Guinea pigs are slowly increasing in their popularity with more and more people choosing to add a guinea pig to their family and after the popularity of the blue-eyed guinea pigs on social media recently, we only expect this to increase with as more people see the cute vital photographs of guinea pigs online.
We see a large number of different questions about correctly keeping pet guinea pigs each month with the main ones usually being around what guinea pigs can and can’t eat due the average guinea pig loving their food and trying to eat pretty much anything it can get in its mouth.
That said though, one of the questions we are seeing people asking more and more from the guinea pig owning community is about if guinea pigs can eat rose petals or not.
This may be due to your guinea pig being out in the garden or yard on a guinea pig harness end ending up eating some rose petals or due to some rose petals blowing into the guinea pigs run but we are seeing an increasing number of people reaching out each month about if guinea pigs can eat rose petals or not each month.
We actually see a number of slightly different questions about rose petals and guinea pigs from the community so we decided to cover them all in this article and add a table of contents below.
That should make it as easy as possible for you to navigate the article and get to specific sections of it that you want to know the information for.
Can Guinea Pigs Eat Rose Petals?
Healthy adult guinea pigs can eat rose petals without having any problems and many guinea pigs tend to really enjoy the taste of any rose petals that they are able to eat.
Some people will intentionally give their guinea pigs rose petals from their garden as a treat in addition to their normal food but due to being nutritionally deficient, they will have to be a small part of a wider balanced diet for your guinea pig.
Some guinea pigs do tend to prefer the rose petals from the lighter end of the color spectrum with pink, yellow, and white petals often being preferred over the other colors.
We have no idea why this is but it has been reported a number of times from people within the guinea pig owning community that their guinea pig will wolf down the pink, yellow or white rose petals but will only pick at the other colors.
On the flipside of that, some people report that their guinea pig doesn’t care and it will eat any color rose petal that it is able to get in its mouth.
This could be due to the color pigmentation having their own unique tastes and scents that some guinea pigs prefer over the other pigmentations but we guess we will never know for sure.
Why Do Guinea Pigs Enjoy Rose Petals So Much?
We would speculate that the reason that guinea pigs enjoy eating rose petals so much is due to them having a unique scent and taste that the other food that your guinea pig has access too is lacking.
There is definitely something in rose petals that guinea pigs enjoy eating in large amounts if possible and this seems to be across the vast majority of guinea pigs too rather than just a small few.
Keep in mind though, as we touched on earlier in the article, rose petals are drastically nutritionally deficient so should not make up a large part of your guinea pigs diet.
The bulk of what your guinea pig eats should be from high-quality guinea pig food with some delicious guinea pig snacks to supplement it and then rose petals added in every now and then to enrich their diets tastes.
If you do have your own garden with rose shrubs that are able to provide you with a steady supply of rose petals then this can be a great option route to take.
It should ensure that your pet guinea pigs diet is still nutritionally complete while also adding enrichment food options to it such as rose petals.
Why Did My Guinea Pig Vomit After Eating Rose Petals?
Many gardeners spray their rose petals with various chemicals to protect them from pests ruining their plants.
If you feed your guinea pig rose petals that have had these chemicals sprays over them then it can be common for your guinea pig to vomit with there also being a potential risk of other health issues too.
We would always recommend that our readers try to give their guinea pigs rose petals from their own rose bushes that they know have not had any chemicals sprayed on them.
If you do have to get your rose petals from a friend or family member, be sure to wash them in cool water thoroughly prior to feeding them to your guinea pig to reduce the risk of them causing your pet to vomit due to any potential chemicals on the petals.
Ideally though, we would not recommend you use any rose petals other than the ones that you have grown yourself as you are in full control of the state of the petal.
In many cases, we would actually recommend our readers to just avoid feeding their guinea pigs rose petals if they are not sure where they came from or if they have pesticides sprayed on them.
It’s just not worth the risk and although most guinea pigs will just vomit the rose petal back up to purge it from their system but some guinea pigs may have more serious issues.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over if your guinea pigs can eat rose petals to a close. We hope that we have been able to help you decide if you should be feeding your guinea pigs rose petals or not and for the most part, your guinea pig will really enjoy having them in its diet. As we mentioned though, guinea pigs are not even a treat food due to containing so little nutrition, they are an enrichment food similar to how a human would use a condiment to adjust the flavor of their meal so you should add rose petals to a well balanced guinea pig diet.
