What Can Guinea Pigs Eat? Part 3 – Forage

Dandelions

Grass

Cleavers

Cleavers are a common weed and is also known by several other names including goosegrass, sweetheart plant, sticky weed, bedstraw and sticky willy. They feel sticky to the touch and can cling to your clothing. Guinea pigs can eat the leaves but don’t feed them the seed pods

Common Groundsel

This is available all year round, groundsel is often found around the edges of fields, roadside verges, waste ground, established flowerbeds, paving and walls. Also known as “old man in the spring”, birdseed, chickenweed, grinsel or grundsel, it contains clusters of yellow flowers on branched stems which turn into a fluffy white mass as the plant goes to seed. Groundsel flowers mainly between April and October but can also flower the rest of the year too.

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Chickweed

Chickweed is an excellent weed to forage for your guinea pigs as it is nutritious and said to be rich in vitamin C. Available throughout the year. Take care not to confuse chickweed with Scarlet Pimpernel which is poisonous. The difference between the two is that Chickweed stems are round whereas Scarlet Pimpernel stems are square. The flowers of a Scarlet Pimpernel are usually a bright salmon colour but can also be red, blue or white.

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Shepherds Purse

Shepherds purse can be found in grassy places throughout the year and the flowers emerge in spring. This has a good calcium:phosphorous ratio so is a good forage for guinea pigs and particularly helpful if your guinea pig has diarrhoea.

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Red Clover

Guinea pigs can enjoy both the flower and the leaves of the red clover. To identify red clover, you’ll see that, like other clovers is made up of 3 leaves each with a distinctive white v-shape. The flowers are a deep pinky purple colour and although it may look like one flower each tube (which looks like a petal) is a single flower. Red clover flowers may be seen from late spring all the way into late October and both the leaves and flowers can be eaten by guinea pigs.

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot has bright yellow dandelion-type flowers except the flowers on this plant have a circle of petals in the centre too. Unlike dandelion stems, the stems of the coltsfoot are scaly and a bit woolly. The flowers can emerge at any time from February and will appear before the leaves but you should only feed the leaves to your guinea pigs.

Broad Leaf Plantain

This common plant can be found in many places where there is soil including fields, lawns, parks, and waste grounds. As suggested, the leaves are broad and egg shaped growing in a rosette formation but without any real stem. The leaves may have very small fine white hairs. If you look at the leaf you’ll see the distinctive lines that run from the leaf base to the top and on the reverse of the leaf these lines will be even more defined. Tiny green or yellow/white flowers grow on a tall stem and can have thousands of seeds.

Narrow Leaf Plantain

Narrow leaf plantains are very similar to the broad leafed variety but their leaves are narrower and appear as long oval shapes. The edges of the leaves are smooth and the surface of the leaf may have fuzzy hairs on top side but be smooth on the underneath. Sometimes you will see a reddish purple tinge on the inner lower stem of the leaf which fades as you move up the leaf

Apple Leaves and Twigs

Pear Leaves and Twigs

Birch Leaves and Twigs

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Bramble Tips

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Burdock

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Dead Nettle

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Hairy Vetch

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Hawthorn

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Hazel Leaves and Twigs

Herb Robert

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Mallow

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Meadowsweet

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Pineapple Weed

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Raspberry Leaves

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Ribwort Plantain

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Sow Thistle

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Vetch

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