Gertie Guinea Pig - leaving half of it

[stevelup]

Hi folks,

I'm new here - I've had four male degus for just under two weeks now. They are about five months old I believe.

The chap I got them off was feeding them Gertie Guinea Pig so I carried on with that. I have noticed though that they only eat some of it. They like the seeds, the flakes and the bits that look like dog biscuits but completely leave the two different plasticky looking 'pellets'.

It seems a bit pointless continuing to give them this if they're not eating it.

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure what is what!

I'm contemplating weaning them onto something else. Any advice?

Thanks,

Steve

[fred]

Hi there and welcome to the forum Gertie Guinea Pig isn't food degus should have. I assume you followed the degutopia feeding guide where unfortunately it is recommended. In the longer term, Gertie Guinea Pig could endanger degu health if they select like yours do. So I would strongly advice to use up the bag you have and phase in something better. We advocate a more natural nutrition, have a look at this thread: deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=food&action=display&thread=8933

As hard feed, I would recommend the JR Farm products Degu Special or Degu Premium which you can get from zooplus.co.uk. If you don't want to order on the internet, the best choice is probably XtraVital Degu.

[stevelup]

Many thanks.

As I said, I've only had them a couple of weeks and just continued feeding what their previous owner had been as I didn't want to disrupt their routine too soon.

I'll wade through the thread you linked to this afternoon! I'm definitely in favour of a natural diet for them.

[stevelup]

Hi

What's the difference between the Premium and Special. The latter is twice the price but the ingredients seem almost the same as do the nutritional values.

They do both look really nice though.

Cheers,

Steve

[fred]

I have had another look at the ingredients and I don't see the difference that justifies the price difference either. I would go for Degu Premium and perhaps get two or three of the herb/flower mixes mentioned on the 50% natural nutrition thread to supplement.

[stevelup]

Many thanks!

[grumpy89]

mine eat every single bit of gertie guinea pig - but pick and choose from the degu food, so we mix them up and give them a bit of both. Its always degu stuff left behind though.

[winic1]

of course they do, think about it....

if you give kids a bowl of mixed candy and vegetables, which are they going to eat first and what will you see left behind?

[abirose]

If I'm honest I wish that I had never started mixing in gertie guinea pig, I took the advice from degutopia and thought it would give my girls some variety, but they have become massively selective feeders and dig out all the degu pellets all over the cage. This is bad because I can't ensure that they are getting the right balence of the things they need. You should read the 50% natural nutrition thread on here its very interesting. I am slowly starting to reduce the gertie out of the diet and include more dried flowers and herbs and I am planning on getting the JR food from zooplus. Remember to change their diet slowly so they don't get stomach problems. Personally I'm not a fan of muesli style mixes as I have the same issue with my rats and I do often feel a lot of things like grain are put in just to bulk it up.

[grumpy89]

No need for the sarcasm!

i don't mix it with pellets they hate them, its actually mixed with XtraVital...when i fed them with just that, loads was left behind and i was getting quite worried...where do you draw the line at not giving them more till they eat it, or letting them be underfed and lose weight? Its more XtraVital than Gertie - just to make that one clear!

They seem much happier now and actually eat more of the XtraVital than they realise, because its mixed and now not much is left behind, they actually eat the stuff they left before. They get lots of extra supplements from us and I personally don't think they are suffering in anyway whatsoever

[winic1]

wasn't sarcasm. I have two kids. And have spent 14 years trying to get them to stop asking for sweets and soda for snacks before eating healthy stuff (I do not give in. We have the rules. They do get to eat treats, probably more than they should, anyway. Yet EVERY lunch and dinner my daughter asks if she can have soda. No. No soda with meals (the bubbles fill her up and she doesn't eat much). Never soda with meals. And yet, year after year, she still asks. Gimme a break already!)

The parakeets prefer millet over everything, and any kind of seed over the healthy, vitamin-packed pellets. (so we limit the millet and put vitamins in the water.) The guinea pigs prefer carrots over any other vegetable. (so no carrots until the other stuff is gone.) The hedgehog prefers the cheap, corn-filler cat food over high quality appropriate cat food, and won't even touch hedgehog food (and hedgehogs WILL starve themselves if faced with only something they won't touch. so we slowly forced her to switch over to better cat food than the breeder had been using. over months.). Thankfully, the dog will eat anything, and so eventually will the cats if not given a choice. (one cat prefers dog food. go figure.)

I think Nature designed us all to be junk food junkies. Geez.