Cavy Savvy is a guinea pig blog written from the perspective of three guinea pigs: Lola, Buffy and Broccoli. We review guinea pig products, pet food, toys, bedding, cages and more to provide humans with all they need to know about guinea pigs!
We've been lazy piggies lately, and we'd like to apologize to Ashley for not posting. We'll make it up to you by posting about broccoli like you requested.
This is the food that Broccoli got his name from. We can eat broccoli 1-2 times per week; it should only be fed to us sparingly since it's a gassy food. We can also eat broccoli leaves, although they're high in vitamin A, so they should be fed sparingly also.
Hey, I'm named after that food!
Can I get in there?
Lola noses me out of the way twice, but I manage to grab a piece anyway!
Broccoli (the food) gave me the strength to stand up to Lola. It's really delicious. Broccoli gets 5/5 stars!
Our humans wanted to alert you to a pretty great Black Friday deal on guinea pig hay- and you won't even have to leave your home to elbow other humans out of the way to redeem it!
For one day only…Small Pet Select is offering a full 25% off discount on our 8lb timothy hay product for guinea pig owners. This promotion is starting now and running through midnight November 23rd (Black Friday). Keep in mind we don’t discount our products often…so don’t miss your chance to try the best quality timothy hay for guinea pigs at a rock bottom price that….well…we simply can’t make available for long!
*To redeem this offer,go to their hay page by clicking hereand choose the 8lb package of timothy hay. Then use the coupon code ‘guineapigfriday’ at checkout and you’ll save 25% on the purchase (and if you buy by clicking through the above link, you'll be supporting Cavy Savvy!)
The humans decided that since Thanksgiving is tomorrow, they would feed us some more Thanksgiving-inspired herbs. You can feed us thyme 1-2 times per week. You can feed us the stems as well as the leaves.
Today we tried thyme, and frankly, I don't know what to think. It's green, but tastes much stronger than other green foods we've tried before.
The heck is this?!
I tried some and ate it enthusiastically but then wandered away. Then I saw Buffy and Broccoli were still eating it, so you know I had to go and claim some more. But then Buffy got bored and wandered off, too.
We're lukewarm on this food. We give it 3/5 stars. It's nice to eat a nibble or two, but after that we become disinterested.
Broccoli, you weren't around when we reviewed the other Eco Bedding. Let me tell you all about it...
One obvious difference is the color: It's a very eye-catching shade of blue. (It also comes in brown and purple)
Looks like someone put the sky through a shredder and lined our cage with it.
When we tried the other Eco-bedding, we found that it was scary to walk on something that was so crinkly. Now that we're a year older and wiser, we don't find crinkly bedding as scary as we used to. We're still terrified of humans sneezing, however! How do their noses make such scary noises?
Speaking of humans sneezing, this litter wasn't dusty, which was a good thing. It's also made from natural, recycled materials, which is nice. One of the problems we had with this bedding was that it would get everywhere, and we had to hear the humans complain about sweeping up the floor around our cage in addition to changing the litter in our cage. It was also not as absorbent as the Sunseed Fresh World Bedding (also made by Vitakraft). But overall, this is pretty good litter. 4.5/5 stars!
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which could be good news for our fellow guinea pigs. The humans go a little crazy with the food, and if you're lucky, some of it could trickle down to us. We'll give you the scoop on what's delicious and what you should turn your nose up at. Make sure you read our reviews of cranberries, pumpkins, and green beans if you haven't already.
Today, we're going to be reviewing rosemary, which many humans use in stuffing. Rosemary is high in calcium, and so should only be fed sparingly to us about once a week.
I like it!
Now I'm bored. You go ahead, Broccoli.
Rosemary is good and smells really interesting, but it's the kind of thing you get bored of quickly. If your humans offer you some during Thanksgiving, be sure to nibble on it, but be smart and save room for other things. 3/5 stars!
The humans fed us on their lap, one by one. They do this because Lola has a nasty habit of stealing food, and we will often run away with our treats back to our pigloos to eat them, which does not make for good blog pictures. All three of us loved these new treats. They're delicious, they're organic, and they're the perfect size for the humans to hold them out for us without risk of nipping their fingers. 5/5 stars!
We were browsing the guinea pig products on Amazon.com this morning, and came across this:
It says: "Super Pet Giant Guinea Pig Run-About 11-1/2 Inch Exercise Ball"
When you click on the product and zoom in, you can see that the package actually says it is for Chinchillas, Rats, and "other small mammals," but does not specifically mention guinea pigs. However, Amazon.com's product description says: "For pet rats, guinea pigs, chinchillas or other small animals." By labeling this as a guinea pig product on their search page and product description, Amazon.com is doing a disservice to guinea pig owners. As guineapigcages.com's toy page points out, you should not use large exercise balls because: "These are very bad for guinea pigs and can cause crippling injuries to their back, feet, and toes."
