Feeding guinea pigs sounds simple until you try to work out how much each part of the diet should be. Hay, pellets, and fresh vegetables all matter, but in very different amounts, and getting the balance wrong leads to overweight pigs, soft droppings, or vitamin C shortage. This free guinea pig food calculator turns your herd size into daily and weekly portions for pellets, vegetables, and hay, so you can feed with numbers instead of guesswork.
Hay is the base of the diet and it must never run out. Guinea pigs should eat unlimited grass hay all day, every day, because the long fibre keeps their teeth worn down and their guts moving. A guinea pig that eats too little hay grows long teeth and a slow gut, and both problems need vet treatment. Timothy hay suits adults, while younger pigs can also eat alfalfa hay for extra calcium during growth.
Pellets come second, and the amount is small on purpose. About fifteen grams of plain timothy based pellets per pig per day is enough, which is roughly one eighth of a cup. Avoid coloured mixes with seeds, nuts, and dried fruit, because pigs pick out the tasty bits and leave the balanced pellets, which defeats the whole point. Plain pellets with added vitamin C are the only type worth buying.
Fresh vegetables come third, at about one hundred grams per pig per day, which is roughly one cup of mixed vegetables. Bell pepper is the star, because it is rich in vitamin C and most pigs love it. Add leafy greens like romaine lettuce, coriander, and parsley, plus small amounts of cucumber, carrot, and broccoli across the week. Avoid iceberg lettuce, potatoes, onions, and garlic, which are poor or unsafe choices.
Using the calculator is quick. Enter how many guinea pigs you have and press Calculate daily food. The result shows pellets, vegetables, and hay eaten per day, plus the weekly totals for each, so shopping becomes easy. A herd of two pigs needs about thirty grams of pellets, two hundred grams of vegetables, and about one hundred eighty grams of hay eaten each day, before counting the hay that gets wasted as bedding.
Water matters as much as food and is easy to forget. Each pig needs a clean water bottle or heavy bowl, checked and refilled daily, since a blocked bottle spout can leave a pig without water for hours. Wash bottles weekly, and watch for pigs that drink far more or far less than usual, because a sudden change in drinking can be an early sign of illness worth a vet call.
Common feeding mistakes are easy to spot once you know them. Too many pellets and too little hay is the most common one, and it shows up as weight gain and long teeth. Fruit every day is another, since fruit sugar upsets the gut, so keep fruit to a small treat twice a week. A third mistake is a vegetable rut, feeding only lettuce week after week, which narrows the vitamin range, so rotate at least four vegetables across the week.
A weekly shopping list turns the calculator numbers into a routine you can actually follow. For two pigs, buy about two hundred grams of pellets per week, about one point four kilos of mixed vegetables, and at least one and a half kilos of fresh hay for eating, plus extra hay for bedding and waste. Shop for vegetables twice a week if you can, since pepper and leafy greens lose vitamin C after days in the fridge. Keep a small notebook on the fridge with the daily portions, and anyone feeding the pigs, including family or a pet sitter, can follow the same numbers. Consistency matters more than perfection: the same sensible portions every day beat a perfect diet followed for a week and then forgotten.
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