Last Updated on June 14, 2023 by Georgie Smith
Knowing how to recognize healthy, quality pellets for your Guinea Pig is vital. Many owners offer a pelleted feed along with a variety of other nutritious foods. The most critical factor is ensuring your Guinea Pig is eating the necessary nutrients to help it thrive.
Pellets are not by any means meant to be a substitute for hay. For all Guinea Pigs, supplying a high-quality, grass hay around the clock is necessary. For a product to meet the nutritional demands, there are specific requirements that must be satisfied.
These requirements come from the National Academy of Sciences. Determining the nutritional needs of a Guinea Pig incorporates research from numerous studies. Some of these are recent studies, as well as others well over 50 years old.
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Some of these have yet to be 100 percent complete from rat studies, but further research continues through proper funding. The requirements are not meant to be daily, but the minerals and vitamins amounts are vital parts of the feed.
Guinea Pigs typically eat a small fraction of a kilo each day. Research recognizes that the value of a higher fiber, more natural diet generally relies on a similar or pelleted feed for practical reasons. You as the pet owner, have no restrictions and can offer other foods such as:
- Fruit
- Hay
- Fresh Vegetables
- Grasses
Adding these would approximate the dietary needs of a Guinea Pig that lives in the wild more closely. Before we go much further into valuable guidelines for choosing a high-quality pellet, let’s take a look at the top five best Guinea Pig pellets available today.
Kaytee Timothy Complete Guinea Pig Food
Right off the top of the list is a product from one of the leaders in small animal products, Kaytee. This Kaytee Timothy Complete Guinea Pig Food is available thanks to an animal nutritional expert. The goal for the product is to provide your small animal all the proper nutrition necessary to live a long, prosperous life.
The food is a pelleted food derived from nutrients and vitamins from hand-selected, high-quality, Timothy Hay. Your Guinea Pig will get all the nutrition it needs with this high in fiber, Timothy Complete product.
Get more important information as well as how to buy yours today, click here:
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Oxbow Essentials Adult Guinea Pig (Timothy Based)
This Guinea Pig food is for adult breeds that come from the best Timothy Grass Meal. Oxbow is another leader in producing top-quality Guinea Pig meal products. This Timothy-based pellet supplies a lower level of calories, protein, and calcium than other Alfalfa-based pellets.
Adult Guinea Pigs’ digestive systems do not need the same level of necessities as younger animals. The food for younger Guinea Pigs is typically alfalfa-based and explicitly designed to supply calcium, protein, high fiber, and all the energy necessary for young breeds.
The stabilized vitamins and balanced protein aid in helping nurture lactating and pregnant animals. This item is a five-pound bag and has an almost perfect five-star rating from consumers just like yourself. For more information and get your order in today, click here:
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Small Pet Select Guinea Pig Food Pellets
If you have done any homework at all on what products are best for Guinea Pigs, then you already know Small Pets Select is a manufacturer that supplies the high-quality pellets your little guy needs to thrive. This Guinea Pig food is from a stellar-premium Timothy Hay-based pellet.
It comes packed with all the minerals and vitamins your small animal needs to grow strong and healthy. The pellets come in small batches made from the finest, hand-selected Timothy Hay manufactured by Small Pet Select themselves.
Feed your Guinea Pig fresh water, moderate amounts of fresh vegetables and this high-quality pelleted food and you will be supplying all it needs to thrive and be healthy. This item is available in both a five-pound and a ten-pound bag and is a five-star rated product on Amazon.
Read more as well as place your order by clicking here:
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Oxbow Animal Health Cavy Cuisine Adult Guinea Pig Fortified Feed
Once again is a leading seller from Oxbow. This Oxbow Adult Guinea Pig food has all the high-fiber from Timothy Grass meal your pet needs to thrive. However, it has a lower level of calcium, calories, and protein than that of Alfalfa-based pellets.
This particular feed has all the stabilized Vitamin-C and calcium-to-phosphorus ratios necessary for maintaining healthy digestion and body. When you provide your small pet this Oxbow Animal Health Cavy Cuisine treat and Grass Hay, you are providing your adult pet all the stabilized nutrition it needs to live a long, healthy life.
This item comes in a five-pound bag and is a leader in vet choices for adult Guinea Pigs. Here is one more five-star rated product available on Amazon. Order yours here:
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F.M. Brown’s Tropical Carnival Gourmet Guinea Pig Food
This product is unique in its own glory as the only product on this list to compete with the leaders of small animal products. As you can see, the main difference with this product by Browns Tropical Carnival is it is Gourmet food for Guinea Pigs.
Proper nutrition is the key, and foundation of all healthy, high-quality diets. However, palatability is vital as well. If you do not enjoy boring, bland food why should your pets? For your Guinea Pig to achieve the nutritional benefits from food, it must eat it first, right?
You have no worries with this delicious combination of nutrition and taste in each food or treat you feed from Tropical Carnival. This company has been around for many years, and this is not its first rodeo in manufacturing foods your Guinea Pig will love.
