Feeding Hay For Guinea Pigs

Top quality, nutritious guinea pig feeding hay plays an essential role in your piggies’ health and wellbeing, providing all sorts of benefits.

• HAY PROVIDES VITAL FIBRE: Good feeding hay for guinea pigs is an excellent source of fibre and is vital for healthy digestion. Guinea pigs need to keep their digestive systems busy with a mix of two kinds of fibre moving through the gut at all times. These types of fibre are called digestible fibre and indigestible fibre. They get this fibre mainly from high-quality feeding hay.
• HAY IS GOOD FOR KEEPING TEETH IN GOOD SHAPE: Munching on delicious guinea pig hay keeps their continuously growing teeth in check, helping to prevent dental disease.
• HAY MAKES GUINA PIGS FEEL GOOD: Chomping on hay does wonders for your guinea pigs’ emotional wellbeing. In the wild, guinea pigs spend around 70% of their time foraging and eating grass and other plants. For pet guinea pigs, being allowed to forage and chew keeps them physically and emotionally stimulated and enables them to express their natural behaviours.
• HAY HELPS PROMOTE OVERALL HEALTH: Feeding them plenty of high quality guinea pig feeding hay, grass-based nuggets, a few fresh greens and some yummy healthy treats will help your guinea pigs maintain healthy skin, coat, eyes, teeth and digestion.

There are all sorts of temptingly tasty dried grass and feeding hay options for guinea pigs to enjoy and individual piggies will no doubt have their favourites.

Our hay for guinea pigs to eat comes in a choice of fully recyclable cardboard boxes or easy-open bags which are recyclable in large supermarkets. Both keep the guinea pig hay fresh until it’s all been eaten up. Variety is the spice of life, so why not mix and match to see what varieties your piggies like best?

• Timothy Hay: Always a favourite with small furries, Timothy hay for guinea pigs is composed of vitamin and mineral-rich elements of Timothy-grass.
• Feeding hay with hedgerow herbs: This type of hay is a great option for guinea pigs to eat. It includes hedgerow herbs like dandelion, chamomile, nettle and mallow flowers, allowing for a fabulous foraging experience.
• Sweet-smelling Timothy hay: If you want to buy hay for your guinea pigs that smells amazing, look no further. With dandelion and marigold (to aid urinary tract health and help build a healthy immune system), this Timothy hay for guinea pigs is popular with many small pet owners.
• Green harvest hay: Green hay for guinea pigs of this sort is made from the freshest, first-cut meadow hay.
• Long stem heeding hay: Cut at the right time and dried within 48 hours, this is the perfect addition to your guinea pigs’ diet.
• Dried fresh grass: This is ideal for that time of year when your lawn’s past its best.

We have a whole host of five-star reviews and our Burgess Excel customers have told us the following about our hay for guinea pigs:

“Our guinea pigs love this hay. Nice and cosy as bedding and tasty too.”

“Feeds my 5 piggies for just over a month and comes out more cost-effective than having to run to the shop multiple times a week!”

“Great quality, smells amazing!”

“Excellent quality hay for a very reasonable price. The hay is green and healthy, it smells great, and the strands are long and thick.”

“Our guinea pigs love this hay. It’s soft enough to use as bedding too.”

Guinea pigs are severely affected by dust and dusty hay can cause serious respiratory problems. Always look for high-quality guinea pig hay which states that it’s ‘dust extracted’ to protect your guinea pigs’ respiratory health. Buying dust-free hay for your guinea pigs is just as important as ensuring it’s fresh and nutritious.

It’s not advisable to buy straw for guinea pigs to eat – or to put in their accommodation – as it’s too coarse and could injure their delicate eyes.

In fact, the wrong bedding for your piggies can harm their health. Wood shavings, sawdust and straw can often contain mites and cause fungal and mange conditions. Wood shavings or sawdust also absorb the natural oils that guinea pigs have which they need to keep their coats and skin in good condition.

We recommend lining your guinea pigs’ enclosure with a thick layer of newspaper and completely covering it with paper-based, non-expanding litter. You can also add a good layer of fresh, sweet-smelling meadow hay suitable for guinea pigs. This will provide the ultimate cleanliness and comfort to help them enjoy the cosiest naptimes.

The Royal Veterinary College Exotics Services advises: “Good-quality hay or grass should make up the majority (at least 80%) of the diet. Do not feed alfalfa (lucerne) hays as these are high in calcium and could predispose your guinea pig to stones in the kidneys or bladder. Meadow, rye and Timothy hays [for guinea pigs] are great as an everyday feed.”

To ensure your guinea pigs get everything they need from their food, their diet should consist of:

• 85%-90% unlimited grazed grass (not grass cuttings) or high-quality feeding hay: As a guide, provide each piggy with at least their own body size in fresh feeding hay for guinea pigs every day.
• A small handful of guinea pig-safe leafy greens, vegetables and herbs: Around a teacup-sized amount a day per guinea pig is ideal. Greens and veg high in vitamin C are especially good, such as a small bunch of parsley, half a curly kale leaf, one small floret of broccoli or 1/8th of a green bell pepper.
• Pelleted guinea pig food: You should give around one egg cup a day per guinea pig of pelleted guinea pig food. Guinea pig nuggets help ensure your piggies get all the vital vitamins – particularly vitamin C – and minerals they need. Guinea pigs can’t make their own vitamin C, so they need extra in their diet for healthy skin, joints and blood vessels. Avoid muesli-based diets as these encourage selective feeding, where guinea pigs eat some high starch/sugary components of the muesli mix while rejecting the more fibrous pellets, leading to an unbalanced diet.

You can also include some yummy, healthy guinea pig treats to add enrichment. These are great for hand feeding, helping you to build your bond with your guinea pig pals.

Along with guinea pig hay and guinea pig food, they must also have access to plenty of fresh water at all times, supplied in pet drinking bottles which feature a solid sipper tube.

• If you need to change your guinea pigs’ pellets or introduce any new fresh greens, this has to be done carefully. Any sudden changes can result in digestive issues which can become serious if not treated. It is going to take time to get your piggies used to their new diet, so allow 14-28 days for a full and safe transition.
• Guinea pigs love to search out titbits and foraging is a natural guinea pig behaviour. So rather than putting their food in a bowl, place it around their enclosure, in their tunnels, in paper bags, cardboard loo rolls or under some hay, to encourage their natural urge to forage for food.

At Burgess Pet Care, all our food, hay and healthy treats for guinea pigs are made at our own factory in the heart of Yorkshire. We have a long tradition of supporting British farmers and actively sourcing our ingredients as close to our mill as possible. The grass we use is grown on an estate that works in partnership with the local wildlife trust to reduce environmental impact and encourage biodiversity – and we know exactly which field each batch comes from and the date it was harvested. This means you can buy our hay for guinea pigs with the knowledge that we’re using the best, natural ingredients. It’s also exclusive to Burgess. No other pet food manufacturer has access to our grass!

We have hundreds of five-star reviews on Feefo where customers have shared their glowing reviews about their hay for guinea pigs and other pet products. Save 10% with Subscribe & Save and start your online order with us today. You can get free delivery when you spend over £25.

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