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Pellets To switch or not to switch pellets? Predicament

al34ex

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Hi y’all! I’m in a bit of a pellet predicament (lol). I’ve been feeding my 3 ladies Oxbow Garden Select Adult Pellets for about a month and a half now. They will all eat them (served in 3 separate bowls), but will just nibble bit by bit at them all day, rather than eating their full tablespoon all at once. Leaving the pellet bowls in the cage all day means it’s hard for me to know how much each pig is eating (1 might be eating more than the others). I love the ingredient list for the Garden Select (no soy, wheat, or molasses, though max calcium could be a bit lower at min/max 0.35%/0.75%), but obviously they need to eat them, and I can’t really monitor pellet intake the way they are eating now. I know if I switch to KMS or Oxbow Essentials, they will probably like them more, but some of the first ingredients are wheat/soy/molasses.

Basically, my guinea pig diet philosophy has been to limit soy, wheat, and added sugars as much as possible, but I also want to make sure that each piggy is getting what they need in terms of pellet quantity and nutrients every day.

Any tips on how to get them to “look forward” to eating their current Oxbow Garden Select pellets and eat them more quickly? Are my concerns about soy, wheat, and molases in pellets valid? Should I just switch to a pellets that they will probably eat in one go to better monitor intake?

I appreciate any responses/guidance!
 

Smileandnod

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My suggestion for you is to get a good kitchen scale and keep track of their weights. This will tell you if someone is not eating what they should and if someone else is eating too much. It's also one of the best ways to detect an illness, so it's always a good idea to keep track of their weights regularly.

I have never known a guinea pig who will eat their entire portion of pellets in one sitting. They like to forage and graze...and besides whatever is in another pig's bowl is always better than their own :)
 

al34ex

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Thanks for your response! I weigh them weekly and they are all gaining a good amount of weight each week (they are all under 7-8 months old, so still growing!)

I guess I’m less concerned about their weight and more concerned about if they are all getting the nutrients they need from the pellets (they get a variety of veg each day). Maybe I’m just overthinking this and I should just continue to monitor weights?

I’ve watched them quite a bit and I’ve see all of them hang out at the pellets bowls every day, so I know they eat them, I just don’t know how much each of them eats.
 

ItsaZoo

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My personal experience with Oxbow Garden Select was that my guinea pig liked the pellets for a while and then decided she was no longer interested. I ended up going back to the Essentials. I even tried mixing them but she picked out the Essentials and left the rest. It’s a good quality pellet and is recommended by my vet and also carried by our local shelter.
 

SSLee

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With the Oxbow Garden Select pellets, my piggies did the same as @ItsaZoo's Lacy. They liked them for a while, which caused me to buy another bag, but now have lost interest. I mix approximately 25% Oxbow pellets in with 75% KMS pellets but the Oxbow ones are the ones leftover at the end of the day. But the piggies take pretty much the entire day to eat their pellets.
 

GeorgeMarsh

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I ordered a full pallet. Everything went smooth. I didn’t get a little delay because of the holidays but other than that it was a good experience.
 
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