Can Guinea Pigs Eat Lychees?

Lychees are listed as a "question food" on the Guinea Pig Hutch food list. However, someone with 14,000 posts on the Guinea Lynx forum said that their piggies love them, so we figured they were safe.

Peel the skin, cut out the pit, and then feed them to us.

Yum!

This is amazing!

Lychees were so good that we fought over who got to lick the lychee juice off the plate. 5/5 stars!


On a side note, after we already tried lychees, we came across another message board post saying they are not safe because they cause "diarrhea or severe digestive problems." If anyone would like to weigh in on this claim, we'd appreciate it. The thought of never eating lychees again upsets us greatly!

Product Review: Oxbow Orchard Grass Hay

At first, we would get annoyed when the humans would forget to reorder more Hayloft hay for us on time. However, we've learned that they always feel guilty and try to make up for it by buying us some new kind of hay to try. Their forgetfulness in the past allowed us to try all the Kaytee brand novelty hays. Now, it's allowing us to try Oxbow Orchard Grass Hay.

Yay! Oxbow!

I like it!

Buffy got bored and went back to the old hay. Oh well. More for me!

Two out of three of us loved it. Buffy liked it at first, but said she preferred western timothy hay instead. We give Oxbow Orchard Grass Hay 4/5 stars.

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Quince?

According to the Happy Cavy blog, guinea pigs can eat quince. What is quince, you ask?

This is quince. Make sure you don't feed us the seeds!

Quince is good... 

...and therefore it's mine! Back off, you two!

We eventually got bored of quince and left pieces behind, but not before stuffing our faces with a lot of it. It tastes kind of like a really tart apple. We'll give quince 4/5 stars.

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Limes?

According to the Guinea Pig Hutch food list, we can have limes, although they advise you to "feed cautiously." Many of the guinea pigs on the Guinea Lynx forums don't like limes, so we didn't have high hopes for this fruit.

Buffy and Broccoli didn't like the smell of that thing.

It's my job as the dominant pig to be the brave one and try scary foods first.

Big mistake! Got to get that awful taste out of my mouth!

Limes are too sour! We give them 1/5 stars, and demand carrots as an apology for this awful food!

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Watermelon Houses

Here's a great toy idea, courtesy of the Guineapigcages.com forums: watermelon houses. We've tried several toy ideas in the past, and most of them did not impress us (although towels were fun). But unlike most other toys, this is one you can eat, and eating is one of our favorite pastimes.

Genius!

Chew-chew-chew-chew-chew!

Greatest. Toy. EVER!

We gave watermelon as a food 5/5 stars, and watermelon houses get the same score. The humans were disappointed because just chewed around the entrance rather than going inside. Sorry humans, but you have to let us appreciate toys in our own way. I'm sure you wouldn't want to go into wet cramped space, even if it was dripping with your favorite food!

Product Review: Kaytee Timothy Hay Plus Mangos

We've already tried Kaytee hay with cranberries, hibiscus, carrots, mint, and marigolds. How many more flavors are out there? Is there a Kaytee hay with crunch berries? It turns out there's at least one more flavor out there: Kaytee timothy hay plus mangoes, and we're going to try it today.

Another one?

It's okay, I suppose.

As we've said before, Kaytee hay has a lot of seed heads, which we like, but is a little too coarse. The mango chunks were okay, but not great. We actually left some chunks of dried mango around our cage, uneaten. We'll give it 2.5/5 stars.

Keeping Your Guinea Pig Cool During a Power Outage

As we recently mentioned, we had to evacuate our home for a few days due to power outages in our area. Since keeping your guinea pig cool is extremely important, what should you do if the power goes out? Here are a few tips:

• If necessary, stay with someone who still has power like we did. If this is not possible, look into staying at a hotel that allows pets. Someone at a local guinea pig rescue may also be willing to help.
• Keep cold packs in the freezer in case of a power outage. If the power goes out, cover them with fleece. If you have fleece bedding like we do, you can probably put it right under our fleece bedding. (Source)
• You could also use Doctor Fosters and Smith's Cage & Crate Cooling Fan. Just make sure you stock up on batteries!
• You could try using ceramic tiles or a marble slab as a cool-off spot in the cage. (Source)
• You could put your piggy in a few inches of cool water, though we probably won't be happy about it! (Source)
• And, of course, don't forget to give us plenty of water and juicy fruits and vegetables!

If you made frozen veggie cubes and the power goes out, give us some before they melt!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Lemon Cucumbers?

Here's a tough question for you: What is this thing?

Give up?

It's a lemon cucumber, the latest unusual food the humans found for us to eat. Will it taste like lemon? Cucumber? Both? Neither? Let's find out.

Tastes like cucumber to me. What do you think?

They say it tastes like cucumber, too.

So it turns out lemon cucumbers are pretty much just cucumbers wearing a mediocre lemon costume. This is fine with us, because we love cucumbers. Like regular cucumbers, lemon cucumbers get 5/5 stars!

(As with regular cucumbers, they can be fed to us 2-4 times per week.)

Product Review: Oxbow Botanical Hay

For the past several days, our lives have been filled with excitement--not the good kind of excitement like when the humans open a new bag of treats, but the bad kind of excitement, like when the humans took us to get blessed. Because of the recent storms, there was no electricity to keep us cool, which regular readers of this blog know is important. So, the humans had to temporarily relocate us to a new place where the electricity still worked. While we were nice and cool, we were also terrified. The floors were unfamiliar, so we didn't want to walk on them when the humans tried to give us floor time. Even worse, we could smell and hear some of those big scary animals from the blessing and the costume contest outside the door. Fortunately, the humans kept the door closed so we never came face-to-face with those scary monsters that go "meow."

Apparently, the humans didn't expect us to be away from home for as long as we were, because they didn't bring enough Kleenmama/Hayloft hay to last the entire time. So, they had to go to the local pet store and buy us the next best thing: Oxbow hay! We love Oxbow hay! Although perhaps we should reserve judgment until we try it since this is a new variety: Oxbow Botanical hay.

Give it to me NOW!

Yum!

We love it! 5/5 stars!