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Post by moletteuk on May 7, 2015 15:26:09 GMT
Just use the oxalic acid content on the fresh veg chart as a guide to which ones have high levels. Yes, feed fresh if they like it fresh, the only advantage to dried is for storage reasons, which is admittedly quite a big factor for some things. Yeah, 5 days isn't long, I'm sure they'll make their preferences known in time. Hope you are having fun with them
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Post by claire on May 7, 2015 22:48:23 GMT
Amazing amounts of fun, Basil has taken to chasing off the dustpan brush when I brush their table lol, even when Ronnie escapes it still amuses me lol Coildnt have done it without you guys, your awesome
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Post by claire on May 11, 2015 11:42:02 GMT
ok so i have started giving them chives which 2 love 2 will eat but not fussed, and a small baby spinach leaf a day, yesterday i gave them a tiny piece of red pepper to try.
I just worry im feeding them wrong, they have the pellets but that they dont seem to eat much of them, they get the ratrations seeds, 3g a day per degu. and the pumpkin and sunflower seeds i feed them to train, probably around 3g in total between the 4 of them, probably a bit much but once they are trained more i will use less.
should i be limiting the chives, i will be buying other fresh herbs Basil Thyme Parsley the pots of plants you can get in the supermarket and am going to order some other dried flowers and leaves for them, can i just give them as much as they will eat, i started off feeding 1 piece of chive a day, now they get about 3 pieces a day.
will they over eat or can i feed as many handfulls of stuff as they want as long as its on the safe lists here on the fourms?
they eat everything fresh i give them, is this because they refuse to eat the pellets and are actually starving or are they just greedy lol, i cant weight them yet theres only one i can catch and will stay still.
been nosing in the hedges, i have bluebells and snowdrops, dock leaves grass blackberry leaves, dandelions, my land lady has a sunflower plant i may steal a leaf off lol, are these all safe to use?
im rubbish with plants so its something i have to learn lol
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Post by moletteuk on May 11, 2015 14:52:08 GMT
They can't overeat on plants and forage as long as there is a variety and not too much of any one thing. Things can get skewed with high concentrations of some nutrients if you only feed two or three things or perhaps if they were all human herbs. So a couple of chives and spinach leaves each are fine but for overall benefit you need to add other things.
Good things to collect in the hedgerows are dandelion, plantain (broad and narrow leaved), hogweed, daisy, clover, grass, ground elder, dock, willowherb, yarrow, garlic mustard, cleavers, blackberry, cow parsley (be careful with ID), and then you can break off a few twigs of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, beech, cherry, apple.
Bluebells and snowdrops and most bulb plants are not safe. Blackberry leaves and sunflowers are safe. The herbs from the supermarket won't get you very far although would be nice for a treat.
I think the easiest way to get into collecting is to look for 3 or 4 or a few plants that you are confident you can identify, things like blackberry, dandelion, clover, dock, daisy, plantains are a good place to start. And then while you are out picking those, look around you for anything else that looks common and easy to pick and take a sample back for you to identify. Then if the new things turn out to be safe when you look them up, you are adding in a couple of species every time you go out. You can buy a little wild flower book for £3 or so in the cheap bookshops like The Works.
Depending on how you get on with the collecting, you can buy some leaf mixes from Zooplus or Hansemanns as a top up or to get through the winter.
They do need to eat a certain amount of pellets to get enough vitamin D, so unless you want to get into artificially supplying vit D yourself, you might need to experiment with some different pellets. If they are just on the VL Crispy at the moment, you can try the JRF grainless guinea (or chinchilla) next time you order from Zooplus, and/or you could try the Science Selective Degu (make sure you get the new packs with start shapes not squares).
If you reduce the seeds a bit they might eat more pellets.
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Post by claire on May 11, 2015 23:57:15 GMT
ah yes dock leaves we have tonnes of too, is there a link to safe flowers on here that I havnt found yet?
no bulb plants right glad I asked!!
Think ill start with some stuff off zooplus and see how I get on with the collecting thing
They are on the crispy and the science select and the JR pellets at the mo, bit of each plus the seeds each morning,just need to add more forage stuff, glad I cant over feed them on that, I know I need variety I just need to learn whats safe like you said add as I go hopefully build up a healthy balance:)
less seeds right will do, they seem to fight over the seeds then leave the pellets, maybe im spoiling them I don't know lol
oh and the escapees now realise that I wont give them treats for escaping so are far easier to re catch now lol, cheeky buggers those 2 so clever, one doesn't mind crawling on me now soon gets bored and wants down though lol
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Post by moletteuk on May 12, 2015 10:45:59 GMT
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Post by claire on May 13, 2015 15:01:46 GMT
thanx for the links, im probably spoiling them lol, they are very friendly now and one likes to craw on me, so I will cut back on the treats now they have to work for them, doing tube training at the moment
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