Time for a Guinea-Pig Food Thread. We have lots of new piggies joining the Super Furry Animal Team

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As all Guinea-Pig Slaves know, these little furries are very particular when it comes to their food.

Yes, they need their Vitamin C
Yes they have things they cannot eat
Yes they have things that they shouldn't eat alot of.

Mine use this information to be very judgey about what I give them. And sometimes I buy parsley from Supermarket S that they hoover up. But buy it from Supermarket M , they turn their noses up.

So.....are we sitting comfortably. We'll begin.

We have GP1, smooth boar 3.6yo
GP3, Rex boar 10 months
We did have GP2 (brother of the smooth ) Abby type (now RIP)

GP2 loved watermelon,grapes,strawberries,sweetcorn (especially with the leaves) beetroot,sprouts, leaves from the willow tree. He also had terrible gas vom , and if he had a day eating grass he had to have hay and pellets for supper , no veg .

GP1 loves grass, dandelions but not clover. Leaves from the pear tree.Parsley, he'd sell his mother for parsley. Carrots but only the ones with leaves, normal ones get left, leaf ones get devoured.
Watermelon, sweetcorn, spinach/rocket/watercress salad
Red /yellow/orange pepper but not green (so much that his pee went peach )
Banana

GP3 loves grass, yellow pepper, brocilli, dandelions, green beans,rocket, celery leaves but not the stalks.
Apple

GP1 has a liking for Cornetto cones

The aren't allowed coriander , it makes them narky.
They don't like mint, basil,

So, add to the list, the more the merrier (and I know there are pigs with eccentric tastes out there)

We have too girls nearly a year old - Luna is an Abby & Bella (aka BimboPig) is Peruvian as far as we can tell.

The both love herbs, especially basil & coriander which makes them silly rather than narky in our case.

They love corn on the cob & baby corn, any dark green leaves, celery & cauliflower leaves and red & yellow pepper (also not so keen on green).

They both like banana in small quantities, Bella likes kiwi & Luna likes red grapes.

Luna will also lick yoghurt or peanut butter leftovers off my finger. Bella doesn't get the options as she's a bitey little bugger less reliable with fingers.

Okay - you asked for it

Smoothpig and Scruffy like celery (preferably with leaves), kale, spinach, lettuce, apple, cucumber, parsley, basil, lavender (if their run has been placed too close to the borders) and broccoli. They both love grass, dandelions and clover.

Smooth also likes all colours of pepper, tomatoes and carrots (if he must) and grapes.

Scruffy only eats green veg so will eat green pepper, green grapes and carrot leaves.

They both think strawberries and melon are foreign muck and won't touch them.

They can eat huge quantities of hay - it's the only non-green thing Scruffy eats.

We have 2 x 1 yr old girls. The love dandelions (to the extend that they will fight over them and try to pull a particularly big pile into their tunnel away from the other one ), cabbage, cauliflower leaves, broccoli stalks, carrot and a small amount of apple. They also love those plantain type plants, which luckily grow all over my lawn.

They really don't like any form of peppers, or pears.

We've 6 girl pigs.

Sosua and Cabarete are 2.5. Chiquita and Palma are 2. Frosinone and Guigliama are about 1 (all our girls have place names!)

Parsley, coriander, rocket, spinach, kale, lettuce, apple, carrots, broccoli stems, cabbage, and huge amounts of hay keep my girls happy!

hay-it's the only non-green thing Scruffy eats

welllll, it used to be grass , and grass is............green

Don't tell Scruffy that - he thinks he's being adventurous.

Great idea for a thread, 70

We have two boar/sow pairs. Boys are 2.5 (ginger and tricoloured short haired) and are brothers; they were neutered following a major fight and we adopted two girls for them early this year. Girl pigs are both around a year, both long haired, one tricoloured and one ginger-and-white satin.

Favourite foods here are (in order of most favourite first!) : grass, dandelion leaves, parsley, round or romaine lettuce, cucumber, celery stalks and leaves, yellow or red peppers, broccoli stalks and leaves, carrots, strawberry tops.

Other than the strawberry tops, ours are really not keen on fruit. Or other sweet veg like parsnip or swede-four furry noses very firmly turned up in disgust if those are offered!

My little Abby boy used to love parsnip or turnip (as well as fruit) He's run across the cage with his cutted up strawberries away from GP1.

Maybe it wasn't the "forrin muck" that killed him off, he might have gone hyperglycaemic ( I thought fruit was good for you)

My remaining GP (her cagemate died last week ) loves pak bloody choi!

We've always got some hanging around in the fridge as DD makes a lot of forrin food

Parsnips are OK then? I've steered clear so far as I think of them as being in the same vein as spuds - looks like the girls are in for a surprise later then .

Is butternut squash OK too?

Parsnips are definitely ok, according to the list of foods given by the rescue when we adopted our girls.

Ok as in safe, anyway. According to the dietcoke pigs it is not ok as far as acceptable foods go

List doesn't mention butternut squash though I must admit.

