QUESTION 1: What and how much do they have to eat?
ANSWER:
HAY - as much as they can eat and more, to allow for picking out
the best parts! Only grass hay, meadow hay and timothy hay,
not alfalfa hay.
Hay MUST be fed every day all year round! The cage floor should really
always be covered by lots of fresh hay. Piggies in nature
search for food all day and need to continue this behaviour
as domesticated too, otherwise they will get bored and feel sad.
If you cannot buy hay, maybe you can dry some grass? Hay is
just dried grass anyway. But remember that they eat loads of hay!
VEGETABLES - carrots are great and should be fed plentyful.
Actually 90 % or so of the vegetables ought to be carrots and
cabbage (half carrots and half cabbage),
except for during summertime if you can give
fresh grass and dandelion leaves instead.
Instead of cabbage you can give green kale or
curly kale,
these are actually even a bit better than cabbage! I have
noticed that the cavies smell a bit from eating cabbage, so
I often give chinese cabbage instead of cabbage.
They like both... Many other herbs can
be picked and fed, like clover, coltsfoot, yarrow, plantain
and all grasses. Most kinds of vegetables
could be given as extra treats daily. Always give as much
vegetables as they can eat every day! The daily amount of
carrots given daily can be one really big carrot per pig per
day.
Cabbage = vitkål, Green kale = grönkål, Curly kale = kruskål, chinese kale = salladskål = kinakål.
I also give mine BRAN and WHEAT GERMS. I used to give oats and barley, but then I started breeding (in a very small scale) and then wheat germs and bran are very good. There os lots of vitamin E in wheat germs. I mix 10 parts bran and 3 parts wheat germs, add hot freshly boiled water, and serve in very low feeding bowls. They get as much as they eat in less than half an hour, and I give this daily: every morning!
Bran = kli, wheat germs = vetegroddar.
TREATS - any small piece of vegetable or fruit! As treats you can give anything they like, like cucumber, grapes, apple, pear, banana, lettuce, tomato, and just about all kinds of vegetable or fruit in small amounts. A nice idea is to feed these from your hand so they come to you for treats :-)
NOTE: One thing that I have noticed is that since this hay plus vegetable diet is much cheaper than feeding a lot of pellets, lots of people think they may look greedy giving their pets cheap food. But it is one of the unsolved riddles, that piggies generally live longer and are healthier while eating this cheaper diet! Remember that if you have many piggies you can buy hay by the bale and carrots in a big sack!
QUESTION 2:What should I avoid giving my guinea pigs?
ANSWER: All kinds of processed foods, like pellets and anything you can cannot clearly recognize as vegetable. You ought to know that pellets contains animal fat and preservatives that are harmful to guinea pigs. Never give meat or fat seeds like sunflower seeds or nuts. Avoid giving more than a little romaine or iceberg lettuce. Do not give hot spicy herbs or vegetables. Don't pick anything close to traffic or where dogs pee...
Tomato leaves and anything green found on potatoes are poisonous, these plants belong to the nighshade family. Don't give chocolate.
QUESTION 3: Do my piggies need a hay rack to feed from?
ANSWER: Absolutely NO! Piggies need to feed from the floor of the cage. Look at your cavy. The mouth is almost on the underside of the animal - so it needs to eat from the ground. Also a hay rack will not have room for all the hay your piggy needs to eat every day. Hay is really important to keep your piggy healthy!
QUESTION 4: What about salt licks?
ANSWER: Not a good idea since all the minerals will overload the system and might make the piggy sick.
QUESTION 5: I've heard that piggies need distilled water in their water bottles to stay healthy, is this true?
ANSWER: Drinking lots of distilled water is truly harmful to humans so why give it to cavies? If a human drinks only distilled water instead of whatever he or she usually drinks all day long, he or she will certainly get seriously sick. If a guinea pig gets distilled water and lots of vegetables the guinea pig will not be so much affected, since there is much water in vegetables and the guinea pig will most probably eat that instead of drinking the distilled water.
Why giving distilled water then?
Since many guinea pigs are very sensitive to calcium buildup - Kidney & Urinary Stones - it has been suggested to give distilled water since it contains no calcium. In some places the tap-water is full of calcium. Try to give water with less calcium!
QUESTION 6: I've heard that you MUST give Vitamin C in their water, is that true?
ANSWER: Only if you do not have as much fresh vegetables to give as they can eat, as guinea pigs can get scurvy. It a much better idea to give lots and lots of vegetables and fruits that are full of vitamin C. Carrots are among the vegetables with very little vitamin C, still a normal sized carrot a day will give your cavy the amount of vitamin C it needs! Too much vitamin C added to the diet may give the guinea pig pseudo scurvy.
If you add extra Vitamin C in the water: remember that Vitamin C in water will only last a few hours (maybe only half an hour). Vitamin C is an acid that is destoyed by light and also by the metal parts of the water bottle.
