My Piggies Don't Like Carrot

[jandlholmes]

Hi! We have two female piggies (Gwendolyn & Ferrah). Neither of them will eat carrots. We usually feed Timothy Hay, pellets and fresh greens (lettuce, spinach, endive, red cabbage, occassionally apple and/or orange). I reviewed other posts re: diet and realized there are some other ideas to try (peppers, etc.). How do I make sure they are getting the proper nuturition and Vit. C requirements. We love them VERY much but have a limited budget at the moment. Our next big priority is a larger cage. Thanks for the advice!

[Ly&Pigs]

Carrots aren't a big deal. They are more a treat veggie. I'd stick with the leafy greens although be careful with spinach and feed in very small amounts. It's through the roof in oxalic acid which bind with calcium to form oxalate stones. I won't feed my own herd spinach because of the extremely high levels of oxalic acid.

Just try adding in the bell pepper (any color) and maybe some cilantro into the diet and then try other things on a rotating basis. If you are providing the minimum of 1 cup each per day of veggies, they are getting the C they need.

[jandlholmes]

Thanks Ly&Pigs. I didn't know that about the spinach. They didn't like the green pepper much but I'll keep mixing it with and slowly introduce them to new things.

[Tulia&Susie]

Mine at first didn't like the peppers so much after some time they slowly got used to it and now the love it. So don't give up and keep trying.

[aaronmeister]

If you think your cavy isn't getting enough vitamin c I would suggest Oxbow's GTN-50C tablets. I give one a day to my cavy and she loves them. You can get them here: Oxbow Pet Products

I had hard time getting my little girl to eat them, but I found out she wouldn't eat it whole, so I broke it into 4ths and placed it in her dish, they would be gone in seconds. So now I break it in 4ths, put in two in the dish and the other half is treats through out the day.

[ctinaw]

At first my pigs would eat nothing but leafy greens but now they eat carrots and peppers as well. I still haven't gotten them to eat zucchini or cucumber but I'm going to keep trying.