How to trick a guinea pig into drinking vitamin C

We give our guinea pigs ChildLife liquid vitamin C supplement since they can't eat very many vegetables without getting soft poops. All of them love it, except for little Butternut. For a long time we picked her up to syringe feed her. But recently we developed a sneaky trick. We offer her a guinea pig pellet, and then while she's distracted by the pellet she will drink the vitamin C!
Special thanks to "Karalee Trapp" whose comment helped inspire this technique!
WHAT’S PIGS?
We publish daily highlights of the adorable antics of our guinea pig herd. Subscribe to see what they do tomorrow!
In June 2019 we adopted five pigs from Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue. They are cute herbivorous small pets with funny social interactions. We film all their behaviors, from happy guinea pig noises to eating sounds, playing with their food to sleeping with their eyes open, and occasional fighting. So far they have been most popular for their loud wheeking and rumblestrutting, adorable spa day and bath time, fleece bedding cage makeover, funny naps, and their ridiculous guinea pig fights!
Our videos generally have no talking so they're great in any language, whether you search for guinea pigs as cobayos, conejillos de indias, cochons d'Inde, meerschweinchen, morče, marsvin, cavia, marsu, tengerimalac, marmot, porcellino d'India, cobaia, gine domuzu, chuột bạch, świnka morska, морская свинка, خوکچه هندی ,خنزير غينيا, 豚鼠, モルモット, 기니피그, or หนูตะเภา!
MEET THE PIG FAMILY
Spaghett is the boar of the herd. The rest of the pigs are females, but he’s a neutered male so they won’t be breeding. Sorry, no pregnant or baby guinea pigs! Spaghett has orange-brown ginger fur with a white crest on his head and red eyes that are pretty cute. He goes on funny romps with entertaining popcorning and zoomies. He does a hilarious rumblestrutting dance for his beautiful ladies while purring. When pigs argue he trots over to comfort them. He likes burrowing through hay and standing up on his back feet like a goofy dinosaur. He enjoys petting, especially face massages and scratching around the ears.
Acorn is the youngest. She has white, black, and gold fur with a cute mousy face. She’s inquisitive, always wants food, and talks to herself while exploring hay piles. Little Acorn’s special talent is jumping on houses for rooftop adventures.
Butternut appears either confused or deep in thought. She has white and gold fur. Her hobbies include sleeping and yawning while flopped over with her feet sprawled out. She continues wheeking, squeaking, and squealing at us after we have already given her food.
Pumpkin has black fur except for white back toes. She looks like a cow, a non-guinea pig, and a rabbit. She has noisy standoffs with feisty little Acorn.
Zucchin is the oldest and grumpiest. She has white and gray fur. At first Zucchin fought with Spaghett. There were teeth chattering, nose raising, and hair puffing battles. Now they get along, but Zucchin is still a grouch. She enjoys lunging like an eel. She loves to chase pigs out of their homes, follow them to another home, and chase them out of that one too. But she looks like a cute rat!
THEIR HOME
The pigs live in a custom 4 by 6 foot cage made by merging 3 Midwest Guinea Habitat cages. We cut the seams of the cage bottoms and joined them into one large cage liner with duct tape and super glue. Now we have a triple size MidWest cage! The cage is on cheap folding tables so we can easily care for and interact with the pigs. They first lived in the 3 cages connected by ramps.
The bedding is IKEA TOFTBO bath mats. We’ve tried disposable paper bedding and fleece blankets with towels underneath. But this is the best guinea pig bedding we have found so far! It’s extremely comfortable and absorbent. We spot clean at least twice a day. And every day we wash 1 of the 3 carpet rugs in a portable washing machine in the bathtub and dry it using a spin dryer for laundry. It’s easy and convenient compared to washing fleece by hand in the sink!
The pigs prefer free stuff to actual guinea pig toys. They love to hide under packing paper. A DIY guinea pig house made from a cardboard box is a favorite hidey. They are not interested in chew toys.
THEIR DIET
Their favorite hay is Oxbow timothy hay. We get 50 pound boxes from Chewy. They also enjoy hay from Small Pet Select, KMS Hayloft, and Standlee. But they get most excited about fresh grass. They gobble up Sherwood Pet Health guinea pig pellets.
They eat nearly any vegetable. The only thing rejected so far was zucchini. Their favorites are dandelion leaves, fennel, cilantro, parsley, banana leaves, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi, carrot tops and roots, beets, bell peppers, corn with the husk, cucumbers, and pumpkin. They go wild for homemade wheatgrass sprouts.