Read much more information and invest in your small animal’s health and happiness by shopping here:
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Guidelines for Selecting High-Quality Pellets
For Guinea Pig owners that decide to feed pellets to their pets, there are guidelines you should follow. You must ensure that you choose a pellet feed based on quality control, freshness, and high-ingredient quality.
The following are ingredients in products you need to avoid feeding your Guinea Pig:
Beet Pulp: Here is an item that is no stranger to controversy including cat and dog foods. Beet pulp is known to be a low-quality fiber that clogs the villi in small animals’ intestines. It is common in all animal food beings it is a byproduct of numerous human products.
Animal Products: These include:
- Meat
- Tallow
- Animal Fat
- Animal Digest
- Sterols
- Eggs
- Bone Meal
Nuts, Seeds, and Oils:
These are high in protein and fat and are not a natural food source. Often present in seed and animal feed byproducts, these have little to no valuable nutrients.
Vegetable Fiber:
Believe it or not, you will find this product in every byproduct and often will include sawdust.
Rice Flour or Rice Bran:
Neither has nutrient value, more byproducts.
Corn Products:
These include corn germ, ground corn, corn gluten, and corn bran. Beings no legal meaning of “corn” is available when it comes to animal feed, it could be any combination of products. Corn is typically not a regular food for guinea pigs and could contribute to causing allergies.
Corn also could be high in fats and other starch and sugars, depending entirely on the product. Aflatoxin is a deadly contamination that often is in corn that causes liver failure and death.
Sweeteners, Preservatives, and Colorings to Avoid
- High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
- Corn syrup
- Sucrose
- Food colorings (include yellows, blues, and FD&C reds)
- Propylene glycol (causes premature RBC death)
- Potassium sorbate
- Sodium nitrite, Sodium nitrate, and Sodium Metabisulfite
- Ethoxyquin
- Propyl gallate
- Butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA)/Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
Many studies over the years show the more pronounced differences between domestic and wild guinea pigs. One example is that wild guineas are extensive and thorough explorers which allows them to find a wide variety of food sources.
Wild guinea pigs feast mostly on vegetation. However, they have a love for clover, flowers, hay, grass, and other nutritious greenery. Domestic guineas, (bred in captivity for well over 400 years) even though they have similar nutritional needs as their wild relatives, are a bit different.
What does this say for your guinea? It tells you that your pet needs a vast variety of foods. While pellets are a favorite of the guinea pig, other foods are necessary to promote good health. The level of vitamins, particularly vitamin C, is vital.
Why Vitamin C is Necessary Along with Pellets
Pellets are the leading favorite of guinea pigs other than hay. However, the food you choose should always contain plenty of Vitamin C. In fact, C is one of the most vital and essential vitamins guinea pigs need due to their high risk of scurvy. Scurvy is not a topic that you hear much about even though it is a common deficiency.
Even though it is an age-old disease that back in history plagued sailors with a lack of access to fruit fresh, it is still common. Humans, as well as guinea pigs, cannot produce vitamin C within their bodies. For this reason, Vitamin C must come through the diet of both.
If your pet does develop scurvy, it will likely generate a poor appetite which will cause weight loss. With this rapid weight loss, lethargy is likely to occur as well. When this happens, your guinea pig will show signs of having trouble moving. Severe joint pain arises due to scurvy and will lead to mobility issues.
The symptoms of scurvy will worsen over time if the deficiency continues. If other antioxidant deficiencies develop, the symptoms of scurvy will worsen. For these reasons, it is vital you ensure your guinea pig consumes plenty of selenium or vitamin C.
What Vitamin C Foods to Feed Your Pet
Now that you understand the importance of vitamin C, you should begin creating a list of foods your pet can have that have high levels of vitamin C. There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. There are many options available in foods that are high in vitamin C for your pet.
The following are just a few ideas for you to make your choice:
Timothy Complete Guinea Pig Food: As you can see, this product is one of the leaders in pellets available which is why it made the list of the products above. This product by Kaytee is one of the few that have vegetables and fruits.
The added ingredients not only make the pellets healthier, but it also aids in enhancing the taste. There is plenty of long-lasting vitamin C to help keep your pet healthy.
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Hartz Bonanza 4-Pound Gourmet Diet Supply: While this product is similar to the Kaytee product, it has a more extensive variety of pellet sizes and shapes. If your guinea enjoys variety, this is a fantastic additive to its diet. There are plenty of nutrients and vitamins, thanks to a large number of vegetables and fruits that will enhance your pet’s vitamin C levels.
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If you are already feeding your pet a pellet it loves, then adding a daily vitamin C supplement is also a possibility. One of the best-sellers for this is Oxbow Natural Science Vitamin C Supplement. This product is high in fiber, a hay-based product.
Each pellet or disc holds around 25 mg of vitamin C. By feeding your guinea pig one per day, you are supplying the recommended dosage for maintaining good health.
Summary
As you can see, there are plenty of good, healthy products on the market that will help you maintain your pet’s good health. We aim to take all the confusion away by providing you with the best products along with the best information available on the web.
Do you have any further concerns or questions we can help you with about your guinea pig? Please leave us a comment and we, as a team, will find the best answers for you. While you are here, please like and share our work so that we can continue to help others just like yourself.
Once again, thank you for your time.
