Whee Hope You Aren’t Eating Your Breakfast . . .
Whee really hope you aren’t eating while reading this.
If you are, please finish whatever it is before reading on. You have been warned!
Whee piggies have decided to discuss digestion today. It’s Monday and whee are going to start as whee mean to go on . . . with food and poop and poop as food. Yes, you heard us. Whee eat our poop. It’s not as gross as it sounds, unless you are hooman, in which case you likely pulled a face reading that! Coprophagy, as it is known, is a furry impawtent part of our digestive system. The first part of digestion is perfectly explained in this quote from Guinea Lynx (the Cavy Care bible according to the hoomans!)
Gastric Transit Time.
The food a guinea pig eats, generally leaves its stomach in a couple hours. Start to finish averages 20 hours and can vary from 8 to 30 hours, according to Hillyer and Quesenberry’s book. This does not include coprophagy, which would extend the time until the food completely leaves the system to 66 hours.~ http://www.guinealynx.info/impaction.html
The next part is as whee mentioned called “coprophagy”. This is essentially as whee guinea pigs produce two types of poops. One is a normal poop and the other is a soft one which whee then eat. This is vital to our health as it provides us with another chance to absorb impawtent nutrients whee may have missed on the first try! Think of it as recycling!
Facts
- Whee may eat these soft poops up to 200 times in a day.
- Whee usually eat these straight from the source, whee like it fresh!
- Sick or injured piggies may eat their cagemates poops to try to collect the healthy bacteria they need from it. If they are on anti-biotics then they very likely need the good bacteria from another piggies poops. You can collect poops from other piggies and make poop soup with a little water to give to the unwell piggy. If you are too squeamish there are pro-biotics on the market which do the same thing.
So what is normal for a piggy poop you may ask. As whee mentioned before there are two types of poop, the first should be oval shaped and a shade of brown (the shade varies depending on the diet of your piggy) The second are a slightly greenish colour and the same shape. Our hooman refers to our poops as ‘beans’ as they remind her of jelly beans!
Things which you should look out for that are not normal are clumped together poops, sometimes stuck in the piggies bottom. This occurs in male piggies and is known as impaction which is smelly and not fun to deal with according to the hooman!
Another thing you don’t want to see is small poops or stringy poops with a ‘teardrop’ shaped end. These show that a piggy may have stopped eating or be dehydrated. A dehydrated piggy goes downhill fast so you really need to syringe feed them water (so long as you know how to safely) if they will not drink from their normal source and get them to a vet quickly. The final thing to look out for is diarrhea which can be life threatening. If the droppings are just soft then temporarily stopping vegetables may help but it is better to be safe and sorry so a vet trip may be in order.
For young piggies their poops can become soft/sloppy if they are overloaded with too many new vegetables at once. Whee recommend slowly introducing small amounts to get their digestive system used to it.
Also younger and older piggies can have softer poops if they eat too much of the rich first grass of Spring/Summer. This can often be solved by withholding vegetables and grass and giving extra hay but trust us when whee say it makes you extremely unpopular with us so it is best to just let us eat it in moderation till our systems readjust to eating it.
Anyway, sorry if that grossed anyfurry out but whee hope some hoomans found it useful and it helped them to better understand their piggies.
Happy Monday efurryone
Nacho, Noah, Buddy & Basil
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Posted on January 13, 2014, in Piggy Blogs and tagged cavies and poop, coprophagy, coprophagy and guinea pigs, cute, do guinea pigs eat their poop, guinea pig, guinea pig blog, guinea pig blogger, guinea pigs, guinea pigs and poop, guinea pigs eating their poop, pet, pet blog, pet blogger, pets. Bookmark the permalink. 43 Comments.
That is interesting and we love the little diagram. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
Whee are glad you found it interesting ^_^
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No worries here guys just finished dinner…I am a poop scryer from way back hahahah I read the poops to tell the health of the cats dogs and sheepies…sheepies do funny poops too..i call them choc coated peanuts..and they vary according to feed time of year and health…a great post and I had no idea you were so in the front line of recycling!! it makes perfect sense though..hugs Fozziemum xx
Hehehe whee are just here to save the planet . . . with poop! ^_^
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You go guys!!!! hugs Fozziemum xx
I’m eating mine BOL.. Youz all in the book 🙂 xxxoxxxx
Mollie and Alfie
Hooray!!! Thanks you
xxxx
Well you little guys are certainly good recyclers! How fascinating that is though – we never knew about the two different poops and how you eat one kind and not the other! I hope you never get mixed up…..!!
