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!

Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Meadow Ball

'Tis the season to buy cool stuff for your loved ones! And yes, that should include your guinea pigs. We are part of your family, after all, and if you get us the right gift, you'll see as much excitement on our faces as a human child when they rip open their gifts on whichever holiday you celebrate. But how will you know what the right gift is? Fear not, because we have guinea pig product reviews going back years now, and we're about to add yet another one!

Today, we're reviewing another toy from Small Pet Select's toy sampler: the Meadow Ball. Small Pet Select describes the Meadow Ball as: "Lucious meadow grass, all twisted and wrapped into a ball of fun goodness. What is better than a treat you can eat and play with too? Healthy high fiber, totally safe. This toy is great for chewing and tossing, and you might even see more than one cavy playing with it at a time." Sounds great from the description, but will this toy be a holiday-do or a holiday don't?

Do I want to chew on this?

I think I do want to chew on this.

And give it a little toss! Wow, the description was right.

Similar to the Honeysuckle Ring, I was interested in playing with this toy, but Lola wouldn't even come near it. (Come on, Lola. Live a little!) However, I didn't play with it as long as the ring. Something about the ring was just more fun to chew on, and your neck muscles get tired pretty quickly trying to toss this thing around.

So what's the verdict? We give it 3.5/5 stars--it's a holiday-maybe!

Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Honeysuckle Ring

Hi loyal readers! We have to apologize for not filling your lives with tales from our cage lately. It's a mistake we're fixing right now, because we're finally back! Today, we're reviewing Small Pet Select's Honeysuckle Ring, which we got as part of their the toy sampler. We've often been underwhelmed by the guinea pig toys we've gotten in the past, but we think this one is a keeper! (At least, I do. Lola didn't seem too interested in it.)

This seems fun to chew on.

And fun to step on.

Look what I can do!

Lola missed out on all the fun. Too bad for her! I'll give the Honeysuckle Ring 4/5 stars; I think it's lots of fun, but apparently not every piggy thinks so (or will even give it a chance to see if it's fun!).

Product Review: KMS Hayloft Bluegrass Hay

Our hearts are still aching from the loss of Lola. It just won't be the same reviewing products and answering questions without her, but we'll try our best to continue on. We're sure she'd want us to keep the blog that she worked so hard on going. Just an FYI, this was the last post we were working on before her untimely passing, which is why there's a picture of her in this one.

Readers probably know that when it comes to hay, Oxbow and Small Pet Select tend to be our favorite brands. But did you know that there's another brand of hay out there that tends to be highly-regarded by reputable guinea pig sites? They're called KMS Hayloft (formerly known as Kleenmama), and they're mail-order only. We actually reviewed them before, but it was several years back so we had to remind ourselves what we had said. It looks like it was so different from the store brand hay we were used to at the time that we weren't sure whether we wanted to eat it or not, and held off on reviewing it.

KMS  Hayloft sells two types of hay: Timothy and Bluegrass. They were out of timothy when we had the humans order, and I don't think we've ever tried bluegrass, so we went with that. We actually hadn't heard of bluegrass before (it wasn't listed on our hay post), so we checked their website and found more information about it:

"The beautiful hay we carry called 'bluegrass' is actually a hybrid seed my farmer has developed. It is an orchard/bluegrass seed. For those of you that are used to orchard grass, this will be similar except it has a beautiful blue/green color. After viewing more that 30 farms and countless hays, it just didn't do justice to call my hay 'orchard', so I have chosen to call it 'bluegrass'. It is a wide bladed, leafy variety that is soft and pliable. Nutritionally, it is equivalent to orchard grass."

This is what KMS Hayloft's bluegrass hay looks like.

Keep in mind that guinea pigs need to have a grass hay, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a timothy hay. There are some slight nutritional differences between grass hays, but generally not enough to make much of a difference. (Remember, legume hays, such as alfalfa hay, are a different story, however! These should not be part of an adult guinea pig's diet in most cases.)

Lola seemed to enjoy it! (Poor Lola... We miss her!)

Bluegrass is fragrant and delicious. Our only issue with it is that it doesn't have any seed heads, which is our favorite part! But, if you want to mix some bluegrass with timothy hay, you could then mix things up without missing out on the seed heads.

Some of you may be wondering: How does KMS Hayloft compare with Small Pet Select? Well, let's do a comparison:

