Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Loofah rolls

While Valentine's Day is still a couple weeks away, there's never a wrong time to show love for your guinea pig! Whether it's a nice pet on our heads, or a new chew toy to sink our teeth into, gestures of affection are almost always appreciated.

Today, we're reviewing another toy from Small Pet Select to let you know if its a good way to show your piggy appreciation: the Loofah roll! They describe this toy as follows: "Loofah is nature's floss for rabbits and piggies!  Terrific for giving those teeth a great workout, loofah also provides a totally different and interesting chew texture for the buns and the guinea piggies."

Will we find it as interesting to chew on as they claim?

Bite!

Munch!

Sniff!

Nibble!

We got to say that this was a pretty cool texture, and it was in fact fun to chew on! But what exactly is a loofah (also spelled "luffa")? According to Wikipedia, it is the fruit of a vine plant which "may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem fibers." The family of plants that it belongs to includes many foods that guinea pigs can eat, including squash, watermelon, and cucumber. In addition, no safety concerns were mentioned on the guinea pig forums that we saw, and we have a generally favorable view of Small Pet Select as a company. Therefore, we're pretty sure loofah (or "luffa") is safe.

We also looked at other reviews for this product, and wanted to note a couple things that others mentioned:

1. "I've used it to stuff healthy treats... into. This keeps him working to get to the treats, which he can smell through the loofah!"--Nice idea which could make this toy even more fun.
2. "This is a massive hair magnet! My bunnies like them, but I find I toss them out because they get all gross with bunny hair. I've yet to find a good way to remove bunny hair from a loofah!"--We haven't experienced this with ours, but wanted to note this as a possible problem anyway. (Maybe it's a long-hair vs. short-hair issue?)

We give Small Pet Select Loofah rolls 5/5 stars!