Problem with Oxbow Cavy Cuisine

[MilesWaterson2]

My cavies are 9 months old and I'm trying to move them onto adult food. I've introduced Oxbow Timothy Hay and they love it. But I've also tried moving them onto Oxbow Cavy Cuisine, but they just don't seem to like it.

The approach I've taken is to give them their normal dry food (Super Guinea Excel), but substituted a quarter of it with the Oxbow Cavy Cuisine. But every day for the past two weeks I find that they haven't eaten any of the Cavy Cuisine.

Is there anything I can do that might make them eat it? Or should I try another dry food for adult cavies? Any suggestions? Also, being in the UK, it seems that getting hold of these specialist foods is difficult. Anyone know of a good supplier?

Many Thanks,
Miles Waterson

 

[Treen]

I get my Oxbow stuff from Bunny Bazaar (broken link removed) and here are a couple more places that sell it (broken link removed) and (broken link removed).

When I first switched mine to Oxbow they really weren't keen, but I persevered (slowly mixing it in until I offered none of their other feed whether they seemed to eat the Cavy Cuisine or not) and now they love it. At the end of the day it's unlikely they'll starve themselves so they will tuck in eventually. Like us their taste buds get weaned on to things so new flavours are not always welcome initially. Keep an eye on their weight if you're worried, but my guess is they'll cave in eventually!

Pellets are a small part of my pigs' diet - they eat far more hay, readigrass and veggies than pellets. I figure that as pellets are designed to be a 'complete' feed, if they're getting all they need from the rest of their diet, pellets aren't the most important thing. I still offer them for variety, but if you know they have a quality diet based on grasses (which is a good quality hay and readigrass for mine) with lots of fresh veg, I wouldn't worry if they don't eat so many pellets.

 

[Rachy1412]

Why is Cavy Cuisine so expensive! £17 for only 4.5kg! Is there any way you can get them cheaply in 10-20kg sacks? (Sorry for hijacking the thread!)

 

[Treen]

I've not found anywhere that sells anything bigger than the 4.5kg bags. It's not actually produced over here (or wasn't last time I checked) but imported from the US, so a lot of the cost is in getting it here.