What my guinea pigs eat : Pellets

My three love their pellets, any clinking sound of their food bowls will immediately trigger much excited scurrying round. Sometimes when I start dishing out for them before I fence them off (after cage cleaning), they run in frenzied circles around my feet like tiny dogs ^_^

 Hmmnomnomnom! Sylbie has such a good natured face…

 This is how Poe eats - she shoves her face into the bowl and doesn’t lift it until she’s eaten all the tasty bits.

Everyone gets their own bowl, else they bicker and Tiramisu will usually miss out. I tend to put down the bowls starting from the right. Sylbie has now wised up and runs to the far left to wait for the blue bowl so she doesn’t have to squish with the youngsters. And yes, their food bowls are ashtrays… they are hardcore like that :p 

But really - its functional, the perfect size for a guinea pig, and heavy - so no tipping.

Currently I feed my girls Cavia Nature (made by Versele Laga). I’ve previously fed them Cavia Crispy and Cavia Complete. This Guinea Lynx Forum link discusses the differences between these products more thoroughly. Cavia Crispy contains a lot of corn and wheat (possibly up to half of the product weight), which I would pick out, marking a very laborious stage of my life... Cavia Nature has less corn bits, but there are these hard round beans and the odd sunflower seed that I would pick out for fear of them choking on it. I basically fill the blue bowl (about 50g) and then distribute it evenly between the three bowls daily. 

Versele Laga is (I think) the most premium guinea pig food available in Johannesburg and Pretoria (possibly whole of South Africa?) In my experience, many pet shops and even vets are not very knowledgeable about pellets made specifically for guinea pigs and will happily tell you to feed them rabbit food. I used to feed my girls a mixture (of rabbit pellets and guinea pig pellets) because Versele is quite expensive. It is also hard to find as not many pet stores stock it. I get my pellets from Cat Box Hyper, they are by far the cheapest for both guinea pig pellets and hay. Especially hay, which some pet stores sell for R40 for a small bag that would last me a week, at Cat Box Hyper its about R18. I used to also get my supplies from Animal Kingdom (there's a branch in Pretoria) or there is a pet shop inside the massive Pick 'n Pay Hypermarket on Atterbury (Pretoria) that has competitive prices.