Product Review: Higgins Sunburst Forage Pies with Carrots and Alfalfa Hay

Today, we're reviewing the the second item from our November Piggies Paradise box: Higgins Sunburst Forage Pies with Carrots and Alfalfa Hay. As we mentioned before, Piggies Paradise is no longer in business, so we're going to take our time and review each product individually until we've run out of complimentary products to review.

Pies? I hear humans say good things about pies. Can we eat these things, or is this going to be just like the pizza treats all over again?

At this point, we're learned to be naturally suspicious of any treats that aren't from Oxbow, so we wanted to take a look at the ingredients before getting our hopes up:

Well, at least it's a much shorter list to look into than some other treats we've reviewed.

There are only 5 ingredients on the back. Unfortunately, some of them are concerning:

• Corn, Corn starch - The diet expert at guineapigcages.com and Guinea Lynx states that: "Corn products (including corn bran, corn germ, corn gluten, ground corn, etc. There is no legal definition of 'corn' alone in animal feed, so it may be any combination of products. Corn is not a normal feed for cavies, may contribute to allergies, and can be high in fat and certain sugars/starch depending on the product. Additionally, some corn is contaminated with deadly aflatoxin which can cause liver failure and death.)"
• Alfalfa - As we said in our Ask A Guinea Pig Post on the best hay: "Alfalfa hay is a legume hay, not a grass hay. Only give alfalfa hay to pregnant, nursing, or young guinea pigs under 6 months old. Alfalfa hay is too rich for adult guinea pigs because it contains high levels of calcium, and in excess can lead to health problems, such as bladder or kidney stones. Even if you have a young, pregnant or nursing guinea pig, certain piggies who are prone to stones or other medical conditions should not be given alfalfa hay."

We feel the same way about these treats as we did with the Power Snap treats: we've seen more egregious ingredient lists on treats before, so we're not going to give it the absolute lowest rating, but the ingredients are still not good. We might have even given these treats a higher rating if they acknowledged that only certain piggies (pregnant, nursing, young) should be eating alfalfa, but they don't say that. It just says "For guinea pigs." For all these reasons, we're giving Higgins Sunburst Forage Pies with Carrots and Alfalfa Hay 1.5/5 stars.