What our guinea pigs eat in a day | Daily food routine
Like 3 Dislike 0 Published on 30 Sep 2019
A guided tour of what our guinea pigs eat in a day. Proper food and nutrition is crucial to good guinea pig care and health. We walk you through our daily guinea pig feeding routine and describe their diet, with plenty of cute eating footage!
TRANSCRIPT:
Guinea pigs love food, so these are their favorite parts of the day!
In the morning we bring them fresh grass.
Pigs should mostly eat grass, either fresh or dried as hay.
Our pigs somehow aren’t crazy about hay, so we give them a lot of fresh grass too.
30 minutes later the grass has magically disappeared!
They also have plenty of hay available at all times.
We use a few DIY hay racks plus a pile on the floor.
Whenever a hay rack runs out we refill it.
The pigs get excited for fresh hay!
In the middle of the day we often give the pigs a small fruit snack.
Today they’re having grapes! They also like berries, apples, peaches, and oranges.
They each get a bite. They get a little tired of fruit if we give them big pieces.
Zucchin doesn’t really like fruit at all.
The pigs also have timothy hay based pellets available all the time.
Our pigs self regulate and only eat about a handful a day per pig.
We also add a few timothy hay cubes to the pellets for intrigue.
We give the pigs fresh water every day.
In the evening the pigs have a vegetable feast!
Today they’re having parsley! They also love kale, cilantro, carrot tops, romaine, celery, bell peppers, and cucumbers.
We feed them enough to keep them eating for at least 10 minutes.
That concludes their busy day of eating! Now they’re ready for a nap!
THE PIGS HAVE AN AMAZON STORE!
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THE PIGS HAVE A TEESPRING STORE!
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WHAT’S PIGS?
In June 2019 we adopted five pigs from our local guinea pig rescue. They are cute herbivorous pets with funny social interactions. We film all their behaviors, from cute guinea pig noises to eating sounds, playing with their food to sleeping with their eyes open, and occasional fighting.
MEET THE PIG FAMILY
Spaghett is the boar of the herd. The rest of the pigs are females, but he’s a neutered male so they won’t be breeding. Sorry, no pregnant or baby guinea pigs! Spaghett has orange-brown fur with a white crest on his head and cute red eyes. He goes on morning romps with popcorning and zoomies. He does hilarious rumblestrutting for the ladies while purring. When other pigs argue he comforts them. He likes burrowing through hay and standing on his back feet like a goofy dinosaur. He’s a very good pig!
Acorn has white, black, and gold fur with a cute mousy face. She’s inquisitive, always wants food, and talks to herself while exploring hay piles. She’s the last one eating while the others nap. Little Acorn’s special talent is jumping on houses to go on rooftop adventures.
Butternut appears either confused or deep in thought. She has white and gold fur. Her hobbies include sleeping and yawning while flopped over with her feet sprawled out. She continues wheeking, squeaking, and squealing at us after we have already given her food.
Pumpkin has black fur except for white back toes. She looks like a cow, a non-guinea pig, and a rabbit. She has noisy standoffs with little Acorn when Acorn gets feisty.
Zucchin is the oldest and grumpiest. She has white and gray fur with cute red eyes. At first Zucchin fought with Spaghett. There were teeth chattering, nose raising, and hair puffing battles. Now they get along, but Zucchin is still a grouch to the others. Her main hobby is being an eel and lunging at anyone who comes near. But she looks like a cute rat!
THEIR HOME
The pigs live in a semi-custom 4 by 6 foot cage we made by merging 3 MidWest Guinea Habitat cages. We cut the seams of the cage bottoms and joined them into one large cage liner with duct tape and super glue. Now we have a MidWest cage of triple the size! The pigs first lived in the 3 cages connected by ramps with DIY ramp covers we made by sewing blankets.
The bedding is fleece blankets with towels underneath and newspaper on the bottom. Each day we change one third of the bedding and spot clean several times. Their cage is on cheap folding tables so we can easily clean and watch the pigs.
The pigs prefer free stuff to actual guinea pig toys. They love to hide under packing paper. A DIY guinea pig house made from a cardboard box is a favorite hidey. They are not interested in most chew toys.
THEIR DIET
Their favorite hay is 3rd cutting timothy hay from Small Pet Select. They also nibble timothy hay cubes. They gobble up guinea pig pellets.
Their water bottle is a 26 ounce Living World Eco+ glass bottle. They drink most of it in a day.
They eat nearly any vegetable. The only thing rejected so far was zucchini. Their favorites are parsley, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi, carrot tops and roots, beets, bell peppers, corn with the husk, and cucumbers. They go wild for homemade wheatgrass sprouts.