Root veg is quite high in natural sugar but it's safe to give in small amounts.
Ours will get parsnip and turnip on a Sunday but GP1 and GP3 aren't bothered.

There were lots of posts about pumpkin one Hallowe'en, all the SFA GPs were given pumpkin, varying degrees of success.

I give one fruit portion a day, but our little GP2 used to grab a strawerry or a cube of watermelon and run off like a little dog with a bone.
GP1 ran off with red pepper

(I'm sure with potatoes it's the green in the skin that's the trouble. They don't recommend any part of potato, and it's mostly starch so no nutrients for them )

My boys claim to be South American when it suits then (like heloping DD with her Amazon River Project/ having a cuddle at the same time) but anything native to the UK would be classed as forrin muck then?

Those lovely english apples?
The english watercress?
Eh? Pigs?

Hi, all, I am a newish owner of 2 little boars - they must be about 4 months old now, from a rescue, one smooth haired, one rexish.
They are still rather shy and skitterish, but are getting bigger (OMG, the rex one just grows by the minute!).

They like:
Dandelion leaves - not the flowers
Parsley - seems to be crack cocaine to them
Coriander they can take or leave, not that keen
Carrot
Cucumber
Cherry tomatoes
Curly kale
Grass

I recently tried a bit of banana and they did not touch it .
I've not really given them other fruit yet - maybe I should?

They don't really seem to eat any hay - I am rather taken aback and worried about that. 'Tis proper expensive Timothy hay an'all…
They are both pooping and weeing in a most satisfactory manner the dirty beggars and are gaining weight, so do I need to worry? I've even tried a different 'brand' of hay - no joy.

Lovely thread btw

On the downside, DS2(10) seems to be allergic to them - came out in wheals and got wheeze after handling them yesterday . They are indoor piggies, but we may need to rethink that.

Pacific my little (not so little ) boar is a Rex and he's 2lb 13oz now (GP1 the older smooth is 7oz lighter)

My DD has a reaction to the Rex, if she holds him near her neck/face she comes out in red blotches, no breathing problems though.
No trouble with GP1 fur or when we had GP2 (Abby)

Rex fur is coarse (we keep finding hay seeds hidden in Dill's coat), but I've read a few articles where owners have reported allergies to Rex. (Blinky namby pamby fancy breeds, )

You could put the hay in a rack or a toilet roll tube to gauge how much they eat? Maybe do that with the naice hay and get some standard hay for bedding (I buy The Range or Jolleys depending on where I am. Jolleys is lovely, like tobacco almost, heady and honeyed smell )

My boys hate 'nice' hay and won't eat it. They love cheap supermarket hay.

I dug up lots of dandelions in the garden today. The GPs were in heaven!

I have two girls, Dora and Diego (my DS wanted a boy and a girl so poor Diego has taken on the boy role as I allowed him two, and only two hence both are girls ). They are about 2 1/2. My girls get Kale as a staple daily food but they love watercress, cucumber, celery, green beans, dandelion leaves, tomato etc.

They were inside for winter and have recently gone outside again so have gone on a kale strike but they are getting plenty of grass.

I have two rescue boars.
Lardy big pig lives for food. When I put him on the grass he starts eating before his ample rump hits the ground!
He loves curly kale , celery leaves, cucumber, carrot if it's the only thing left, broccoli but not M&S!,
He adores parsley.
Small pig eats the carrots first. Seems to like everything he's had so far but he's quite new. Lardy pigs previous friend had to be pts.
Always feel embarrassed that they eat more veg than DCs.

@ LadyDiego - lovely!

I shall procure cheap'n'nasty supermarket hay next time I'm out shopping.

70, I've tried hay in a corner, hay in a rack, hay in old loo roll (they like nibbling the card board), hay upstairs, hay downstairs, hay hand-fed (they looked at me like this ).

The DSs cut grass for them and then leave all the scissors we own random lying about the lawn. Yes, we are piggie slaves

Ours seem to inhale hay. I put loads in for bedding, loosely packed but so it comes about halfway up the 'bedroom' so they can snuggle in, and the next morning there's a thin layer left.

They also adore grass - there's no point putting veg out for them when they are in their run as it goes totally ignored.

Found some lovely big dandelion leaves for them today. They each approached gingerly, snaffled one and ran off to separate corners of the run to scoff in peace .

They like apples and carrots too - those and cabbage provide their staple diet.

Another hit this morning with carrot tops! They started munching at one end each and then fighting to tug their end away from the other! Hours of fun!

dietcoke I tried my piggies with parsnip at the weekend - they were as unimpressed as yours.

They don't like courgette either apparently. Cheeky beggars hoiked it all out of the bowl and hid it under the hay and sawdust to make it look like they'd eaten it!

Hi all!
My tribe of girls were partial to disguising themselves as spinach in the veg garden and scoffing the lot....also loved lurking in the lemon balm, smelling divine when finally rounded up....
Peppers, they loved, banana skins (!), tomatoes and whole meal bread in the winter when supplies of grass and dandelions run short.