Of course that doesn't mean we don't like exercise! We greatly benefit from at least one hour of supervised floor time per day. Just, you know, not in a giant ball.
Although many people have already done so, feel free to leave a 1-star review for this product on Amazon.
Guinea pigs can eat cauliflower, but like bananas, you've really got to take it easy on this one for our health. Cauliflower is a gassy food, and should be fed to us sparingly no more than 1-2 times per week.
Lola has a bad habit of stealing the food from right under my nose!
Lola has stolen so much of my food that she weighs enough to step on a plate and lift the food towards her!
I might not be able to stop you from stealing my food, but I can certainly give you dirty looks!
Cauliflower is delicious. Unfortunately, whenever we have delicious foods, Lola feels the need to steal mine! Why can't we all just share and play nice? Cauliflower almost gets a perfect score, although we're deducting half a star because the health concerns from overfeeding us it. 4.5/5 stars!
Readers of this blog know how much we love carrots, so when we heard we'd be trying parsnips, which looks like a white carrot, we got excited. One source claims we can have parsnips 1-2 times per week, while another says 2-3 times per week; to be on the safe side, we're going to recommend no more than twice per week.
Broccoli, did you get bored of parsnips already? Oh well, more for me!
Now I'm getting a little bored, too.
Humans, would you like our leftovers?
Parsnips may look like a lot like carrots, but they don't taste like them. They only get 3/5 stars.
The humans gave me another bath today. I don't like baths at all! It's uncomfortable and scary being surrounded by water, and I still think it's no fair that Lola and Broccoli don't have to put up with these frequent baths.
The humans did something different with this bath. In the past, they used Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo on me, until the news came out that it may contain toxins. I demanded that the humans find a safer alternative if they insist on this cruel ritual of getting my fur wet. According to the guinea pig message boards, Gorgeous Guineas has the best guinea pig shampoos out there, so I told them to order it. Gorgeous Guineas has a lot of options to choose from; since I have long hair, the humans ordered the Posh 'n' Go.
The shampoo costs £9.50, which, with shipping, came out to $25.55 in U.S. dollars, plus a $0.76 "international purchase transaction fee." For legal reasons, the humans also had to "sign" a disclaimer before they would ship it to the U.S.; signing it consisted of sending an email saying they agreed to their terms and conditions. After all this, here is what they got:
Is this supposed to make me like bath time? It won't work.
It smells really nice, but I'm still not happy about this.
I want out!
Time to dry off!
All dry now and in my clean cage!
Bath time is never fun, no matter what shampoo your humans use. But, if you can't avoid being bathed by your humans, Gorgeous Guineas will leave you smelling nice afterwards, and you won't have to worry about toxins. I suppose I'll give Gorgeous Guineas 5/5 stars for being a great product, even though I hate bath time.
Long-time readers probably already know that we switched to fleece bedding for our main cage. However, when we got Broccoli, we needed a bigger cage; guineapigcages.com says three guinea pigs need 10.5 square feet minimum, and 13 square feet is preferable. So, we turned Broccoli's cage into an extension for the main cage. The humans haven't bought fleece for Broccoli's cage, so we still use regular bedding for it (generally Carefresh).
We recently received a complimentary bag of Sunseed Fresh World Bedding to review, and the humans replaced the Carefresh in Broccoli's cage with it.
I see a guinea pig on the front. That's a good sign.
Feels nice.
I could get used to this.
Here's what we think about this bedding:
Odor - It did a great job of controlling odors. Maybe because it contains baking soda.
Color - We liked the earthly color of it.
Dustiness - This bedding didn't kick up a lot of dust. It was heavy and stayed in the cage, which the humans appreciated.
Price/Value - The bag we got would have been about $4-$5, and was mostly used up in one use (lasts about one week).
Easy to Clean - The humans didn't complain any more than usual about scooping up the dirty litter.
Fun - We found it pretty fun to walk on.
Natural - This litter was made from recycled materials and didn't contain any nasty chemicals.
We've tried kale before in frozen veggie cubes, but never reviewed it on its own up until now. Kale should only be fed to us sparingly 1-2 times per week because it's very high in vitamin A. That said, if you keep the proportions small and space it out, we think kale makes a great treat.
Yum! Why haven't we reviewed kale earlier?
No, I want the last piece!
What do you mean I can't have any more because it's high in vitamin A? It's tasty and I want it!
Other than the fact it's high in vitamin A so we can't eat it very often, we have nothing bad to say about kale. It makes a great occasional treat for your guinea pig. 5/5 stars!
Happy Halloween, everyone! This year, we decided not to dress up in our Halloween costumes, since in general, we don't like to wear anything for more than a minute before deciding to scurry out of it.
But we did want to say a special Thank You to the three Cavy Savvy followers who clicked on and purchased hay from our sponsor, Small Pet Select. 100% of the money we earn goes right back to you guys in the form of giveaways!
We've already got a winter giveaway planned and will be announcing it soon. Until then, thank you for reading our blog and supporting us!
