Best greens with proper Calcium:Phospherous ratio

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TiffBean-44

Post   » Fri Jun 13, 2025 3:59 pm


I have a guinea pig who tends to get sludgy urine at times if I'm not very careful with diet. I feed her mostly timothy hay and orchard grass, with Oxbow pellets (2 teaspoons), and some veg, but I'm always worried about the veg. Which greens are best for piggies with calcium rich urine??? I don't want her to have trouble with stones, and I'm always getting different answers. Vet said not to cut out pellets completely, and to only give 1/2 cup veg.
She eats leaf lettuce, peppers and cucumber, with treat being either radiccio, cilantro or tiny piece of carrot or maybe celery leaves if I have any. All in very small amounts.
She also get a vitamin C oxbow cookie.
Sometimes I give her dried flower/herb mixes for foraging, just a couple pinches!

Am I doing anything wrong?

P.S. I switched her to reverse osmosis filtered water because our tap water here is hard water and not a good choice for her.

Any advice would be very appreciated!! I've already looked at the charts on this site, and tried to fill in the ca:ph chart....but am still confused and worried.

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Lynx
Resist!!!

Post   » Fri Jun 13, 2025 5:16 pm


It sounds like most of your vegetable choices are reasonable. Generally speaking, if you aim for low calcium foods, you will do the best job. There is some calcium present in all food.

I use this chart to check the overall ratio of calcium to phosphorus.
https://www.guinealynx.info/chart.html

TiffBean-44

Post   » Sat Jun 14, 2025 10:29 am


Thank-you!!

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Sef
I dissent.

Post   » Sat Jun 14, 2025 10:41 am


Over the years, I have noticed that romaine lettuce can cause gritty deposits for some of my guys. I primarily feed green leaf and Boston lettuces, now. I also stopped feeding cilantro awhile back. I also avoid calcium carbonate/limestone in their pellets (some of the Oxbow pellets still have it; you might check the label).

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