Making sure each piggie gets the same veggies

[sophistacavy]

I have 3 sows, and I sometimes give them veggies on my lap to make sure they each get the same exact amount as I've researched on this website.

This is becoming increasingly inconvienient for me, and it would be much easier if I did what I thought everyone else does: fill a dish with veggies and put it in the cage. But, Ginger, my alpha head honcho, likes to say: (like those seagulls on Finding Nemo) "Mine Mine Mine Mine!" She's really quite funny, but she gets most of the veggies if she likes what I offer that day. My 2nd in command, Opal, will eat veggies really kinda fast if she likes them(I haven't tried anything she hasn't at least tasted yet), but she's not as pushy as Ginger. My sweet little Noel, who probably would never think of trying to push other cavies away to get food, does eat the veggies, and she likes them, but because she is completely passive and will let Ginger (and rarely Opal) boss her around gently, she doesn't get the same amount that Ginger & Opal get.

How do you people with MORE than 3 cavies ensure that each individual animal recieves the same exact amount/type of veggie and sometimes fruit?
I'm a perfectionist unfortunately, and so because I also believe in taking the best care of all pets/animals as possible, this puts me in the situation of believing that if I just sit the dish in there rather than hand feed them one by one, they won't get the same nutrition, one might get fat(I'm also paranoid ), one might get diarrhea, ect.

What can/should I try to do?


~~~~Sincerely,
Me(Katelyn), Ginger(Heiress of thee Rumblestrut of I AM DOMINANT and must enforce the laws of MY cage by gentle nudging and sniffing under the chin), Opal(I'm SO happy like OHMYGOSH I can't contain it all *popcorn* YAY I love life *epileptic seizure- like giration), Noel (I love it when my BFF Ginger pokes her butt up and pees like 2 inches from me. So cool, no joke, makes me feel loved. I am so sweet, I let mommy lay me on my back, and I stare at her like why am I on my back huh? I love my hammock, its so fun to chew away at the hay cube in there, making tiny hay messes, and then mommy's favorite is when i make a pile of discared hay remnants from the cube, and top it all off with some nice fresh poops! I like to watch Mommy try to beat the hammock to get those mini-hays off, and my wonderful donation of poo)

[wiggley_narco]

Hahahahahaha. Honestly, I don't know what you can do to ensure they get the same amount, unless you put 3 different bowls with the same stuff in 3 different places around the cage. That way they can each have a bowl to their self instead of fighting for the best pieces from one... but all that aside, HAHAHA. Your closing just really cracked me up. I love it.

[PhoenixFeather]

I don't think it's that important that they all get the "exact" same amount of veggies. The veggie guidelines are pretty loose -- that is there are no exact amounts that need to be fed to begin with, so if one gets a bit more and one gets a bit less, it's not going to be a huge problem for either of them.

That said, there are a few things you might do to make it even out a little more if there is really a huge inequity:


1) Take Noel out and hand feed her like half of her veggies, to give her a headstart, or

2) Take Ginger out of the cage (and out of the room) when you first put down the veggies, to give the other two a start (if you think Opal will let Noel eat enough). Bring a little something for Ginger to nibble while you're out of the room with her. If there is a veggie like carrots that the other two will snarf up before she gets back into the cage, give her her carrot at that time, or whatever..., or

3) make multiple piles, as wiggly_narco suggested

Try one or more of these ideas, and see if you're comfortable that they're all getting more or less what they need. You can watch their weight gain and watch their poops, but honestly, I think they'll all be just fine. They may have a little more "arguing" going on for a while as the more docile pigs begin to assert their desire for the good stuff. But I imagine that it will all work out fine.

When we first got Parcheesi, he was much more docile than Frisky, and we did hand-feed him some of his veggies, to make sure he got enough. But we also put him in the cage to eat with Frisky, to get them used to "sharing". After a while, we stopped hand-feeding 'Cheesi, but would "deliver" a few morsels straight into his pigloo, so he wouldn't have to venture out, which he was pretty shy about at the time. Now we just drop off the plate. Frisky's always first to the plate, but 'Cheesi is close behind, and seems to be getting plenty. (He's always been bigger than Frisky, though we believe them to both be almost exactly the same age.)

[sophistacavy]

Wiggly_narco & PhoenixFeather: Thank you so much for your advice! I think I'll try each of what both of you suggested, to see what works best.