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Should pellets be unlimited or fed in moderation?
– Cavy Keeper via email
Pellets can be an important part of a healthy guinea pig’s diet. High-quality pellets can provide essential nutrients like protein and Vitamins A, E, C, D, and B-12.
The type of pellets your guinea pig needs depends on its age. Guinea pigs that are six months old and younger can have access to unlimited alfalfa hay pellets. Guinea pigs over six months will generally eat about 1/4 cups of Timothy hay pellets per day.
If you notice that your guinea pig is eating too many pellets and is putting on too much weight, or if it’s avoiding hay and vegetables to munch solely on pellets, it’s a good idea to limit its pellet intake by portioning it to a few pellet servings throughout the day.
Oxbow Essentials Adult Guinea Pig Food is one of our favorites for high-quality pellets. Just be sure to buy alfalfa-based pellets if you’re feeding baby guinea pigs.
High-quality pellets provide important nutrients that will help keep your guinea pig happy, healthy, and strong.
If you need more help with how to identify high-quality guinea pig pellets, Guinea Lynx has put together a useful guide on How to Recognize High Quality Pellets.
can you buy crystallized vitamin C at amazon.com? or…. where do you buy it? can you tell me someplace near new haven connecticut?
Not sure where you can get Vitamin C crystals in Connecticut, but you can get it online at Amazon here: http://amzn.to/vit-c
thank you!
can lady guinea pigs climb over a cage?
I guess they can if they really wanted out, but we have never dared to try! Life is too comfy inside our home 🙂
Of course, you can add a roof of cubes if you are worried about escapees.
i have two guinea pigs for 3 weeks they are still not tamed I tried to get them tamed but they just ran away when I came in the piggie room. What should I do???
wahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Just be patient with your piggies, spend lots of time with them and cuddle frequently. Some guinea pigs never get used to having Humans around, in fact, we still don’t like being picked up, but when we’re being held, we settle down quite a bit. It just takes lots of patience! 😀
Hi Hammy, I just brought home my two guinea pigs. One of them is 5 months old, and the other is just over 2 months old. I am currently feeding them Oxbow Cavy performance pellets that they are used to eating and they share one food bowl. But in about two months should I still feed them cavy performance? Because the older one would be over 6 months. Or should I mix their pellets with cavy cuisine? Thank you!
Hi Carissa!
I’m not familiar with the ingredients to Oxbow Cavy Performance Pellets. However, if it is composed primarily of alfalfa hay, or if it says on the package, “formulated for young guinea pigs” (or something like that), then you should mix their pellets with an adult-formulated pellet (timothy hay) after they turn 6 months. Hope that makes sense!
Cavy performance is alfalfa-based and listed as young guinea pig food 🙂 If I start mixing the pellets after the older one is 6 months old, will the younger one be affected since she would only be around 4 months old?
This is by no means concrete advice, please do additional hunting by posting your question to the Guinea Lynx Forum and other reputable guinea pig forums.
In your case, the Humans may mix the pellets when the older one turns 6, but give extra alfalfa-based pellets to the younger one during floor time before taking the older one to floor time. Once you take the older one to floor time with the younger one, remove the alfalfa pellets. Then, after floor-time is over, take the younger one from floor-time and give some timothy hay (adult) pellets to the older one. Whatever guinea pig care schedule works for you, it would be ideal to work in extra alfalfa for the younger one while you transition the older one to timothy hay (adult) pellets.