I feed my two guinea pigs high-quality guinea pig kibble that has dried veggies and all kinds of good stuff. But what they love most of all is fresh greens. Whenever my supermarket has those pre-bagged salad greens on sale BOGO, I buy them, and my pigs have fresh salad every day for a week. They also love when we put a barrier up in the yard and let them at the grass.
So, today, I was trimming up a bouquet of flowers for the dining room table (bought the flowers at the supermarket), and as I was trimming the leaves and stems into the garbage can, I wondered if I shouldn’t be feeding them to the pigs instead.
If I fed my guinea pigs flower stems, would they like it? Would it be good for them? Could there be some kind of preservative on supermarket flowers that would be dangerous for them? (That’s the real reason I posted this here instead of just putting some stems and leaves in their cage to see what they’d do).
Without knowing what kind of flowers you got, I’d have to say that it’s a bad idea. Guinea pigs are herbivores, but many plants are actually and theoretically toxic to them. Even plants that don’t have actively toxic compounds can have crystal compounds that cause physical tissue damage.
Stick to the stuff that we know is eatable to humans.
And make sure they get a fresh orange every day. Guinea pigs, like humans, cannot synthesize vitamin C, so they need to get it in their diet every day. Not all pellets have vitamin C supplemented, and, even when they do, it’s a pretty sensitive compound and will degrade out of the pellets in a few weeks.
Gotta concur with Pullet - too many things might be poisonous. Even something human-safe (like nasturtiums or violets) might not be good for the piggies.
I have a pair of pigs. I don’t know about the flowers, but be careful about what kind of lettuce you’re feeding them. The iceberg lettuce won’t hurt them but it doesn’t have much nutritional value and they might fill up on it instead of eating what’s really good for them. Romaine and leaf lettuce are both good for them.
Also make sure they get as much hay as they want.
I don’t know about the orange thing but I use vitamin supplements in their water.
Pullet, I don’t feed an orange every day, but their kibble is vitamin C enhanced, plus I have these little “drops” (look kinda like a Hershey’s Kiss) that they get fed daily.
CookingWithGas, the only time they get iceberg lettuce is when I order a salad at a restaurant and have some left over. Otherwise, I don’t buy iceberg; the other lettuces are just as cheap (the bagged kinds that I buy on sale), and much more nutritious. So that’s what we eat here at home, and what I feed the ‘girls’. (Which is how I refer to them when I’m talking to them, as in “I hear you in there girls; settle down, mama’s coming right in with some salad/food/water”).
I’m not sure how intelligent guinea pigs are, but I’d swear they understand the difference when I say “Salad” from when I say “food”.
Good point on the possible toxins in the flower stems. Now I’m glad I didn’t feed them to them.
Yeah I would avoid feeding them plant stems- like the fertilizer packets in the water are bad for humans so I can only imagine what they would do to a pet.
Also if your pet never ate flowers before, suddenly giving them new food might cause problems.
My girls now recognize the sound of the plastic that the lettuce is wrapped in. They start squeeking wildly as soon they hear me take it out of the fridge. (This doesn’t indicate particularly high intelligence, just the ability to learn conditioned response, but it’s a lot of fun anyway. )
Well, Patches (the newer one) is still very shy to the touch, so she won’t get squeezin’s. What say I just give her an extra cherry tomato for you?
Kelly, the older one, is an attention whore, though. I’ll definitely give her a squeezin for you. Then I’ll have to give her an extra tomato, too, so she doesn’t get jealous!
It is fun, isn’t it? It’s so funny, because my pigs have a “split level” cage. There’s a platform they can either climb up on, or hide under. Whenever I put salad in their bowl, Patches will hide under the platform. Then look around very cautiously, dart out, snatch a piece of lettuce, and run back under the platform with it, like she’s afraid if I see her, I’ll take it away from her!
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