here don't know anything of that...
and if 12mg a day can cause damages in the long term, what do you think about the quantity of vit C contained in all the pellets? the ones fortified which many people still use in excess?
 
rome_italy said:
can you please give me the font of this news? because honestly I have never read it and even the vets here don't know anything of that...
and if 12mg a day can cause damages in the long term, what do you think about the quantity of vit C contained in all the pellets? the ones fortified which many people still use in excess?
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I cannot exactly remember where I read that as it is a number of years ago; I think it may have been on Guinea Lynx. The problem has been more prominent in the US where is/has been a much stronger tendency to add vitamins to the diet.
However fortified pellets are one of the reasons why we have not recommended to supplement with vitamins because many people do not take them into account, but still use these pellet brands.

Long term overdosing on vitamin C can be a cause of developing signs of scurvy and may be at the root of some of the cases you are citing.

Anyway, I have had guinea pigs in my life for over a quarter of a century and have never had a problem with scurvy despite not adding any extra vitamin C to my piggies' diet beyond veg and limited pellets.
 
Wow, thank you.
I was told at a pet shop I needed vit c supplement for my guineas (they saw me shopping for toys!) so I thought I'd check - glad I did now.
As a new piggie mum this forum is great for advice
 
I've had a good read of your feeding link, which was very helpful.
My pigs are obsessed with carrot (think this was the only thing they got) but I am limiting this as worried about sugar.
They ran away from red pepper! Should I try again?
They are proving to be very fussy so like children do you just keep offering?
Thanks
 
Yes keep offering and like a child eventually they will try it and probably like it.
Mine eat pretty much everything I put in front of them, but they weren't always like this.
I put their fresh down and removed any uneaten portion an hour of so later.
 
gizzy said:
Taking Too Much Vitamin C Can Be Dangerous, Study Finds

I would imagine that the same applies to guinea pigs
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in that study is written a HUGE dose of vit C for humans: Those who think that if a little vitamin C is good, more must be better should think again, says a team of British researchers, who found that a supplement of 500 milligrams a day could damage people's genes
a different story... for humans a good dose suggestred is 100mg.
Piggies should take 20-40mg.
There are some researches (a bit old though) about them, but again, the doses used in such studies are HUGE, nothing to do with what here vets suggest for preventing a damage due to the fact that vegs sometimes don't contain much vit C and sometimes the piggie's body can require more than 40mg for a lot of reasons.
Here it is some of these researches:
Can There Be Too Much of a Good Thing?

Much debate was created, in 1974, when Dr. Linus Pauling published his theory that massive doses of Vitamin C would reduce the incidence of colds and various other mild maladies. His theories were whole-heartedly embraced by the health food community and created mixed reactions from his colleagues. His theories flew into the face of evidence presented by Gordonoff, in 1960, that cavies given a four week regimen at an estimated 500 mgs Vitamin C per day, would develop scurvy much more rapidly, than did control animals, when Vitamin C was deprived from both groups of cavies.
(...)

Cochrane (1965) observed that two offspring, out of a female cavy which had been receiving 1 gram (=1000mg) of Vitamin C per day (1000 x MDR) during pregnancy, had succumbed to scurvy when given only a normal maintenance dose of the vitamin. He postulated that these offspring had been conditioned in utero to a higher than normal rate of Vitamin C catabolism.

Sorrensen (1974) fed an experimental group of cavies a diet which contained 86 grams (=8600mg!) Vitamin C/kg of diet for 275 days. The growth rate of the experimental animals was significantly retarded as compared to the growth rate of the control group, receiving only 2 grams Vitamin C/kg of diet.
(...)

1)Cochrane, H.A. (1965), Overnutrition in prenatal life: A problem?, Can. Med. Assoc. J.93, 893-899.

2)Gordonoff, F. (1960), Should one give excesses of water soluble vitamins? Experiments with Vitamin C., Schweiz. Med. Wochenschr. 90, 726-729.

3)Sorensen, D.I. (1974), Catabolism and tissue levels of ascorbic acid following massive long term doses in the guinea pig., J. Nutr. 104, 1041-8.

Here in this thread we were talking of TWO DROPS OF CEBION= 12mg!

then: scurvy is a serious disease, but very mild symptoms caused by a lack of certain vitamins are rarely visible... the body can be only a bit weak...
 
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Wiebke said:
I cannot exactly remember where I read that as it is a number of years ago; I think it may have been on Guinea Lynx. The problem has been more prominent in the US where is/has been a much stronger tendency to add vitamins to the diet.
However fortified pellets are one of the reasons why we have not recommended to supplement with vitamins because many people do not take them into account, but still use these pellet brands.

Long term overdosing on vitamin C can be a cause of developing signs of scurvy and may be at the root of some of the cases you are citing.

Anyway, I have had guinea pigs in my life for over a quarter of a century and have never had a problem with scurvy despite not adding any extra vitamin C to my piggies' diet beyond veg and limited pellets.
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as I have said to Gizzy, I am talking of a very little dose of supplement, lower than the one your piggies get from their daily dose of pellet which I don't use (only very few pieces by hand). I don't trust the little piece of bell pepper left in the cage for the night, maybe eaten after 8 hours (from a bell pepper stored into fridges) and I cannot even be sure of the vit C contained in the fresh grass (during the whole summer my piggies ate only grass from private lawns... nothing special) which I cut and I serve in two days.
Also the vets here don't suggest big amounts of vegs, but summer grass is a nightmare here...
Therefore, for being on the safe side they suggest a dose which will be only a little supplement, not enough for the piggie, but only a little help for developing a good immunitary system. Probably it is all wasted money... but who knows if the pair of old piggies belonging to the wife of my vet (8 years old) are healthy and with no sign of arthritis (never developed a URI) because of the (little!) supplement taken since the beginning?
But here vets don't trust even Oxbow special supplements which in their opinion might be excessive.
 
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