Hay: Babies not eating their hay??

[bpatters]

We just adopted two seven-week-old girls from a guinea pig rescue, and they gave me some of the hay they'd been feeding the girls for me to mix with the hay I bought (Oxbow). I've been feeding them the hay that the rescue had been giving them, not wanting to change more environmental factors than I absolutely had to in the first day or so.

But we've had them a day and a half now, and they've eaten almost none of the hay. I have some in a box, some in a toilet paper roll (sliced through end-to-end), some in a paper bag, and some just in a pile on the fleece. They've barely touched any of it.

They're eating lettuce, and I'm trying to get them started on other veggies -- they've been given mostly lettuce, carrots and fruit. One of them is ok with green peppers, the other one will take a nibble or two if I'm holding her, but then ignores it. We're gonna have to work on the peppers, then on other veggies.

But how much hay should 7-week-old piggies be eating? And how long can they go without hay before I should worry about it?

Thanks.

[Ly&Pigs]

They may not like that type or brand of hay. Will they eat the Oxbow pretty good? Changing hay isn't a big deal.

[bpatters]

I'm feeding them what they've supposedly been eating all their lives -- I'm still working off the bag the rescue gave me.

I guess it's possible that the rescue didn't give me what they've been eating. The babies had been fostered at a home about 20 miles away, and were just brought in to the rescue the morning I was scheduled to pick them up. The woman who runs the rescue gave me the veggies and hay to get them home with, so it could have been a different brand.

And no, they're not doing too well with the Oxbow, either. I guess I'll just give them another couple days and see what happens.