What To Feed My Guinea Pigs?

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Vickyy

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I got 2 young male guinea pigs yesterday. The breeder gave me a bag of their current food to help them settle in - this was goat mix which i found a bit odd but now understand why. As there are hundreds of different foods out there i was just wondering what everyone thought was best. I don't want food that is outrageously expensive but i'm willing to pay for good quality.

thank you :)
 
Hi! Sadly, many breeders who breed for the sake of money sadly feed the cheapest and crappiest mix available. Please switch to pellets, as dry mixes have now been scientifically proven to be bad for rabbits - and we have to assume the same for guinea pigs. Burgess excel is a decent quality as well as widely available UK brand of pellets.

You may find these threads here helpful:
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...or-a-balanced-general-guinea-pig-diet.116460/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...veg-and-fruit-list-with-vitamin-c-grading.42/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/getting-a-guinea-pig-items-youll-need-to-buy.112288/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/how-do-i-settle-shy-new-guinea-pigs.36239/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/boars-a-guide-to-successful-companionship.76162/

Please have a look through the information threads at the top of our various Care sections, but you are welcome to ask any questions you may.

If you'd like confirmation on the sex of your piggies, you can post pics in our pregnancy&sexing section. Ideally, you angle the crucial bits towars a good source of light. the clearer the picture the better. It may help if you got somebody else to either hold the piggies or take the pics.

As your boys have not undergone a quarantine, it may also be helpful to have them checked over by a good vet. We have got a piggy savvy UK vet locator on the top bar.

With members from all over the world, we find it very helpful if you added your country, state or (for the UK) your county/city, so we can always give you the appropriate advice and recommendations for your part of the world straight away. Click on your username on the top bar, then go to personal details and scroll down to location. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Wiebke said:
Hi! Sadly, many breeders who breed for the sake of money sadly feed the cheapest and crappiest mix available. Please switch to pellets, as dry mixes have now been scientifically proven to be bad for rabbits - and we have to assume the same for guinea pigs. Burgess excel is a decent quality as well as widely available UK brand of pellets.

You may find these threads here helpful:
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...or-a-balanced-general-guinea-pig-diet.116460/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...veg-and-fruit-list-with-vitamin-c-grading.42/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/getting-a-guinea-pig-items-youll-need-to-buy.112288/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/how-do-i-settle-shy-new-guinea-pigs.36239/
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/boars-a-guide-to-successful-companionship.76162/

Please have a look through the information threads at the top of our various Care sections, but you are welcome to ask any questions you may.

If you wish confirmation on the sex of your piggies, you are can post pics in our pregnancy&sexing section. Ideally, you angle the crucial bits towars a good source of light. the clearer the picture the better. It may help if you got somebody else to either hold the piggies or take the pics.

As your boys have not undergone a quarantine, it may also be helpful to have them checked over by a good vet. We have got a piggy savvy UK vet locator on the top bar.

With mebers from all over the world, we find it very helpful if you added your country, state or (for the UK) your county/city, so we can always give you the apprpriate advice and recommendations straight away. Click on your username on the top bar, then go to personal details and scroll down to location.
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Thank you for taking the time to reply :) My piggies are definitely male - the breeder showed me and i had read up on the subject beforehand :D
 
Congratulations on getting your boys! My piggies (5 between me and my daughter) now have the Asda guinea pig nuggets, which are VERY reasonably priced, and they love them. They used to have Burgess Excel, but when I found out about the Asda ones and compared the nutritional information and found them to be VERY similar, I thought I would give them a go. The boys took to them straight away and although the girls took a little longer they now also love them. So much so, in fact, that a while back when I couldn't get to an Asda to stock up (it seems to be just the larger stores that hold them in stock at the moment, but they are a fairly new line) and had to buy a bag of Burgess to mix in with the Asda ones to eek them out thye all picked out the Asda ones and left the Burgess!
 
Her Nibship said:
Congratulations on getting your boys! My piggies (5 between me and my daughter) now have the Asda guinea pig nuggets, which are VERY reasonably priced, and they love them. They used to have Burgess Excel, but when I found out about the Asda ones and compared the nutritional information and found them to be VERY similar, I thought I would give them a go. The boys took to them straight away and although the girls took a little longer they now also love them. So much so, in fact, that a while back when I couldn't get to an Asda to stock up (it seems to be just the larger stores that hold them in stock at the moment, but they are a fairly new line) and had to buy a bag of Burgess to mix in with the Asda ones to eek them out thye all picked out the Asda ones and left the Burgess!
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haha seems like they like the cheaper ones which is better for you! Thank you, i will have a look at supermarket own brand stuff and compare it to the excel stuff :D
 
I haven't bought them myself but zooplus sell something called Bunny (!) for guinea pigs (make sure you are looking at the right one because they also sell one for rabbits). It seems to be quite a bit more expensive than burgess but someone on the forum has done some research that suggests they are nutritionally the very best you can get. @GloriousGuineaGirl can you remember who it was? They don't contain molasses which burgess does and which apparently is not great for piggies.

I can't work out how they actually compare price wise to burgess because people have said the bunny pellets are so big you don't need many and so a bag lasts a long time.

Personally I feed burgess excel at the moment. The "plain" ones are sometimes on offer at the Range and the blackcurrant ones I bought in bulk from VetUk for a very cheap £3.70 per bag (if that's not cheap then I've misremembered the price!).

