calf mana?

[steve_and_pigs]

It was recently suggested to me to feed calf mana to pregnant guinea pigs. The recommendation was to make about 25% of their pellets calf mana, the rest being alfalfa pellets. Alfalfa hay was recommended as well.

My piggie ended up not being pregnant (hurray!), so I did not introduce these feeds. She did get some alfalfa hay, but she is back on grass hay now. I have a nice useless bag of calf-mana though

I've searched around, and I've seen a couple of mentionings of calf mana to help prevent toxicity. One poster claimed she has had over 20 litters, and has never had a sow go toxic. She has certainly out-performed the 20 percent expectation on sow complication. I also found posts from breeders that I'll opt not to mention.

Is calf mana reasonably safe and useful to feed to pregnant sows in appropriate amounts?

I've also read a post of it being fed as a "treat". I suppose the poster had some on hand. I don't know who would go out and buy it just for treats.

[Ly&Pigs]

Calf mana is not acceptable for piggers and should never be fed to them. I don't know exactly where you go this info to feed it but calf mana has milk proteins, sugars and animal proteins in it. Cavies are lactose intolerant, don't need the extra sugars and since they are herbivores they should never get anything that has animal products in it.

Can you please pm me the link to where you got this info from as I suspect it's from a "breeder" site or forum which isn't allowed to be posted here.

[steve_and_pigs]

I won't post any breeder links, but here is a link about using it, not for pregnancy:

Guinea Lynx :: Anorexia (not eating)

Some of the posts I found were on those various "expert" and "answers" sites that are notorious for bad info. That is why I'm re-asking the question here.

I re-did my google searches. Many hits on breeder or breeder friendly sites/forums. Another was a farm site (also a breeder). I haven't found the particular post that I first read yet.

Also, I'm not sure if it is "mana" or "manna", as both have many hits.

[steve_and_pigs]

I checked the manufacturer's web site. It contains dried whey, which is basically lactose.

It also contains a lot of minerals and nutrients that I know nothing about. The manufacturer recommends feeding it to rabbits. I don't know anything about rabbits, but I'm guessing that is a bad idea as well.

[Ly&Pigs]

I really don't know much about rabbits either other than guinea pig food isn't acceptable to feed to rabbits and rabbit food isn't acceptable to feed to pigs.

I'm really surprised that gl suggests feeding it on the anorexia page as I found the info to not feed it on the forums over there. Maybe it's for more extreme cases of anorexia but still I wouldn't feed it then.

Breeder friendly forums are notorious for giving quite a bit of false and even bad advice as far as diet goes. I don't really trust much of what is said on those question/answer type pages unless someone really knowledgable answers.

[WheeksUnlimited]

It is Calf Manna. It is basically a vitamin/mineral supplement for a wide variety of animals. Horses, beef cattle, dairy cattle, goats, rabbits.

It does have a very good aroma and is very palatable to all animals. It has anise in it. I have used it for my horses and my rabbit, Copper, gets a little bit every day. (We call it calf mania because he goes wild for it)

Maybe GL suggested it because of the aroma and the taste factor for anorexic piggies. But I don't think it would be necessary for healthy piggies as they get all they need from their pellets, hay and fresh veggies/greens.