Diet: Diet and nutricion questions

[Eliana_2]

Hello everybody . I'd like to know the best diet that a cavy can have .
1) The best petstore hay i can buy .
2) The best petstore food i can buy .
3) The best treats i can give them .
4) What grass, food, veggies i have to planned on the guinea garden i am making ?

[Ly&Pigs]

It's better to find a different source for hay than a petstore. You can try horse stables or farm supply places. Most of the time you can buy a whole bale of hay and store it properly and it will last a good while as long as it does not get wet. It also saves money in the long run. You would need a good quality grass hay. Often when you buy hay in a petstore you pay big prices for a small bag of hay that may not be a very good quality. Good grass hay will be soft and good smelling.

Petstores aren't the best place to buy pellets either. Most petstore foods are low quality garbage. I don't know if you can get Oxbow brand pellets in Greece or not. They need a plain pellet with no harmful preservatives, no seeds, nuts, colored bits or dried vegetables. Just a plain pellet.

The best treats are fresh vegetables and an occasional very small piece of fruit. Avoid the stuff you get in petstores as it's all garbage.

Read the nutrition charts thread for a list of safe vegetables. Read over the safe forages thread too. They both can be found as sticky threads at the top of this forum.

[CavyLuver516]

As for hay, if your petstore carries Oxbow, then go with that. It smells great, is very soft (lot's of leaf, little stem), and is nice and green.

[Ly&Pigs]

Eliana is in Greece.

[Eliana_2]

Thats no problem i can order from my friend who has a pet store . I will tell him that i want oxbow food and hay . I tryied once to buy hay from a farm supplie places but the ball was so huge and i couldnt keep it anywere . Also it mess everything in the house and it had some grass wich was like the things cactus have . (i dont know that in English sorry) My poor guinea pig lips ang tongue , hope they didnt to eat it . Everything pet store has , treats , food , hay e.t.c is all bad for the guinea pigs ? Thats a huge problem ...pet stores are the worse place in the world . Why ? shouldnt they have the best for our piggies ? Thats a horrible mistake .

[Eliana_2]

Ok i will find , oxbow hay and pellets . Thats not problem . They like oxbow food , is it tasty ? What about vit-c ? (i am using bogena multi-vit) Vitapol's hay is bad ?Vitakraft vita C forte is bad too ? Vitakraft life for bunnies ? All that lasty food is for garbage ? If it is , i dont care ... i will put them to garbage !

[Ly&Pigs]

Petstores that sell animals are bad. Go to our kitchen forum and read the threads about petstores and maybe you will open your eyes to some facts.

Manufacturers are in the business to make money. If they can get people to buy their products, they continue to make the products whether they are good or bad. Petstores are businesses, they too are in it to make money and don't care if the animals get good foods/treats or bad foods/treats. They just buy whatever the manufacturers have to offer and sell them. Big chain petstores don't take the time to research what is good for our animals and what is not. Even small petstores don't always research the products they sell as they are in it to make money. The only good petstores are ones that don't sell animals but they often sell the wrong types of foods and treats and other dangerous items for animals.

It's up to us, the consumers to make those decisions. We can decide to give our animals stuff that is good for them and nutritious/healthy or we can decide to give them pure garbage. Unfortunately, most brands of pet foods on the market are garbage. Giving piggies stuff like pellet mixes and seed sticks are like giving a toddler nothing but junk food like candy, cake, potato chips, etc. Junk food is not nutritious. It's loaded with preservatives and other stuff that make us obese. Seeds, nuts, dried veggies and other stuff in pellets only make guinea pigs obese, pose a choking threat and make very picky eaters as they will pick out what they like and leave the rest. Even some of the ingredients in these foods whether it be a mix or plain pellets are dangerous like some of the preservatives used to keep the foods fresh for longer.

I also want to say if you fed hay with thorns in it and didn't remove them, I feel sorry for your pigs if they did eat them. You are responsible for the well being of your animals and you shouldn't give them things that could put them in danger. Things like thorns or thick stems should always be removed. Hay is known to have foreign objects in it like weeds, thorns and even bits of dead carcasses in it from small animals like mice, bugs or lizards.

[Ly&Pigs]

Originally Posted by Eliana_2

Ok i will find , oxbow hay and pellets . Thats not problem . They like oxbow food , is it tasty ? What about vit-c ? (i am using bogena multi-vit) Vitapol's hay is bad ?Vitakraft vita C forte is bad too ? Vitakraft life for bunnies ? All that lasty food is for garbage ? If it is , i dont care ... i will put them to garbage !

