Product Review: Supreme Petfood's Science Selective Guinea Pig Food

Hello there, readers. The humans recently went away on travel, and as we discussed in our post on guinea pigs and airplanes, it's usually best not to take your guinea pig with you on flights. Therefore, we were boarded at the vet until they get back, which is a little like going on vacation for us. There's all kinds of exotic sights and sounds to see there. (We honestly don't get why humans like exotic sights and sounds so much. They're a little scary, seeing as how they could indicate predators!)

Anyway, while we were being dropped off, we saw samples of a new guinea pig food called Science Selective, so we decided to make time for a new product review since we knew we'd have plenty of time. We couldn't even wait until we got home to try them, so the humans fed them to us in our travel carriers.

We like how the packaging looks. That doesn't really factor into our rating, though.

I'll try some!

She will too!

It tasted pretty good, although it was a little hard to stay focused on the merits of the product while we're in the midst of such anxiety-provoking change. But there are other considerations besides just taste, of course. We also have to look at the ingredients, which include the following: Alfalfa meal, whole wheat, wheat feed, soybean hulls, soybean meal, flaked peas, linseed, sugar beet pulp, soybean oil, fennel seeds, monocalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, dried dandelion, dried nettle.

Here are some concerns about some of these ingredients:

• Alfalfa - Appropriate for young and pregnant guinea pigs, but not for general adult use. It has high levels of calcium, which can lead to stones. The product information page does say that it contains "Calcium 0.8%, Phosphorus 0.5%," which means that it falls within the recommended ratio of calcium to phosphorous of 1.5:1 to 2:1. However, even if the ratio seems good, we'd still be concerned about the total amounts of calcium and phosphorous being too high, even if the ratio is good.
• Beet pulp - "Considered low-quality fiber that can clog the villi of the intestine"
• Fennel seeds, Soybean oil - Seeds and oils are too high in fat, and often come from seed byproducts with little or no nutritive value
• Calcium carbonate - As we've previously noted, we're having a tough time reaching a decision on this one. Oxbow uses it, and they use an advisory board of scientists and vets, but some have raised concerns about it anyway.

Unfortunately, due to these ingredient concerns, we're going to have to only give Science Selective Guinea Pig Food 2/5 stars. There are worse foods out there so we won't give it our lowest rating, but you can certainly do better. We're going to stick with our Oxbow pellets!