I know it's been done before, but green food for guinea pigs?

[millimat]

I feel like they just get the same green things most days. Favorites would be things high in calcium that we have to limit such as spinach. Tried Savoy cabbage today for a change but they weren't impressed. There's a big variety for them of other food but as for the green leafy stuff...?

70 you're a flippin encyclopedia of all things pig. I didn't know about the buttercups.
Our piggiegirls are as thick as they come (refer again to scaryapple incident, many more tales of similar plain stupidity and looking aghast at simple normal foods and frightened of long grass. I rest my case) You may also be able to enlighten me as to why they won't eat the brown bits in their dry food? we assume it's that it looks too similar to pig poo

Jemima - if their dry food is the muesli kind, the pigs will pick out the bits they like and leave the rest. I feed pellets as they're all the same so the pigs get a balanced diet. They actually eat their own poo anyway, so they wouldn't avoid the brown bits for that reason.

YY they might be a bit 'picky' with the food and taking the bits they want.
Is this a new thing?
Has the food changed (our Burgess Excell changed a year or so ago. Now has more mint in it for digestion and changed shape, pigs were a bit till they got used to it. We did a gradual change with some of the original Excell, adding increasing quantities)

Ours love 'Fruity Nuggets' but they do seem very sweet (smell like banana ) so they get a few of them as a treat. They wouldn't eat 'Select' pellets. Wouldn't eat Burgess 'Cubes' .

If the dry food is stale they might not eat it ( there's no way of knowing how long it's been on the shelf or how they store it before it comes to you)

Are their teeth okay?

If you've ruled it all out, they're probably just fussy and/or eating veg and hay first

Thanks both. I've considered all carefully, and can only really conclude that a) they're spoilt cherrypicking the food and b) yes they're eating a load of hay and green veg in preference. Interesting point about the dry food being stale - well in date but who knows what the fussy little hogs can taste in there, even to where we store it (in the garage....there may well be something, even though it's only kept with their sawdust and hay)
Must look into pellets. Any recommendations (that don't cost a fortune?) please?

All my hogs (Rescue) came to me eating Burgess Excell so I've just carried on with that.
IIRC , I pay £10ish for a 4kg bag (sometimes on special offer in The Range) and give them a scoop each night.

Any changes need to be gradual though, mix a small amount of the new into their regular bowl and increase over a period of time.

When my DD had her boars we always gave a bit extra to prevent any squabbles , it was very rare that they cleared the bowl.
But our sows (especially my little piggie) run through the bowl. When they were in at night, I heard her tip the bowl up (metal) the sound of it spill, the bowl clanging flat..........and she sat in the pile to add her own special guinea flavourings.

Our girls sit in their bowls, run through it and yes probably flavour it too mingers they have two bowls as one dominates the other and shy one loses weight if bossy pig claims the food. We put everything in two equal quantities, in two separate locations and have had to since they were very small. Brilliant point about introducing gradually, will do that and give pellets a go. In the long run it's probably cost effective as they wont leave half a bowl of stuff they won't eat!

It's have decided they don't like their Burgess hay since the packaging changed

• ours not it's

Mine were on P@H nuggets and quite happy. Then we adopted Gingerpig who had been fed Selective at the rescue so I gave them a mixture of the two. Scruffy has decided he prefers Selective so my feed bill has gone up

Thank you 70, really appreciate all the tips here. While the grass is still quite wet and cold I've set the girls' pen up on the patio on the warmest days and they've had fun in the fresh air, munching on some grass (checked out for weeds). They have a woven house thing which they enjoy outside. They are daft, kick hay in their nuggets and pick and choose about their other food food. Cauli and kale are out of favour at the moment!

My girls aren't exactly brains of Britain, but they free-range in the garden and seem to avoid the poisonous stuff. A new favourite snack is pineapple tops (the green bit)