[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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