|
| |
What Do Guinea Pigs Eat?
How Do I Care for My Guinea Pig?
What's the Fuss About Vitamin C?
Is My Guinea
Pig Lonely?
The information below
is designed to help you learn detailed information about guinea pig care. Among
the topics: a complete list of nutritious vegetable choices to feed your guinea
pig, including which common vegetables are poisonous to guinea pigs; how to give
your guinea pig cage its weekly cleaning; guinea pig facts; why you should NOT
breed; and much more.
Contact us if you have other questions, and we'll do our best to answer
them.
Supplies List
Guinea Pig Cages and Bedding
Cage Cleaning 101
Guinea Pig Facts
Complete Safe and Nutritious Raw Vegetable Feeding List, including
POISONOUS Veggies!
Barbering
Sickness and Quarantine
What Do Guinea Pigs Eat?
If you're in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area, visit the Rescue or one of our satellite locations for
guinea pig supplies at significant discounts, including hay, pellets, Vitamin C
tablets and proper bedding.
Contact us for more information, or to be sure we'll
have the supplies when you come.
In a nutshell, feed:
NOTE:
Guinea pigs can die from "gut stasis" if they go
more than 12 hours without eating. Guinea pigs
eat on-and-off all day and night, and should have
food available to them around-the-clock.
Hay and Pellets
Quality
Timothy hay and
Timothy pellets should be available round-the-clock to guinea pigs over one
year old. CAUTION: Do not feed pellets containing seeds, such as sunflower, as
this can be a choking hazard.
Alfalfa
Hay and
Alfalfa pellets
may be given to babies under one year old and nursing mothers, due to its higher
calcium content, but calcium after one year old can be HARMFUL, causing bladder
sludge among other problems. If you are unsure of your guinea pig's age, feed
Timothy hay and Timothy pellets.
Vegetables
See our
Complete Safe and Nutritious Vegetable Feeding List, including POISONOUS
Veggies. There's nothing quite like
the sheer joy you'll see on your guinea pig's face when you bring them their
daily fresh, raw veggies! Do not feed too many fruits that are high in
sugar. They seem to like veggies the most anyway!
Here's a simple
daily feeding schedule to supplement the hay and pellets:
-
In the morning, feed
one-fourth Roma tomato wedge and one baby carrot per guinea pig.
-
In the evening
- approximately 12 hours after your first feeding - feed a mix of about three
veggies. Some favorites we've found include Romaine or Spring Mix lettuces,
parsley, cilantro, green or red bell pepper (not the hot, spicy peppers),
cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumber, or collard greens. Note that potatoes, garlic, onions, rhubarb and apple
seeds are all POISONOUS to guinea pigs. Tomatoes are ok, but the
leaves,
stalks and roots of the tomato plant are POISONOUS.
Vitamin C
Select vegetables that are
high in vitamin C, as they do not make vitamin C on their own and need it from
an outside food source, just like humans. Healthy piggies need 10 mg / kg of
vitamin C per day, which, if not supplied in their food diet, must be
supplemented with crushed vitamin C tablets for animals (available through your
vet), sprinkled most easily on the cut side of their morning tomato every other
day. Vitamin C added to the water is NOT the best source.
Water
Always provide your guinea pigs
with fresh water in a bottle attached to the side of the cage. Filtered
water is best, as it removes any calcium, which can cause bladder sludge. Change
the water daily to assure freshness. Be sure to rinse the bottle and the sipper
tube out daily, and wash them in the dishwasher once a week to sterilize (you
may want to use the air dry setting to avoid melting the bottle).
Health Checks
It is very important to observe changes in the
behavior of your guinea pig, as they are extremely good at hiding illness! Lack
of appetite should be taken seriously, because if a guinea pig goes longer than
12 hours without eating they can quickly die from Ketosis. See more information
at our Medical Care page.
Guinea Pig
Do's
* DO keep more than one guinea
pig. They are THIGMOTACTIC animals, which means they like to cuddle up to
others of their own kind. They will sweetly bond with their cagemates, and you
can even put NEUTERED males and females together (and the males really
seem to love this!), or two males or two females together. All the males
at the Rescue are neutered before being adopted.
* DO provide large living quarters - a minimum of 7 square feet per guinea pig.
When it comes to guinea pig cages, bigger is always better. See our
Cages page for information on how to build an
inexpensive larger cage.
* DO provide fresh Timothy hay and Timothy pellets around the clock. If guinea
pigs go more than 12 hours without eating, they can go into "gut stasis" and
die.
* DO provide a variety of fresh
vegetables
every day - especially those rich in vitamin C.
* DO always quarantine a new guinea pig away from an existing piggy for at least
14-21 days. This means in a separate room behind closed doors. Wash your hands
before and after handling the new piggy. Keep a smock or shirt handy for
handling the newcomer, so you don't have to keep changing your clothes. Ask us
if this rule applies if you're adopting from the Rescue.
Guinea Pig Don'ts
* NO cedar or raw pine bedding
- it contains phenols, which can lead to respiratory problems and liver failure
and even death!
* NO foods with seeds, and do not feed guinea pigs celery unless you remove all
the strings - it can be a choking hazard.
* DO NOT keep females with un-neutered males! There are already thousands
of unwanted, but otherwise healthy and delightful, guinea pigs available for
adoption in the United States. All the males at the Rescue
are neutered before being adopted.
* DO NOT allow small children to play unsupervised with a guinea pig, as
injuries could result to the child or the guinea pig.
* DO NOT BREED. Did
you know that breeding the wrong guinea pigs together can result in
"Lethal" babies who are blind and/or deaf or may have other medical
problems, like no teeth?
Read more at this link.
|
