Cavy question?? New one!

[secuono]

With a good guinea pig pellet food, you do not need to add anything else.
They do need good things to chew and wear their teeth down with.

 

[fortheloveofgoats]

Are you talking guinea pig cavy or Patagonian cavy, aka Mara - which is a 20# relative ?

I always gave my guinea pigs the g. pig vitamins you can buy at the pet stores.

"They" say you don't need to, but....I figured it wouldn't hurt. I used 1/2 the recommended dosage.

I don't put it in my Patagonian cavy's water, b/c he's a finicky drinker. I squirt a couple drops on his food 1x a week.

Enjoy them, guinea pigs are a lot of fun.

Guinea pig cavy, the Patagonians are neat though. I talked to the rescue group and they told me to not put it in their water because it changes the taste of the water, did you notice a difference in their drinking? Thank you for replying, I have heard from a couple people on here that I should talk to you. Can you think of anything else that we should or shouldn't be doing? We have done a lot of research in books (we bought three of them) rented one from the library and looked up information on the internet. We have a peach tree, and a pear tree, can we give them any of the branches from the trees? We don't use any chemicals on our trees. Oh and just to let everyone know, both girls turned out to not be pregnant!!!

 

[marlowmanor]

Here are a couple good site on guinea pig care.

http://www.cavyspirit.com/care.htm

This is linked off the above sight, but I figured I'd link to it too.
http://www.guinealynx.info/healthycavy.html

This is the chart that breaks down calcium, phosphorus and vitamin content in fruits and vegetables.
http://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html

Hope these links help. There is a ton of information there.

 

[Roll farms]

To be honest w/ you....I got my first guinea pig at 12. I never read a book or did anything 'special' for them, just fed them guinea pig food, and those two lived a good long while.

Then - I got another 2 guinea pigs when I was 20.
Because we also had rabbits (and b/c I didn't know any better - this was 20 yrs ago - before the internet) we fed them rabbit food b/c it was cheaper than guinea pig food and we already had that on hand....it LOOKED the same.
My favorite one got sick and died after a year, and I felt so bad I took the other one to the pet store and 'gave' it to them, because it wasn't 'right' either....they explained that they NEEDED different feed than rabbits, and that's what killed her, more than likely, a vitamin C deficiency.

Soooo....when I got some again years later.....I added the vit. c to their water probably more to salve my guilty conscience over the last batch than anything, but you can bet your bippy they got fed GUINEA PIG FOOD after that. They seemed to be drinking their vitamin water just fine, but then again the pet shop I bought them from used it in their waterers so they'd been 'raised' on it.

I've cut branches from apple trees for them before, and I buy the little flavored wood blocks and put them on the cavy, prairie dog, and rabbit 'stack toys' in their cages.
Not sure about peach or pear tree wood, sorry.

 

[fortheloveofgoats]

To be honest w/ you....I got my first guinea pig at 12. I never read a book or did anything 'special' for them, just fed them guinea pig food, and those two lived a good long while.

Then - I got another 2 guinea pigs when I was 20.
Because we also had rabbits (and b/c I didn't know any better - this was 20 yrs ago - before the internet) we fed them rabbit food b/c it was cheaper than guinea pig food and we already had that on hand....it LOOKED the same.
My favorite one got sick and died after a year, and I felt so bad I took the other one to the pet store and 'gave' it to them, because it wasn't 'right' either....they explained that they NEEDED different feed than rabbits, and that's what killed her, more than likely, a vitamin C deficiency.

Soooo....when I got some again years later.....I added the vit. c to their water probably more to salve my guilty conscience over the last batch than anything, but you can bet your bippy they got fed GUINEA PIG FOOD after that. They seemed to be drinking their vitamin water just fine, but then again the pet shop I bought them from used it in their waterers so they'd been 'raised' on it.

I've cut branches from apple trees for them before, and I buy the little flavored wood blocks and put them on the cavy, prairie dog, and rabbit 'stack toys' in their cages.
Not sure about peach or pear tree wood, sorry.

Wow, well I can understand not having the info like we do today. Sorry to hear all the learning though. Sounds good about the flavored blocks. Any idea about toys for them? It seems like the ones at the stores won't last them so long, and they aren't too cheap. Thank you.

 

[marlowmanor]

Here are a couple good site on guinea pig care.

http://www.cavyspirit.com/care.htm

This is linked off the above sight, but I figured I'd link to it too.
http://www.guinealynx.info/healthycavy.html

This is the chart that breaks down calcium, phosphorus and vitamin content in fruits and vegetables.
http://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html

Hope these links help. There is a ton of information there.

the top 2 links have tons of guinea pig info...sure it has something about toys somewhere in there too!

 

[fortheloveofgoats]

Here are a couple good site on guinea pig care.

http://www.cavyspirit.com/care.htm

This is linked off the above sight, but I figured I'd link to it too.
http://www.guinealynx.info/healthycavy.html

This is the chart that breaks down calcium, phosphorus and vitamin content in fruits and vegetables.
http://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html

Hope these links help. There is a ton of information there.

the top 2 links have tons of guinea pig info...sure it has something about toys somewhere in there too!

Sorry, some how I didn't see your response. Thank you for finding those for me. Hope it wasn't too much of a pain. Thank you, we will be saving these for sure.

 

[marlowmanor]

I thought you may have missed my response. It's ok it happens. Other peole reply and you miss other information. Hopefully all that is helpful. Lots of good reading there.

 

[fortheloveofgoats]

I thought you may have missed my response. It's ok it happens. Other peole reply and you miss other information. Hopefully all that is helpful. Lots of good reading there.

Thank you for understanding, I really didn't see it. It was a lot of reading, but I love reading new information. Thank you again for giving me the sites to look at. It's very appreciated.

 

[peemee]

Hi, I am a veterinarian and work with all the exotic mammals. The cavies do have a high need for vit C. Oxbow has a great pelleted version. I like it better than the liquid vit c in the water. It only works well if you use filtered water and doesn't have high calcium in it. Banana and I think cabbage have higher C than orange. Also if you get guinea pig pellets check the manufactor date. If it is within 3 months the vit c should be okay. Just remember that Vit C breaks down in UV lite. Hope this helps you.


Also I saw the post about the celery and can't find it again but... Celery is kind of like crunchy water. I haven't seen any cause intestinal bunching but I don't recommend it for them. They do need lots of stuff to chew to keep teeth in good shape.

Thanks for letting me chime in. Happy Holidays from Payson, AZ