Embarrassed owner of my first guinea pig working to learn everything I can

Make sure she gets a good quality grass hay 24/7.

Do you think I am better with the bagged type from the pet store or the loose type from a feed store?

It's good that you realized that things needed to change and made the actions to change it. That's a huge start in the right direction. I'm happy to hear that your tough time is behind you. Have you taken her to a vet at all? Or did you do all the recovery on your own?

Don't be too hard on yourself, all of us have fallen victim to a piece of pet store advice at one time another. The big thing here, is that you've made a huge effort to get yourself, and the guinea pig, together, and well done to you for that! I'm really glad to hear things are getting better for the pair of you. I know how you feel, my life felt incomplete after my dog passed and I didn't have a four legged friend around. I now have two girls, who are my motivation to keep things together

Ensure that LOTS of hay is available to her constantly, not only for digestion, but it helps with their teeth also. Look for a pellet by the brand KMS if you're in the US, or Oxbow. I personally buy bagged hay, but bales are just fine too. I feel your pain with the black nails! One of my boars (over the rainbow bridge ) had black nails, and good god it was difficult to clip them. Just do a tiny amount at a time, and have a styptic pencil, or cornflour on hand for incase you cut the quick. They clot the bleeding pretty quickly. Have you thought about getting her a cagemate? Guinea pigs are herd animals and generally need a friend of the same species. There are a few guinea pigs who just won't get along with another piggie, but really most of the time, they need a pal.

Don't worry, I'm sure almost everyone was doing some things wrong for their guinea pigs before they came on the forum. I know I was. I'm glad you've worked so hard to better her quality of life! What's your piggy's name? We would love to see pigtures!

Black nails are pretty tricky to trim. I find holding a flashlight underneath the nail helps you see the quick. Depending on how much your girl tolerates nail clipping, I would recommend having one person hold her while you trim the nails. Having some veggies to distract her also helps.

Her name is Truffle.

Thank you for you understanding, was not sure how things would go over really. She has her hay, I took it off the ground in her new how since she likes to spread it over all over the place and to remove all the soiled hay involves pretty much cleaning the whole cage daily. I think she is a little confused about why it is not on the ground though so I have been regularly putting a smaller handful right under where the hay is now kept so she has it but connects the area to where hay is. Since there is not a difference with me getting the hay from a feed store I am going to just stick with the bags for now, I currently have no where outside I could store a bale and keep it clean and dry. In the past from buying at feed stores I know those big bales can have little critters living in them and I don't want to be storing that in my kitchen cabinet.

She did not get to go to the vet, if I could have afforded it I would have. The only vet around me that works when exotic pets is the more over the top fancy vet I have ever seen, all my friend and I could do was laugh while looking over their website at the types of services they offered. My boys, the cats, have a vet but it is a not for profit office and very affordable. I do have some friends who recently moved but used to have a vet for their rats and I know they are not millionaires I should probably call and get the name of, it would probably be a bit of the drive but could be worth it.

I have her Oxenbow, a friend recommended it before I even started my internet research which seemed to confirm it was a good choice. These pellets look nothing like her old ones, which would get really dusty. When she does eat she tips the bowl on its side, scoops the food onto the floor, and eats it from there. Not sure if I should get her a different bowl, something really heavy or wall mounted, or just let her keep doing that.

Clipping her nails myself isn't really difficult other than them being black, they still need to be a good bit shorter and I know going to short is not the end of the world but I did it with my dog once and you sure would have thought it was. Unless she is getting really upset, she is pretty calm while I clip them except sometimes I hold her paw a little tight during the process and it scares her.

It crossed my mind a few times about getting her a friend but I don't think, at least right now, that is a good idea. I think she is still weaker than normal so being alone is probably easier right now, and her behavior is a bit off. Because of that I would want to wait at least a while until getting her a friend. Also I just got her a cage big enough for her, and it is on the small end of being big enough for her, so I cannot get something big enough for two right now. Maybe once I am able to rearrange my place a bit, and am not so broke from the holidays I can start looking into getting her more space. She does get along with my cats though, she lets them pet her threw the rails of the cage and when she is one my lap on of the likes to groom her. I never let the cats near her unless she is on my lap or right next to me though.

Here is Truffle

Baby Truffle

She's a beautiful piggie, and her coat looks unbelievably healthy! That's a great sign Are you doing daily brushings?

What a beautiful pig! And I know how you feel about the pig getting sick and losing weight, I lost my peruvian to that, it was before I weighed them every week, and she looked fine.

Also, make sure you give her a cup of veggies everyday with majority of it being a nice leafy lettuce (not iceburg). Also, bell peppers are great to give them, and sometimes a bit of a fruit. Start slowly if you dont feed them, I started at 1/2 a cup for a week, and then 3/4 cup for two, and now my pigs are on 1 full cup.

If you need a list of veggies here it is- https://www.guineapigcages.com/foru...vy-Nutrition-Charts-amp-Poisonous-Plants-List
My pigs favorites are
Romaine lettuce, kale, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, a small grape, baby tomatoes, cucumber, broccoli as a treat, celery (I cut it up tiny so the strings dont bother them)

I noticed you didnt mention veggies so I thought I would make sure you are feeding them, they are the best way to get in vitamins, and some members, like @bpatters , even have their pigs on a pellet free diet!

I hope all goes well for you, and I cant wait to hear from you again

I understand, we all go through times of kind of just... Going one day to the next. I've made plenty of mistakes and so has everyone else on here, we are all human. I'm so glad you've made the big push and are trying to change things, that takes an incredible amount of strength. You should be proud of yourself for that.

As for your piggie (super cute btw) you've got hay, you've got pellets. You could get a ceramic bowl for her (they sell them at all pet stores) that's what my pig has and she can't flip it. I mean it doesn't really matter that she flips her bowl, but that kind I defeats the purpose of having one haha.

You don't need to go crazy on the different varieties of veggies. Mainly what they need is lettuce, I recommend Red/Grean leaf lettuce or butter lettuce (my piggies favorite!) and not romaine. Some piggies excrete more calcium from it than other lettuces. Which is bad because excess calcium can lead to stones. Some pigs don't though it just depends. So if you go with romaine check her urine to see if its really white, if so, change lettuce. Bell peppers are loaded with vitamin c and are also good. Honesty? That's all they need haha you can add different veggies in just to mix things up occasionally because just like us they can get tired of having nothing new to taste, but really lots of lettuce and a little bell pepper is the best thing. Something cute to do during veggie time is make a certain sound like clicking or kissy sounds and before they even see the veggie they'll begin to recognize the sound and start wheeking and popcorning for it. It's so much fun! Hehe

We have been trying out different veggies, I have been making a bowl with a little bit of a few different things that are good for her and seeing what she likes. So far the only thing she hasn't been crazy about was when I tried giving her a red bell pepper instead of a green one, although last night I get her the remainder of the red bell and she finished it right up. Perhaps it just took her a little while longer to learn to like that one. I actually have not tried just regular lettuce, somehow I missed that was the majority of what they needed, time to go back to the store anyway though. My mom is currently growing kale, which from what I understand you cannot feed to often, but I have an almost unlimited supply of free organic fresh kale. Also have tried out parsley and cilantro (which she loved but the smell of it I could hardly stand). She has had a few carrots, I feel like we tried more things but that might have been it.

When I came home last night she stood up on two legs when I walked over because her fresh veggie bowl was empty.

Good luck with the taste testing! If your trying lettuce, I would look at this chart. It's a great resource. https://www.guineapigcages.com/foru...vy-Nutrition-Charts-amp-Poisonous-Plants-List