Recommended Daily Veggie Allowance for Guinea Pigs

How do you incorporate fresh vegetables and fruit into your guinea pigs' daily diet? How big is a "serving"? How many servings a day should you feed?

At the rescue, we get asked these questions a lot. So today we offer a couple of plays on the "daily menu".

While at the rescue, each guinea pig is fed one cup of vegetables per day, split between two feedings. This mixture can include:

• romaine or red leaf lettuce
• red and green bell pepper
• flat or curly parsley
• small amounts of kale, swiss chard, dandelion leaves, leafy green carrot tops, or leafy celery tops
• small amounts of finely chopped celery, parsnips, or cucumber
• two baby carrots (per day)
• a piece of fruit (strawberries, apple, orange, melon)

The folks over at Guinea Lynx also have a sample list that you might want to print out and refer to.

Stay tuned over the coming days as we talk more about your guinea pigs' diet. Please chime in about the fresh foods that your pigs go wild for!

Comments

[Pat]

Ellen, I just did the same thing last night...accidentally bought cilantro instead of parsley. They ate it last night and are having it again for breakfast mixed with regular parsley, green pepper, kale, and two green beans. I hate the smell of cilantro and won't buy it again as a regular food but as an occasional treat. Ours girls love Italian parsley and green bell peppers. So far ours have not liked any fruits (strawberries and grapes). I have some cantaloupe and will try that later today.

[Whitney]

Sherrilynn:

They can eat both curly endive (also known as chicory) and Belgian endive. I wouldn't make them daily staples (especially Belgian endive, which tends to be expensive), but they do make a good complement to milder-flavored lettuces--like red leaf lettuce.

HTH,
Whitney

[Sherrilynn]

Is Endive safe for my piggy?

[Whitney]

Hey there Tanisha:

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment!

Y'know, I've noticed that strawberries and grapes are very hit or miss with guinea pigs. They either like them, or they don't. And if the fruits don't make a good impression, the guinea pigs never change their mind about them. Both strawberries and grapes can be quite sweet, and some guinea pigs just don't have a "sweet tooth".

The flavor of carrots varies widely, depending on where they're grown, when they've been picked, and how long they've been sitting in the store. When they're bland, they're about as flavorful as plain, unsalted rice cakes. At the other end of the spectrum, really fresh carrots can taste quite sweet. Given that your guinea pig isn't fond of sweet fruits either, I'm wondering if there might not be a connection there.

Hope we'll hear from you 'round here again.

[Tanisha]

My gp LOVES cilantro and dandelion greens. It tried strawberries but didn't like them and didn't eat it's grapes. He absolutely hates carrots for some reason.

[Whitney]

Kelley -- I'm glad to see that my pigs aren't the only ones who are so spoiled that they get Belgian endive once in a while.

Be sure to check your local farmer's market this summer for locally grown endive. There you'll likely find bigger heads of endive at a lower price than you see in the grocery store.

Whitney

[Kelley]

Our two piggies love their cilantro. They also enjoy flat leaf (or Italian) parsley and Belgian endive. Occasionaly they get butter lettuce and enjoy that. Recently they have been enjoying grapes and both LOVE watermelon. Kale and Swiss chard was a big flop with our girls.

[Kelley]

Our two piggies love their cilantro. They also enjoy flat leaf (or Italian) parsley and Belgian endive. Occasionaly they get butter lettuce and enjoy that. Recently they have been enjoying grapes and both LOVE watermelon. Kale and Swiss chard was a big flop with our girls.

[Whitney]

I'm always a bit envious of folks whose guinea pigs will eat green bell pepper.

My brood won't touch green pepper and has come to prefer the more expensive red, yellow, and orange varieties of bell pepper!

[Laurie]

Romaine lettuce, green pepper, and apples are a big hit with my 5 "furgirls".

[Whitney]

Ellen:
Cilantro seems to be one of those hit-or-miss veggies. Pigs either love it or hate it, and the number who like it seems low.

I have occasionally run into owners whose guinea pigs loved cilantro, or even loved it more than parsley. Oddly, my Abbyssinians have consistently liked it, while my smooth-coat guinea pigs haven't.

It's a strong-smelling herb with a very short shelf life in the fridge. An annoyingly short shelf life, actually. Whenever I do buy it -- which isn't often -- I buy the smallest bunch I can find and feed it either that night as a snack or the next morning in the "breakfast salad". That's about the only way I can get mine to eat cilantro: mixed in with lettuce and some sweet bell pepper (red, yellow, or orange).

Whitney

[Ellen]

My husband accidentally bought cilantro (yuck!). The pigs weren't quite as excited as if it had been parsley, but they did eat it. Comments?