Product Review: Ecotrition Yogies Treats

It's time for another suspected bad product review. Sadly, there seems to be no shortage of junk products for guinea pigs out there, so we have plenty of material to post about. We'd rather be telling you about awesome products, but hopefully our bad product reviews will save some guinea pigs from eating things they shouldn't be eating.

Today we're reviewing Ecotrition Yogies Treats:

What the heck are those pink globs?

As usual with suspected bad products, we had the humans take pictures at the store and then we researched the product. If our research found nothing wrong with it, then we'd send the humans back out to buy it. However, it was pretty obvious in this case that Yogies are filled with garbage ingredients:

That's what's in the pink globs? Are you kidding me?

Let's review a few of these ingredients :

• Sugar - Guinea pigs should not have excess sugar. If you feed us the right amount of fruits and veggies, we'll get the right amount of natural sugars. We don't need added sugars in our treats.
• Palm Oil - Not only is it high in fat, but has negative environmental impacts.
• Dried yogurt, cultured skim milk - Guinea pigs should not be fed dairy products.
• Red Dye 40 - Artificial colors are another ingredient that guinea pigs should not eat. This includes red dye 40, which some say is bad for you. 
• Titanium Dioxide - Another questionable ingredient. One source says: "Taken internally, it has been shown to cause kidney damage in mice and to induce small intestine inflammation."

It should come as no surprise that we're giving Ecotrition Yogies 1/5 stars. We much prefer carrots!

Product Review: Ecotrition Snak Shak Cube Hideaway

Today we're going to review Ecotrition Snak Shak Cube Small Animal Chew. We are big fans of Ecotrition's Snak Shak Natural Hideaway and Snak Shak Activity Log, so we expect that we'll like this as well.

Yay! New chew toy!

Chomp.

Chew.

The other Ecotrition Snak Shak products are designed to look like other things (like a log and a hut), but I'm not sure what this is supposed to be modeled after. But that's only a minor consideration compared to how fun it is to chew on, and whether there are any health concerns. There are the same health concerns here as with the other two Snak Shak products: the first ingredient is pine wood shavings, which isn't the best thing for us, but is probably fine for us in small amounts. We took off a star for that in the other two cases, which we'll also do here. But here's another difference: the log and the shack are just more fun to chew on. After only a few days with the log, you can notice the chewing damage to it. We've had this Snak Shak Cube for a few days now, and we'll still chew on it and experiment with crawling under it, but it's not a hit with us like the log and hut. We'll give it 3/5 stars.

Product Review: Ecotrition Snak Shak Activity Log

Today, we're going to review Ecotrition Snak Shak Activity Log. We reviewed a similar product a while back: Ecotrition Snak Shak Natural Hideaway. The primary difference between these two products is that this one is shaped like a log, while that one was shaped like a hut.

That looks fun to chew on.

It is fun to chew on! What's in this thing, by the way?

Like the other Snak Shak product we reviewed, we loved chewing on this one, and we did try walking through it. However, we didn't find this one fun to hide inside of like the hut. Also, we have the same concerns about the ingredients as we had with the other Snak Shak. These things are made with pine wood and honey; while not dangerous (in moderation), it's not the healthiest thing we could eat, either. We'll give it 4/5 stars.

Review of Ecotrition Snak Shak Natural Hideaway

Guinea pigs need to chew on stuff constantly to keep our teeth healthy. Did you know that in Iceland, guinea pigs are called "naggrís", which means "gnawing pig"? It's true. That's why we love the Ecotrition brand Snak Shak. It looks like a tiki hut and it's safe for pigs to gnaw on. It serves the dual functions of giving us a place to hide while also allowing us to nibble on it and keep our teeth healthy. The only issue I have with it is that the first ingredient is pine wood shavings, which isn't really the best thing a guinea pig could eat. Still, we only end up ingesting a small amount, so it's still fairly safe. I give it 4/5 stars.

Best of all, unlike plastic igloos, Lola isn't strong enough to knock it over, so I always have a place to hide!

Product Review: Ecotrition Citrus C Orange Slice Treats

Today, the humans fed us Ecotrition Citrus C Orange Slice Treats. As our readers already know, we love our liquid vitamin C, and the back of the package said they "provide... vitamin C by combining carrot with juicy orange bits and pressing them into fun shapes," so we had high hopes for these treats.

We love vitamin C, we love carrots, and we love treats, so this looks promising!

Smells good. Looks good. I want to try it! Please don't take it, Lola

Of course, Lola did take it and ran off with it. Fortunately, the humans decided to give out another one so I'd get one.

Hooray for treats! I'll actually get one this time!

Our enthusiasm died down once we actually got our mouths on the treats, though. We both chewed on them for a few minutes and then got bored of them.

Lola liked them a little more than I did. You can see how much she ate on the left, and how much I ate on the right.

Another problem with these treats is that there are only 5 large treats in the bag, so it's harder for the humans to dole out reasonable portions. I'm sorry to say that we can only give these treats 1/5 stars.