Beaphar guinea pig vitimin C - no longer degu safe

[scoobos]

Heads up that this solution has now been marked up as NOT suitable for degus with no obvious change in ingredients

This seems to alter the smell of their urine as they supersniff each others markings if removed suddenly (back in june) so i gradually reduced their intake.

[deguconvert]

Scoobos, I looked at the ingredients, and couldn't help but wonder if there is more in there than is listed. It only told the vitamins and some minerals, but what is the base made out of?? Is there any form of sweetener in it??

[Maravilla]

@ scoobos,
why did/ do you provide this to your goos? Any special reason for it?
There is no need to provide degus extra vitamin products at all. Degus are perfectly able to take their vitamin need out of their normal food...
By the way, it is unnecessary for guinea pigs as well... a nutrition with fruits and vegetables is completely sufficient. Additional vitamins can even have adverse health effects.

[scoobos]

Provided it for a couple of reasons, first and foremost that my goos will not touch ANYTHING fresh other than tomatoes , which i was reluctant to give as staple diet.

As an exampke of how picky they are, the goo treats for sick goos on these boards were rejected, as are every nut i have tried and every other treat. They will eat oats, pellets, hay, and thats it.

My goos developed nice healthy teeth within days of giving it, they wouldnt eat anything other than hay and their pellets, apparantly without fresh greens i was led to believe that id have to use this stuff. Evidence of results also suggests that the advice i was given ws right.

On vet advice , pet shop advice and other goo sites i thought id try it out and its had wonderful results. That said takingit away caused domnance issues, i think it changed the smell of their urine. Coincidentally ive got goo fighting again now, after taking it away...

Going to vets this afternoon with my 2 badly injured boys ill let him know ive taken it away and see what he says.

[deguconvert]

You know . . . in my opinion (and although I am the global mod here, my opinion is that of a layperson, not an expert) there is nothing in the list of ingredients to suggest that it needs to be taken away . . . unless there are things missing from the list such as glucose, maltose, fructose, molassas, and other forms of sugar. If they do no exist in the solution, AND your degus are as stringently picky as you describe them, I see no reason why you shouldn't give it to them. It is obviously making a great difference to them!! If I were you, I would be inclined to resume it's use. The only thing I would stress with you is that you ALWAYS read the ingredient list before you purchase a new bottle of the stuff. Pet product companies are notorious for changing up their ingredients without notice.

[davx]

Hello,

It only told the vitamins and some minerals, but what is the base made out of??

That must be water, because vitamin C is soluble in water.
Concerning the sweetener probably the best way would be to try it out and taste it. Sweet ingredients should be identifiable and there is a difference in taste between artificial sweetener and sugars (glucose, sucrose, fructose, maltose etc.).
Vitamin C has a sour taste and is also known as ascorbic acid. A sweetener for covering this sour taste is in fact likely.

Provided it for a couple of reasons, first and foremost that my goos will not touch ANYTHING fresh other than tomatoes , which i was reluctant to give as staple diet.

Be patient, degus need time to become accustomed to green stuff.
Also they often don't like vegs and prefer herbs like dandelion, grasses, clover etc.
I had degus they ignored tomatoes for their life and others were fond of tomatoes.
In general it tooks me about 0,5 to 1 year to accustom the degus to fresh green.
Even for experienced degus it did matter what I offered, if they were hungry and what I offered them in the last days. Some kind of food became uninteresting after some days, other food they accepted or rejected according to the actual composition: young shoots, leaves etc. mostly were prefered, also flowers often were a good choice, in contrast stems and old leaves often were little interesting. For some plants I couldn't find out a specific reason or rule for acceptance or ignorance. But in most cases it was related to the energy content (especially nitrogen content, which is high in legumes and young plant parts) and the contained fibres, lignin and other indigestible matter.

My goos developed nice healthy teeth within days of giving it, they wouldnt eat anything other than hay and their pellets, apparantly without fresh greens i was led to believe that id have to use this stuff. Evidence of results also suggests that the advice i was given ws right.

Chinchilla owners told me similar things. Supplemented vitamins and minerals caused improvements in teeth colour and it seems that it is a useful help for animals feed on pellets.

in my opinion (and although I am the global mod here, my opinion is that of a layperson, not an expert) there is nothing in the list of ingredients to suggest that it needs to be taken away . . . unless there are things missing from the list such as glucose, maltose, fructose, molassas, and other forms of sugar. If they do no exist in the solution, AND your degus are as stringently picky as you describe them, I see no reason why you shouldn't give it to them.

Does it matter if there is sugar in it? In my opinion that might be the smallest problem, because sugars are wide spread ingredients in plants and you can find it even in grasses, vegs etc. in smaller quantities. Vitamins are a supplement you give in very small quantities and thus the amount of sugar would be small as well. In contrast artificial sweetener are more problematic, because they work differently. They don't affect the sugar metabolism, but they work like hormones and affect the endocrine system. That means, they work in very small quantities and they are like messages for the animal body: not the quantity is of importance (even small amounts could be very powerful), but the quality or metaphorically spoken the content of the message matters.
But even here we cannot say exactly what the impact is, also experts are discordant.

The only thing I would stress with you is that you ALWAYS read the ingredient list before you purchase a new bottle of the stuff. Pet product companies are notorious for changing up their ingredients without notice.

Good point. That is in fact a big problem. We cannot trust them. They know how to use the law for their own advantage (and sadly in most cases it is a disadvantage for our pets).

Let me recap:
I think this vitamins might be a possible help for animals fed with pellets and other hard food without access to high quality dried herbs, grasses or even frehs food.
But I also think it is probably better to supplement fresh food, whenever it is possible, even it is only in small quantities. Also a combination might be useful as long as a supplement of fresh green in bigger quantities isn't possible.
Concerning the ingredients in my opinion it is hard to estimate the positive as well as negative effects for the degus. But sugars aren't a problem, because of small quantities, in contrast at least in some cases there might be a problem concerning vitamins and minerals, because some vitamins and minerals hinder the absorption of others in the gut. But here as well as for the effect of artificial sweetener it is difficult to prove the effect of this substances. I think we have to use our common sense, talking with the vet and observing our animals: how does the vitamins affect our animals? Are there improvements visible?
Finally we have to deal with possible risks and advantages... what does outreach?

[scoobos]

Great answers thanks to all for your input. I have 1 last "safe" bottle and my plan is to wean them off it with greatly reduced dosage. (i was giving 50% of the bottle recommendation once per week).

Ill keep trying with the greens once my fellas decide to stop trying to kill each other