Can Guinea Pigs Eat Sweet Potatoes?

We're going to have to start this review by emphasizing the difference between regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams. Regular potatoes should not be fed to guinea pigs at all because they are toxic. Sweet potatoes, on the other hand, can be fed 1-2 times per month. (Yams, by the way, can be fed about twice per week.) Sweet potatoes leaves can be fed almost daily. You can feed us (uncooked) sweet potatoes by rinsing them off and slicing off small portions.

This is pretty good! I'm declaring the rest of it to be mine!

What's going on with you two? I'm supposed to be the dominant pig!

Did you see how Buffy tried to steal the sweet potato right out of my mouth? I was so shocked by this challenge to my dominance that I ran back to my pigloo. Not my proudest moment.

Anyway, sweet potato was really good at first, though we did get a little bored at the end and left some chunks around the food bowl. We'll give it 4/5 stars.

Guinea Pig Ownership Statistics: How Many People Have Guinea Pigs?

Our humans think we're adorable and awesome, and you probably do, too, if you're reading our blog. But have you ever wondered how many people there are in the world that are smart enough to own a guinea pig? Unfortunately, a lot of the surveys out there lump us together with other "small mammals" or "other pets," but here's what we know about how popular guinea pigs are:

• In the United States in 2007, approximately 847,000 households owned guinea pigs, and there was an estimated population of 1,362,000 total guinea pigs.
• In Canada in 2008, 1% of homes owned lizards, horses, snakes, frogs, turtles, ferrets, gerbils or guinea pigs. 
• In Australia in 2009, "there were 1.06 million other pets, including pleasure horses, rabbits, guinea pigs, reptiles and other small mammals." 
• In the U.K. in 2012, there are estimated to be 1,000,000 guinea pigs.
• Throughout Europe, it was estimated in 2010 that there were 30,644,000 small mammals owned as pets. By country, this breaks down as follows:
• Austria - 500,000
• Belgium - 1,300,000
• Czech Republic -160,000
• Denmark - 390,000
• Finland - 130,000
• France - 3,011,000
• Germany - 5,300,000
• Greece - 400,000
• Hungary - 370,000
• Ireland - 150,000
• Italy - 2,500,000
• Netherlands - 1,700,000
• Norway - 150,000
• Poland - 800,000
• Portugal - 200,000
• Romania - 88,000
• Russia - 5,300,000
• Slovakia - 140,000
• Slovenia - 125,000
• Spain - 3,850,000
• Sweden - 500,000
• Switzerland - 580,000

Also, although we haven't been able to find any statistics from these countries, a small but notable amount of traffic to this blog comes from Brazil, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and South Africa. If you know of any guinea pig statistics we missed, please let us know!

Tell those millions of guinea pigs out there to get their own food! They can't have ours!

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Hay Socks

Today the humans found a new guinea pig toy idea they wanted to try with us: hay socks. Hay socks are exactly what they sound like--you take a clean sock and fill it with hay.

What is this thing? Sniff-sniff...

Old socks that your humans won't miss are best; the sock they gave us actually had a hole worn in them, which was good because it gave us another opening to eat the hay from.

Wish you would have given us a sock with two or three extra holes in it!

Later on, Broccoli sat down on the hay sock like it was a giant cushion. This is one of the best toy ideas our humans have had yet (although I'm not sure if it beats the watermelon house). 5/5 stars!

Floor Time Fun in Piggy City

As we've already explained, floor time is important for mental stimulation and exercise. However, floor time can also be scary for some guinea pigs because we're leaving our familiar cage for less familiar territory. Following behind the dominant pig can help relieve some of this anxiety. Another thing that can help is if your human sets up what we are calling a "Piggy City." What is a Piggy City, you ask? Well, if you look at a human city, you'll see that they have buildings with streets between them. You can take the stuff out of our cages during floor time and create a similar setup.

What street am I on? I wish I had a GPS. I'd make this a "favorite!"

You see, we guinea pigs are prey animals, and hiding places make us feel safe. We don't like being in open spaces. You can tell us all you want that we're safe in your living room, but we don't care. The day we let our guard down could be the day that there's hawk hiding behind your bookshelf!

I feel much safer here than I do in open spaces!

Next time you give your piggies floor time, consider giving them a Piggy City to play in!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Pluots?

Today we're going to review pluots. We've already tried apriums, which is another hybrid between a plum and an apricot. The difference between the two is that pluots more closely resemble plums than apricots. Since both plums and apricots should only be fed to us 1-2 times per week, it's safe to assume this applies to pluots as well.

Yummy fruit!

Mine! All mine!

Did you just sneak a piece off the plate after I declared it's all mine!?

Pluots are delicious! 5/5 stars!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Micro Greens?

Sorry for the long absence. Our humans have been really busy at work for the past few weeks, and haven't had time to get us new foods and products to try. Shame on you, humans! Where are your priorities?

Today we're going to review micro greens. Micro greens are the seedlings of mature plants. As far as we could determine, micro greens are safe for guinea pigs to eat. However, keep in mind that micro greens have several times as many nutrients as mature plants, and guinea pigs shouldn't get too much calcium. We had trouble finding information on whether micro greens have several times as much calcium, so our advice is to only feed small amounts occasionally.

I swear we didn't eat the ones on the left! The humans used it in their sandwiches.

Tasty!

Bored now.

Micro greens were pretty good, but not good enough for us to eat an entire serving. We'll give micro greens 3/5 stars.

How To Make Your Guinea Pig Happy Right Now

The humans just let us our for extra long floor time tonight and I have to say, it was awesome! Not only do we enjoy the exercise, but we really love the opportunity for foraging that floor time affords us.

We were made to nose around the floor, taking little steps, sniffing the floor, and tasting the occasional stray blade of hay. It's a strong natural instinct for us, and when we are let out of our cage for floor time, we get to explore and forage for food.

If you want to go a step further, you can hide little treats around the room we forage in. Take some stray pellets and hide them under chairs, in paper bags that have been tilted on their side (so we can crawl in) and we will make it our personal mission to sniff them out!

If you're concerned that we will pee and poop all over your nice carpet, have no fear! We are conditioned to only go in our cage, so just leave the cage open and we will return when nature calls. The exception to this is if there are covered areas that we have access to, such as under bookcases, or under tables, in which case we will designate these areas as our personal bathroom spots, so make sure you block these off beforehand.

One more thing: we need to be supervised during floor time because as gnawing animals we will chew on any and all things you leave on the floor: papers, shoelaces, etc. So keep a eye on us to keep us safe!

What do your piggies like to do when you give them floor time? Tell us in the comments!