You can also rest assured that vitamin C that is added to pellets is destroyed too...
QUESTION 7: Can't it be bad to add vitamin C?
ANSWER: Yes! If you constantly add vitamin C to the diet
in ANY other form than via fresh fruit and vegetables
the guinea pig will get accustomed to this high
level of vitamin C, and may show signs of vitamin C deficiency
if you ever stop adding vitamin C! This problem is well
known and called
pseudo scurvy.
What happens is that the normal
mechanism in the guinea pig for absorbing vitamin C atrophies,
and when the guinea pig does get back to normal amounts of
vitamin C again the guinea pig can't absorb enough vitamin C
and develops symptoms of scurvy.
Therefore you should never give to your guinea pig higher
amounts of vitamin C than necessary.
The best way to give vitamin C is to give the guinea pigs as
much vegetables and fruit as they can eat. For example:
carrots are low in vitamin C. But still, if you give your
guinea pigs as much carrots they can eat every day,
they will get enough vitamin C!
This is true for all guinea pigs except pregnant females
and sick guinea pigs,
they should be given vegetables and fruit high in vitamin C.
Remember that all guinea pigs with skin problems
(including parasites) need extra vitamin C, but
vegetables and fruit high in vitamin C is enough!
If you ask me why so much vitamin C tablets are sold to guinea pig owners, if those are unneccesary, and I answer "someone wants to earn money on your ignorance", what do you feel?
QUESTION 8: What's the pros and cons of water bowls contra water bottles?
ANSWER: Guinea pigs are very prone to tip over water bowls, therefore water bottles are the only practical alternative. They are also very good at making a mess in the water bowl...
QUESTION 9: What's the pros and cons of pellets?
ANSWER: There is much to say about pellets, most it negative.
The only real positive to say, is that now pellets based on
timothy instead of alfaalfa can be bought, at least in USA. Did you
know that pellets contain animal fat? Most brands also
contains preservatives (Ethoxyquin) that is harmful to hamsters
(can damage chromosomes in hamsters), and causes kidney
damage in rats. (Source: Medline.)
Also pellets have too low fibre contents, and this causes
impaction in the male guinea pig.
Just remember that the company that produces commercial piggy food and treats are companies and driven by economics. Your pet's best interest is not what they have at heart, they want your money.
Some persons love pellets because it is easy to feed to your guinea pigs - or because they are payed from a pellets company. These persons often state that the guinea pig is a well studied animal in research and that therefore much is known about guinea pigs should eat. But the research guinea pigs only live for less than a year, and pet guinea pigs are supposed to live for 5 or 7 years...
Sometimes peole say things like "guinea pig mother and babies need alfalfa for bone and milk production because the calcium in alfalfa is incredibly important for both mom and babies", but this is absolutely not true.
There is today possible to buy pellets without the worst bad effects of pellets in general, and that is the special brand of pellets from the Oxbow company that is based on timothy instead of alfalfa. They have several brands, so be sure to buy the right one! This can be bought in Sweden today, see link on Eva's Home Page.
QUESTION 10: What about commercial piggy treats, like youghurt drops and stuff you can buy in pet shops?
ANSWER: These are, I'm sad to say, quite unhealthy. They contain much more sugar than your piggy ought to eat. Give natural snacks instead: most vegetables and fruit are fine. Don't forget wild herbs, like dandelion (leaves, stem and flowers of dandelion are fine to feed).
Just remember that the company that produces commercial piggy food and treats are companies and driven by economics. Your pet's best interest is not what they have at heart, they just want your money!!!
QUESTION 11: What are the food requirements of guinea pigs?
ANSWER: Guinea pigs are hind gut fermenters. This means that most the nutrition is picked up in the cecum, just like in elephants, horses and rabbits. The cecum is full of useful bacteria, protozoa and biochemical substances (like enzymes) that break down the food into small chemichals that the guinea pig can absorb.
This is an adaption to the high fiber food guinea pigs are meant to eat. Guinea pigs that eat too little fiber can get diarrhoea just from upsetting this sensitive system. This depends on the fact that little helpers that live in the cecum actually live on fiber. Because of this fiber always need to be a big part of the guinea pig's daily food intake.
The guinea pig need not look sick from eating a too low fibre diet, but the guinea pig will surely be more sensitive to stress of any kind.
If you need to medicate your guinea pig with antibiotics you ought to know that many kinds of antibiotics kill off many of the llittle helpers in the cecum of the guinea pig - hence the guinea pig easily gets diarrhoea from oral antibiotics.
Some people state that guinea pigs will starve if never fed pellets. This is of course not true. I know many breeders that never give pellets, but still breed and show price winning pigs.
The best food for guinea pigs are lots of good hay and lots of fresh vegetables/grass.
Copyright Eva Johansson.
Last update: 2nd of December 2005.