• In terms of price, Small Pet Select seems to have higher list prices. For example, at the moment, Small Pet Select has 20 pounds of 2nd cut timothy hay for $44.99 ($2.25 per pound) and 60 pounds for $84.99 ($1.42 per pound), while KMS Hayloft has 40 pounds of 2nd cut timothy hay for $28.00 ($0.70 per pound). So at first glance, it sounds like KMS Hayloft gives you more for less. However, this is only before you factor in shipping! On this order of KMS Hayloft hay, it cost $32 for shipping, roughly as much as the order costs, and bringing the cost up to about $1.50 per pound. However, they were shipping from the west coast to the east cost, so the rate would probably have been cheaper if we lived closer to them. Small Pet Select, on the other hand, usually offers free shipping if you subscribe to their newsletters and find the weekly code in each one. (Even if you don't have a code, they offer free shipping on orders over $40.) If you're a cost-conscious hay buyer, you may want to get a free code for Small Pet Select, determine the shipping cost for KMS Hayloft where you live, and then calculate the price per pound for each to figure out the better deal for you.
• We should also point out that Small Pet Select has a "schedule & save" discount of 15% if you're willing to commit to having hay automatically ordered on a regular basis. If you're willing to do this, you should also take this into account when figuring out the best deal.
• In terms of shipping, they use different companies in case you have a preference; Small Pet Select uses FedEx, while KMS Hayloft uses UPS. A Consumer Reports study found FedEx to be a little better than UPS for what that's worth.  They also ship from different locations; KMS Hayloft ships from Spokane, WA, while Small Pet Select ships from Louisville, KY. How close or far these locations are to you will probably affect the shipping speed as well as the cost. Finally, we should point out that in our most recent orders, Small Pet Select took 1 day to ship the hay from the order date, while KMS Hayloft took 2 days.
• In terms of quality, we have no complaints about either one.

In summary, both Small Pet Select and KMS Hayloft are good options. We'd probably go with Small Pet Select if we're running low and need the hay in a hurry to avoid running out, but otherwise, it's kind of a toss-up.

We'll give KMS Hayloft Bluegrass Hay 4.5/5 stars!

Product Review: Small Pet Select Orchard Hay

As you may recall from our post on what type of hay guinea pigs should eat, orchard hay is a type of grass hay. Grass hays should (such as timothy and orchard hay) be fed to us in unlimited quantities (unlike legume hays). We've tried orchard hay before a couple times: once in a mix (Kaytee Orchard Blends Hay), and once by itself (Oxbow Orchard Grass Hay). We liked both of those hays, so we have high hopes for this new one: Small Pet Select Orchard Hay.

This is Orchard Hay.

There are a few differences between orchard hay and timothy hay that we should point out:

• Some people claim that orchard hay is less severe for people with allergies.
• Orchard hay tends to be softer than timothy hay, and therefore might be of a risk of guinea pigs poking themselves.
• The list price at Small Pet Select for 20 pounds of timothy hay is $44.99, while it's $49.99 for the same amount of orchard hay (although it's currently on sale for $40.00). 
• Orchard hay has little to no seed heads, unlike timothy hay. For us, this is a big disadvantage!

Let's give Small Pet Select's orchard hay a try!

Smells fresh! Munch, munch...

Tasty! But where are the seed heads?

This is some nice, tasty hay. Our only issue with it is that it's missing the seed heads, which is our favorite part! If you're like us, what you may want to do is encourage your humans to mix different types of hay so you get the best of both worlds. We'll give Small Pet Select Orchard Hay 4.5/5 stars!

Product Review: Small Pet Select Third Cutting Timothy Hay

Long time readers probably already know that we're big fans of Small Pet Select's hay. Our previous review of their hay was of their second cut hay. The difference between first, second and third-cut hay was something we didn't touch on in our Ask A Guinea Pig on hay, so let's start with their characteristics:

• First cut hay: Has lots of seed heads and stems; rather tough and irregular; slightly lower in nutrition; slightly higher in fiber; tends to be lighter in color, with more yellow/brown parts; tends to be harder to digest;
• Second cut hay: Some seed heads; softer than first cut; fewer stems; more uniform; more nutritious than first cut hay; darker green color than first cut; 
• Third cut hay: Very few seed heads and stems, very soft; lower fiber content.

Here's an image showing the difference, courtesy of Small Pet Select's blog:

I wish those two hays were in front of me right now so I could nibble on both of them!

So what does first, second and third cut actually mean? It refers to when in the growing season the hay is cut. The first time it grows and gets cut makes it the first cut. When it grows back and you cut it again, it's the second cut, and so on. If the second cut hay had enough time to mature, it too would start to take on the characteristics of first-cut hay, such as lots of stems. However, by that point in the growing season, cooler weather has generally started setting in, and the growth is slowed. Each additional hay cutting produces lower yields, so it will tend to be more expensive and to run out quicker. Third cut hay requires a longer, warmer growing season to be produced at all.

Looks like I can eat my hay in peace--Oh, look who just showed up.

Lola got randomly spooked. That was odd.

I'm hiding off to the side (off-camera) so Lola can't see me.

Small Pet Select's third-cut was really good. It's incredibly fresh and green. However, one thing that we did learn the hard way is due to the lower fiber content, if you only eat third cut hay, it can make your poops softer, which freaks out the humans. The only other complaint that we had about this stuff is that as good as it was, we kind of missed the seed heads from second-cut hay. Therefore, we recommend that you mix your third-cut hay with second-cut hay so your piggies still get their fiber and seed heads.

We give it 4/5 stars!

January 2012 Timothy Hay Sale

If you buy Small Pet Select timothy hay from now until the end of January 2013 and use the coupon code "2013" at the check out, you can get free shipping! Just click here to check it out!

I know a good deal when I see one!