You don't need a C supplement, I hope you aren't putting any vitamins in their water or giving them to your pigs because they do not need them, especially multivitamins. Oxbow has stabilized vitamin C in it and you supplement that with fresh vegetables every day. Vitakraft is one of the worst manufacturers on the market. Most of their stuff is a mix and low quality ingredients. You can't feed rabbit food to guinea pigs.

Are you saying you would feed your guinea pigs bad pellet mixes because you don't care? I feel sorry for your pigs. I think you'd do better to give them up to a better home where someone would actually care and give them what they need.

Are you here on this forum to learn or just to cause trouble?

[rabbitsncavyluv]

Isn't this the breeder?

If you can get Oxbow, that is best. Do you have a garage or shed to store hay? You need to sift through the bales. It can contain things since it is a natural product.

[Eliana_2]

Are you kidding me ? I just said i will buy oxbow things only . Maybe my English is not good enought, sorry . I said i will put into the garbage everything they dont need , like treats , food from vitakraft , bogena ,multi-vit , vitapol's hay and everything. i will buy only oxbow hay and food pellets .

[Ly&Pigs]

Originally Posted by rabbitsncavyluv

Isn't this the breeder?

Yes.

[Paula]

Originally Posted by rabbitsncavyluv

Isn't this the breeder?

It is, and seeing as how I don't think there's any way of talking sense to her about stopping that, maybe something we can do for those poor things is persuade her to get them on a decent diet and good hay.

Originally Posted by Ly&Pigs

Are you saying you would feed your guinea pigs bad pellet mixes because you don't care?

I might have read it wrong, but I got the impression she was saying if those brands are garbage (they are) that she'd throw the food away. Given her history, though, it's entirely possible that she means to continue feeding them crap, and if that's the case Ly's absolutely right - the kindest thing you can do for those poor creatures is rehome them, hopefully to an owner who might actually care about them and look out for the best interest of the pigs rather than what's convenient for the owner.

[Eliana_2]

<<All that tasty food is for garbage ? If it is , i dont care ... i will put them to garbage ! > i mean if the food is not good i will put it into garbage , and not give them bad food to eat)

[Ly&Pigs]

I did misinterpret what you wrote. I'm glad you will be throwing the bad stuff away and getting better food for your piggies.

Because English is not your native language it is hard to understand what you're trying to say at times. So that was why I misunderstood what you were saying.

[Eliana_2]

Why you are always attacking to me for no reason , i didnt say anything about giving them bad food , i love my piggies so much and you are always trying to proove the oposite . I am buying everything for them , the best i know ...

[Ly&Pigs]

I just said I misunderstood your post. I have in no way attacked you. I have only explained to you about bad foods and why they are bad.

If you want to start down this road, you will most likely end up banned because I did give you a very public warning a while back about your behavior on this forum.

[DalesLass]

Good lord. If this isn’t an attack on someone what is ?? I cannot believe the way some people have spoken to her.

Eliana asked a few questions (albeit simple ones) and has been asked if she is ‘looking for trouble’ and threatened with banning. If you want non-native English speakers to come on this forum shouldn't we make an effort to understand what they are saying instead of being so incredibly rude to them.

1) Eliana probably means that the bale of hay had a THISTLE in it. With the best will in the world, even very good quality hay can have one or more thistles. Perhaps you don’t get them in USA? The only hay in UK that would be guaranteed free of every thistle would have been sprayed with chemicals; no thanks.
Even f you removed any visible thistles it is still possible for the occasional leaf to be in the hay. Isn’t that what Eliana meant by saying “I hope they didn’t to eat it”.

2) Sorry, but telling Eliana to REHOME her pigs because you did not understand that “I will put them to garbage” meant that she would throw the food away...it’s just bizarre

3) I can certainly understand why Eliana as a non-native English speaker would ask you to CLARIFY why you make rather sweeping statements about how pet stores usually sell bad food and items.

4) As far as I understand Eliana was ‘caged’ for trying to explain that Greece does not have an overpopulation problem with guinea pigs. This is unrelated to this thread and so why the banning threat now.

[DalesLass]

Originally Posted by Eliana_2

I'd like to know ......What grass, food, veggies i have to planned on the guinea garden i am making ?

Here are two UK links Eliana

http://www.rhsplants.co.uk/plants/_/...no.SD30000268/

Herb and Seed Links


As Greece is in the EU I do not think there will be any problem sending seeds to Greece for your 'Guinea garden'.

The first link is to the RHS website. The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) is the UK national organisation for plants and gardens and they will know if it is legal to send seeds to Greece.