Pelletless pellet??

[Brandilynn]

Metacam smells like stinkyfeet to me!

[dgarriques]

I am just not sure I see the advantage. Maybe it is just me. But the pellets are made from Hay and we want them to eat Hay. My girls eat Hay and Pellets and have both all the time.

I understand if it is a medical issue but not sure on healthy pigs why the advantage of pelletless feeding. I must just not be getting something here. Please enlighten me!

[snowflakey]

Ground hay in pellets and long-strand hay are different for the teeth. So the pellet isn't grinding down the teeth they way teeth need to be ground down.

[Lynx]

Also, you may or may not want to feed the other things to your pig. With fat pigs, the oats (which are fine but perhaps more fattening) would not be part of their diet.

Possible that feeding a mix of hays would also be wise to diversify nutrients (orchard grass and timothy).

[Bugs Mom]

Just bring this topic back. I'm curious to see if it goes anywhere.

[Sef]

Can we possibly revisit this? With all of the stone pigs we're seeing on GL, I'm starting to wonder if a pellet-free diet could be the way to go.

Many of us who have had stone pigs (and I've had three in 3 years so far), have always been careful about Ca:P ratio with our veggies. One common factor seems to be that most guinea pigs who are diagnosed with a stone(s) have been fed a pellet diet -- particularly Oxbow. I don't want to open a can of worms about Oxbow pellets here (although I know several people who are starting to have concerns about their extrusion process), and I know there are so many factors that come into play with stones, but...I'm really starting to have serious misgivings about feeding pellets. This last scare with Henry has me wanting to be a lot more proactive than I was with Sidney, Sebastian and Zachary.

Linda told me that she didn't really get much feedback/support for her idea of a supplement, which I think is really a shame. In my opinion, there is an opportunity here for us to have the option of going "pellet-free" while ensuring that our guys are still getting all the recommended nutrients.

Any way we can pursue this further?

[slavetofuzzy]

I would be very interested in something like this.

My pigs would have me brought to the block though, if I didn't dish out pellets every day. I would have to wean them off of this habit if we went to a less frequent, "pellet-less pellet".

[Sef]

Here, too. I get dirty looks just for being late with the pellets.

[poppypiggy]

I think this is a very good idea, even if it most likely will be difficult to get the pellets shiped here. I am conserned about the Oxbow pellets, but at the moment I don't have other options, I think. I even have problems getting good hey at times, so I feel I have to give my pigs pellets. Besides they LOVE their pellets and can't understand why I have been cuting back on something so goooooood!

[rshevin]

Sef, the issue at play in my mind is there's a heck of a lot more going into play with stones than just diet. The guinea pig physiology is just asking for stones. I found a study saying at least 10% of a research population had some form of stones. It's just the way their body makes urine. There are so many natural minerals in there, that HAVE to be there, that I wonder. Maybe I"m way off base. I dunno. My vet even has concerns about using urine acidifiers like polycitra because of the necessity of these minerals for proper urinary tract function in these animals. In humans, urinary minerals are generally abnormal. In cavies, not so.

[Brandilynn]

So you are saying do not even try? So you are saying its not worth even looking into?

So why even bother? Why bother to get stones removed? Why bother to change diet at all?

I mean, if its really not going to matter because of physiology anyway, why do not we just euthanize them at the first sign of stones?

[Sef]

I'm not necessarily saying that pellets are the only factor, or even the biggest factor. I'm just saying that it might be something we should start looking at. Dr. Hawkins advocates going pellet-free with stone-prone guinea pigs; one of the vets at K-State that was helping me with Zachary was of the same opinion. A vet of mine made the comment two years ago that the "un-natural" diet of dry pellets might well be turn out to be a contributing factor in stone production (this after our Sidney died from an obstruction in his urethra).

IF a pellet-free or limited-pellet diet has the potential to help reduce kidney stones in guinea pigs, I feel it's at least worth looking into.