Celery is a long beautiful stalk full of water, strings, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Sometimes people get fixated on the strings and wonder, can guinea pigs eat celery?
Yes sir, we can! Thanks to these sharp teeth.
We chomp through hay all day and we can chomp through celery strings as well! So you don’t need to worry about us choking on the celery strings.
But if intrusive thoughts take over, and you just can’t stop imagining your cavy choking on a string, then just chop up the celery as small as you like!
Can guinea pigs eat celery? Yes, but not too much. Chopping the celery is a good idea to keep the portion sizes small. Because we gotta roll back over to the hay pile for most of our meal!
Why Guinea Pigs Should Eat Celery
Celery is full of fiber. Imagine us guinea pigs in a video game where whoever collects the most fiber wins. It also has vitamins A, C, K, potassium, and folate.
Guinea pigs don’t create or store vitamin C so they need a fairly constant dose of it. Celery checks that box! As well as other fruits and vegetables.
Other Vegetables That Are Good For Guinea Pigs
Vegetables are a great way to sneak in more fiber and get the needed vitamin C. Don’t feed all of these veggies at once though!
Some of the best options are:
romaine lettuce
kale
cilantro
parsley
peppers
broccoli
carrots
zucchini
tomato
sweet potato
And of course, celery! The stalks and the leaves. Oh I love the leaves.
There are some vegetables that are higher in oxalates than others. Too many oxalates can possibly lead to bladder stones. Keeping a diet low in calcium helps to prevent this (eat lots of Timothy hay).
Celery is considered a higher oxalate vegetable. This shouldn’t be a problem as long as you’re just eating celery like you do other vegetables - in small amounts.
Whoever Eats The Most Fiber Wins
Fiber keeps guinea pigs happy. When they feel good, they have the energy to play and stay active which in return keeps them healthy!
It’s a merry-go-round fueled by fiber. But when we get down to the nitty-gritty there are three reasons a guinea pig needs a very high-fiber diet.
Keeps Their Gut Bacteria Balanced
Guinea pigs have good bacteria in their stomach that ferments fiber so that they can digest it. But if you don’t eat enough fiber the good bacteria leaves! Fiber feeds the good bacteria that are crucial for gut health.
Gastro-Intestinal Motility
Fiber is what keeps everything moving in a guinea pig’s digestive system. It’s like an assembly line! When they don’t eat enough fiber things start to slow down which puts them at risk for a blockage.
Grinds Their Teeth Down
Intact high-fiber foods give your guinea pig more to chew. It’s important for a guinea pig to do lots of chewing. For one thing, this is our natural instinct!
But also, a guinea pig's teeth are always growing. So chewing is essential to keeping our teeth the perfect length. It also helps to clean our teeth!
Think of all those beautiful strands of fiber as the bristles on our toothbrush. There we are chewing away, all day. With perfect teeth.
Can Guinea Pigs Eat Celery?
They can and they should! Talk about a perfect toothbrush. Celery helps to keep the good bacteria in the gut, keep the assembly line moving, and clean our teeth.
Just make sure you have a big enough hay pile to go with any veggies you’re feeding! Because there’s no better fiber source than high-quality hay.