But when I run out of pellets, I think I will give a bag of the bunny a try given the good things said about it. Not sure if I could afford to always feed that but I can decide better once I've tried a bag of it.
 
QUOTE="PiggySmitten, post: 1583441, member: 116138"]I haven't bought them myself but zooplus sell something called Bunny (!) for guinea pigs (make sure you are looking at the right one because they also sell one for rabbits). It seems to be quite a bit more expensive than burgess but someone on the forum has done some research that suggests they are nutritionally the very best you can get. @GloriousGuineaGirl can you remember who it was? They don't contain molasses which burgess does and which apparently is not great for piggies.

I can't work out how they actually compare price wise to burgess because people have said the bunny pellets are so big you don't need many and so a bag lasts a long time.

Personally I feed burgess excel at the moment. The "plain" ones are sometimes on offer at the Range and the blackcurrant ones I bought in bulk from VetUk for a very cheap £3.70 per bag (if that's not cheap then I've misremembered the price!).

But when I run out of pellets, I think I will give a bag of the bunny a try given the good things said about it. Not sure if I could afford to always feed that but I can decide better once I've tried a bag of it.[/QUOTE]


It was my lovely friend @helen105281 :) my boys have been on Bunny guinea pig now for 3 weeks. They have 6 pellets each broken in half and the bag has hardly gone down def def value for the money. Can confirm also that my boys seem more alert, more energised and I will not be going back to anything else :)
 
GloriousGuineaGirl said:
It was my lovely friend @helen105281 :) my boys have been on Bunny guinea pig now for 3 weeks. They have 6 pellets each broken in half and the bag has hardly gone down def def value for the money. Can confirm also that my boys seem more alert, more energised and I will not be going back to anything else :)
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That's wonderful to hear they are doing so well.
 
Good Hay can be hard to find too, feeding hay should not be brown it should be green :) I struggled until I found a recommend hay on here its a very huge 9kg bag costing £16 (that includes the p@p) guineas diet should be appox 80% hay they should always have it available and this bag should last me 3-4 months! I don't know how to add links I will tag @GloriousGuineaGirl to help me with the hay for pets link :)
 

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My3cuteBoys said:
Good Hay can be hard to find too, feeding hay should not be brown it should be green :) I struggled until I found a recommend hay on here its a very huge 9kg bag costing £16 (that includes the p@p) guineas diet should be appox 80% hay they should always have it available and this bag should last me 3-4 months! I don't know how to add links I will tag @GloriousGuineaGirl to help me with the hay for pets link :)
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 
GloriousGuineaGirl said:
QUOTE="PiggySmitten, post: 1583441, member: 116138"]I haven't bought them myself but zooplus sell something called Bunny (!) for guinea pigs (make sure you are looking at the right one because they also sell one for rabbits). It seems to be quite a bit more expensive than burgess but someone on the forum has done some research that suggests they are nutritionally the very best you can get. @GloriousGuineaGirl can you remember who it was? They don't contain molasses which burgess does and which apparently is not great for piggies.

I can't work out how they actually compare price wise to burgess because people have said the bunny pellets are so big you don't need many and so a bag lasts a long time.

Personally I feed burgess excel at the moment. The "plain" ones are sometimes on offer at the Range and the blackcurrant ones I bought in bulk from VetUk for a very cheap £3.70 per bag (if that's not cheap then I've misremembered the price!).

But when I run out of pellets, I think I will give a bag of the bunny a try given the good things said about it. Not sure if I could afford to always feed that but I can decide better once I've tried a bag of it.
Click to expand...


It was my lovely friend @helen105281 :) my boys have been on Bunny guinea pig now for 3 weeks. They have 6 pellets each broken in half and the bag has hardly gone down def def value for the money. Can confirm also that my boys seem more alert, more energised and I will not be going back to anything else :)[/QUOTE]
@helen105281 it comes flooding back to me now of course! Sorry I couldn't remember. My brain was just stuck at the point of remembering @GloriousGuineaGirl had said in another thread she was weaning her piggies onto it. Can you find the thread where you talked a bit about the benefits/your findings?
 
My3cuteBoys said:
Good Hay can be hard to find too, feeding hay should not be brown it should be green :) I struggled until I found a recommend hay on here its a very huge 9kg bag costing £16 (that includes the p@p) guineas diet should be appox 80% hay they should always have it available and this bag should last me 3-4 months! I don't know how to add links I will tag @GloriousGuineaGirl to help me with the hay for pets link :)
Click to expand...
Yes I just recently got my first bag of hay from there too. It's very slightly more expensive than a 3.7kg bag of Pure Pastures meadow hay from the Range but really not much more expensive and very much a superior hay. Any of the 3 they sell are fine I think. I think I chose the Ings one but can't remember now.
Here's a link http://www.hay-for-pets.co.uk
 
PiggySmitten said:
Yes I just recently got my first bag of hay from there too. It's very slightly more expensive than a 3.7kg bag of Pure Pastures meadow hay from the Range but really not much more expensive and very much a superior hay. Any of the 3 they sell are fine I think. I think I chose the Ings one but can't remember now.
Here's a link http://www.hay-for-pets.co.uk
Click to expand...
Thank you @PiggySmitten :)
 
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