[Gpdd] CARE

Penny Charlesworth piggyfriends at tesco.net
Sat May 29 08:08:53 EDT 2010


Poor little piggy, not knowing the delights of the vegetable garden.

I have had this happen occasionally when rescued piggies, who have never 
been fed what I consider to be normal a piggy diet, arrive here at 
Piggyfriends thinking that pellets and hay are all there are to eat.

Baby piggies learn about what is good to eat from their mothers but if 
pellets and hay are all they have been given from birth they do not acquire 
this essential knowledge.

Once a new arrival has been introduced to her group, she quickly learns from 
her new friends that all those veggies are tasty and it is never long before 
she is joining in with them.

This only works if you have other piggies from whom she can learn and I do 
not know if this is the case with you. If you do have other piggies, put 
your new piggy right next to them, even if it is in another cage, so that 
she can see them eating all the good things and she will soon see what she 
is missing.

I recently took in four piggies from a big rescue operation. I do not think 
that these girls had ever seen a vegetable but, by watching the resident 
piggies, three of them soon joined in. The fourth, very undernourished, had 
to be kept on her own for a while. She learned from watching me that veggies 
are good to eat. I sat her on my lap with a dish of veggies and she watched 
me eat a chunk. I then offered one to her and held her up to my mouth to see 
what I was doing with the veg. It took a while but now she is eating some 
but not yet all the veggies. So far, she is enjoying carrot, cabbage, 
romaine and chicory as well as a little apple. I drew the line at eating 
grass so that she could see that it was good but she has picked up that info 
on her own and, now that the weather here in England has improved, she has 
learned the delights of dandelion and sow thistle leaves.

So, try sharing veggies with your piggy and see if she will improve. Try 
gently poking the stalk from a piece of parsley or a narrow strip of celery 
in her mouth and see if she gets the idea. She may well start to munch when 
she has the taste in her mouth.

Good luck.

Penny and the Piggyfriends ( a little piggy sanctuary in England )



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We have new guinea pig, a few months old. She only had eaten pellets before 
we got her, and we don't know how to make her interested in fresh veggies 
and fruits, whenever they are introduced to her, she only steps on them, and 
continues to just eat her pellets/hay.






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