Hugs, Sammy
Whee are glad you found it interesting. The colour difference is furry subtle so the hoomans can barely tell the difference unless they look closely which they aren’t keen on doing!
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Very interesting!
Glad you thought so ^_^
xxxx
We definitely learned something today! Since we have no knowledge of piggies at all, this was quite interesting!
Whee are glad you found it interesting. Mummy always says she wishes there had been more out there to look at when she was looking for piggies
xxxx
Great info there guys xx
Glad you found it interesting ^_^
xxxx
Very interesting, I had no idea. It is very important for people to know this and not be alarmed. So the green poop you eat, right? So the brown jelly beans are left alone, but the green jelly beans are okay. Sounds like you may have a jingle to help piggy parents remember its okay for the green jelly beans to be eaten.
It is furry impawtent. Mummy was really shocked and disgusted the first time she saw it because no piggy books mentioned it so she is hoping she saves somefurry else from a similar shock!
xxxx
Now that was a fascinating Monday read – we never knew any of this and it makes very good sense as far as we are concerned. We especially liked the idea of making poop soup *BOL*
Happy poop eating!
Wally & Sammy
Heheheh ‘poop soup’ is not the most popular option but really it is a very good idea and can really help a sick piggy!
xxxx
Very interesting. Never seen my piggie eat his poop but he is a mighty pellet shooter. We say that if we are ever under attack we can use him. Turn him around , soft squeeze and walah! poop shooter at its finest.
But now I will admit my sissy spaniel just LOVES Guinea poop. ma has to scurry behind Cinnamon with a tissue before the spaniel gets to it. Guinea poop is great plant fertilizer too. Full of vitamins and no smell.
Have a great day and Cinnamon says Wheek!
Hehehe Mummy calls us the poop pistols though whee are furry good at not pooping on laps whee poop like nobodies business efurrywhere else
xxxx
I think, if you like it and it is good for you, you can eat all :o) “It’s not as gross as it sounds, unless you are hooman…” you got me with this sentence, imagine that LOL hahahaha
Hehehe whee know, those silly hoomans. Mummy still thinks poop eating is sort of yucky but she accepts it!
xxxx
Woaaaa pooping 200 times a day!! That’s astonishing! Imagine if us humans did that, on the street hehe.
Or is it maybe eating but.. not eating the whole thing? So it’s not 200 little poops a day? Weird subject to be thinking about but I feel like Sherlock Holmes!
It’s eating them 200 times, whee usually pile them neatly in the corner and snack on them much to the hoomans disgust!
xxxx
Oh, that excuses it. You eat it for the bacteria. And that’s like the man who reads girly magazines “for the articles”.
Hehehe well whee poop on the girly magazines!
xxxx
This is very interesting information. We did not know that Piggies pooped so much and that they eat their soft poop. We enjoy learning new things about Piggies. Love, Cali, Andy, Tater and Shelly (C.A.T.S)
Whee are glad you learnt something new and found it interesting ^_^
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Whee recycle all our poop. Whee are not picky. Does that mean there is anyfurrything wrong with us?
Imagine concerned looks of brother Dumle and brother Nullergøj, age 6 months.
But whee only eat fresh, clean poop! Only the best for us!
“Psst Nullergøj, whee’re only three months old.”
“Shhh! Want me tell them ’bout the time you stuck your head under my butt and got sticky stuff all over your face and the humans could’t get it off and had to cut your fur?”
I must say that I now know more about piggy poop than I every thought I would know. Thank you . . . I think. 😉
Hehehe well if it ever comes up in a general knowledge quiz, at least you will know the answer
xxxx
Bunnies do the same thing. Whenever I am receiving bunny kisses, I try not to think about the fact they eat their own poop.
Hehehe the hoomans say the same thing about us when whee are licking and kissing them!
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Grrreat tootoreeall about yer sistemz n how dey werk..Mum sayz ya iz like bunnehz as dey eat sumfing called Cecalz (not shure how to spell it butt we betz ya nose what me meenz!)
Me n Mum did not nose G-Piggiez did diz so we learned sumfin new today!
Phankz sweet Noah n Nacho; Buddy n Basil
Lub Nylablue xxxxx
Whee are super glad whee taught you something new about guinea pigs. Mummy says whee all learn something new efurryday!
xxxx
Interesting! I had no idea!
Whee are glad you found it interesting ^_^
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we Bunnies do the same thing,xx Speedy
Really? That’s so cool, whee never knew that. It’s so much fun to learn new things!
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