Guinea Pig Food

What can guinea pigs eat? What should guinea pigs not have to eat? These are some of the things we needed to look up when we had our piggies. I have put together what I’ve learned here.

They need to always have food available. If they’re not sleeping or pooping, they’re probably eating. We always had a couple of dishes of pellets in the cage that we kept full. Peppy would drag one into her igloo with her.

They have to have water. We had a couple of water bottles we kept fresh water in for them. You’d be surprised at the random times you’d hear them over there drinking water. Peppy actually could drink it from a bowl, as we learned when she was getting a bath, but that would have just gotten spilled in the cage.

They need to have hay available at all times. They’re always eating it, and it gives them things they need and helps keep their teeth ground, which is critical since, like rabbits, their teeth are always growing. Alfalfa hay is good for them when they’re younger, but not the best when they’re adults.

We always got them Timothy hay, and they’d go nuts over it. Once we found a local pet store that sold nice hay in bigger bags, it got a lot cheaper, although we’d buy them smaller bags of other brands to give them something different for a change.

Treats For Guinea Pigs

What can you give to guinea pigs as treats? They love to eat and quickly learned how to beg for treats.

This is how they learned to start begging when they heard the fridge door open. It would start as a small, hopeful beg. By the time the salad spinner was going to clean the stuff, they’d be practically pissing themselves from popcorning and begging. We went to the grocery store with a better produce section just to buy their treats.

• Grass - from outside in a known clean area of our yard. Sadly, at that time we didn’t have that much grass. It was mostly weeds. Once in a while, we’d buy the little pots of it in the pet store.
• Dandelions - They even ate the flowers. They loved all parts, including the stem, flower, and leaves. It’d be funny to see them suck the stem in as they ate it, then the flower would slowly disappear into their mouth. The piggies we had went crazy for them and always ate them stem first.
• Lettuce - Of course they liked it!
• Baby carrots - Carrots were Teddy’s favorite and the only vegetable she ate for a while (she was afraid of everything else).
• Apples - They loved apples, but you have to make sure there are no seeds because they can choke on them, and I’d also imagine the cyanide in the seed could be a problem for them.

• blueberries - When I got blueberries, I’d share a few with the piggies. They liked them but shouldn’t eat too many of them.

• Blackberries - Same as with blueberries. I’d give them a few when I got them for myself.
• Banana - They loved slices of bananas with the peel still on it.
• Tomatoes - They liked tomatoes.
• Corn on the cob - They went crazy for corn on the cob. They licked the leaves and then ate the corn off the cob like little typewriters.
• Peppers - They loved sweet peppers of all colors, and they are a great source of vitamin C for them. They’d sound funny crunching away on them.
• strawberries - When we bought strawberries, we usually gave the piggies some of them, and they liked them.
• Oranges - They liked oranges.
• Spinach - They liked it, but it was one of those things they shouldn’t have too much of.
• Broccoli - They seemed to like it. Didn’t give it to them that often but they ate it.
• Kale - They really liked Kale. We tried it but didn’t, so we only bought it for them.
• Brussels Sprouts - Gave these to them once in a while. They ate them.
• Asparagus - We ate quite a bit of this back then, and they ate a piece or two when we had it.
• Cucumbers - They always got some slices of cucumber on their plate, and this was one of their early choices to pick.
• Pear - The got a few pieces when we picked up pears for ourselves and seemed to like them
• Cherries - They went crazy over cherries, obviously you had to remove the pits
• Watermelon - Watermelon is not something we frequently got, but when we had one, they’d get a bit of it too. They liked it, but it was our understanding they shouldn’t have too much of it because it could cause diarrhea.
• Grapes - When we bought a bunch of grapes, they’d get one or two. They seemed to really like them.

The reality is I think those damned piggies ate better than us, and I would change it if I could. Between their food, hay, and veggies, they were little eating machines.