One of my piggies does the strangest thing when eating his pellets. Everynight when he gets his allotment of them, he runs over and drags his food dish near the water bottle. He snatches up a pellet and then drinks a bit before chewing it. I'm wondering if this is something weird or something I should worry about. Like, does chewing hard pellets hurt his teeth or something like that. Or does he just prefer soft mushy pellets? He goes through about a quarter of the water bottle everynight when eating his pellets. It is cute to watch though.

We have many old apple trees and I bring in the untreated branches for the guinea pigs. They love them and nip off any buds and then gnaw away at the bark, eventually skinning the branch. I assume this is all OK? I never feed other fruit branches, just apple.

So recently I started to include a hay bed in my guinea pigs' cage. I staple a garbage bag to the bottom (because it's a large cardboard box) so the pee won't soak through the box and ruin it. It is surrounded by 2 hay feeders which they usually eat from and there's a little dome house burried in the hay that they love to use. But I'm finding that they're peeing and pooping in the hay and It starts to smell quickly.

I now have to change their hay bed almost every 2 days and it's alot of money for not alot of hay. Currently I'm looking into buying a bale of hay so I can do this often without spending alot of money.
So my first question is, how often do those of you with hay beds, change your hay bed?

Mentioning the hay bales reminds me that the only hay bales I can buy around here is yellow hay. Is this good for the pigs? The hay that everyone has and that I currently use is green hay, which they eat. So is yellow hay good for bedding? and can they eat it?

I have two boars that are around 6 months old and I feed them green peppers, cilantro, and green leaf lettuce everyday.
I give them a bit more than a cup and I have seen some of the "diet" information on here but I am not sure if I am giving them enough variety. One some days I may give them some mustard greens or baby carrots, I tried giving them zucchini but they didn't like it. I'm not sure what else to give, I do give them pears or apples every once in a while but I know I can't give them fruit that often so I'm wondering what else?

They get a 1/8 cup of pellets and timothy hay daily as well. (The pellets aren't that great a quality but I'm waiting for my paycheck to come in so I can order Kleenmama's; I'm so excited!)

Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks :)

EDIT: sorry. I meant to say that they get their pellets twice daily, in the morning and at night.

I got some samples of hay the other day. I got only samples of grass based hay. the samples I got-one had molasses?
It says Equine variety so I am assuming that I shouldn't feed it...
But some of the hay packages say it has a preservative called "Propoinic Acid"?
Are preservatives put on all hays?
I am obviously not going to feed any of these, but my biggest question is are preservatives put on all hays???

First question :
I only give 2 kinds of lettuce for my piggies, green leaf lettuce and lettuce head. They only like the green leaf lettuce. Yesterday, I browsed about lettuce head and the picture is quite different with what I've given to my piggies.
Here's the image that look quite close with what I bought : http://z.hubpages.com/u/146259_f260.jpg
Is this lettuce head or iceberg lettuce?

Second question :
Are we allowed to give our piggies this and how often this can be fed:
http://wb4.itrademarket.com/pdimage/...ed-cabbage.jpg

My local Whole Foods has something called Boston Lettuce. Does anyone know what it is and where it would fit on the chart relative to green-leaf and red leaf, especially in its calcium content?

I know that hay is vitally important to piggies, and that timothy hay is recomended. That said, I found a local place that has a mixed hay of brome and orchard grass with a little alfalfa. Is this an ok mix? I was told that the alfalfa content is very small. It sure would save me a ton if this was ok for my piggies since it is $7.50 for a 60 pound bail. This is also horse quality, if that makes any difference.
Thankyou in advance for any advice.
Jellypicks

The Spring Mix in my market has some different greens in it and I just want you to OK them before I feed them to My Cotton. Got to check with you guys first!
Mizuna
Red Mustard (don't know if this is different than just plain Mustard Greens or not)
Red and Green Chard (same as Swiss Chard or not?)
Beet Greens
Tat-Soi
Thanks a bunch! Sorry to bother you again, but I can't take a chance with my precious one!:confused:

Can I feed my guinea pigs Bok Choy? I am part of a coop and get lots of fresh veggies delivered every week. This week I got a ton of Bok choy is it ok to feed to my guinea pigs?