Guinea Pigs

In My Humble Opinion
21

Oh, it doesn’t matter if they’ve peed recently. Guinea pigs all suffer from TB (Tiny Bladder) and I’ve rarely held a critter longer than 20 minutes without being doused. I try to remember to use a towel on my lap when giving cuddles.

I remember one time, when we were relative newbies, I was holding our piggie. She was relaxed for a while. Then she started to squirm. Then, quite clearly, she seemed to think “Stupid predator isn’t taking the hint. Oh, the hell with it”. And all of a sudden I was a lot warmer than I’d been :eek: ;).

22

Depends on the size of the cage. With our 2x4 foot Coroplast cage, it takes just less than a large package (not sure what the volume of that is, but it’s the bag that costs 20ish bucks). And we change the cage about every 10 days (should do it oftener).

Fleece really can be the most economical in the long term, especially if you have lots of leftover newspaper you can pad the floor of the cage with (you put the fleece over the newspaper to absorb liquids). But it requires more maintenance, as it has to be changed every couple of days.

23

Make sure you get a nice big cage or pen for them. I have an acquaintance that put her guinea pig in a small fishtank, and it just looks miserable all the time. I have only ever seen it move once. It’s horrible.

Our two are in a big enclosure that we built out of organizer cubes & coroplast per the instructions here: http://www.guineapigcages.com/

I definitely would recommend getting 2. Not more than 2 if you’re space-challenged, but if you have 2 they’ll entertain each other and keep each other company, which is important if you’re out of the house a lot. Although, expect some fighting and chasing and butt-biting when you first put them together if they haven’t been together in a cage before. Ours chased each other around and fought for about 2-3 days before one of them finally established dominance, and then they settled down. The Internet says that as long as they aren’t drawing blood, it’s OK and you should just let them fight it out.

I can’t answer questions about the CareFresh because we use fleece for bedding.

The sound: yes, they are incredibly loud. Ours are on the main floor of our house, and when they get really loud I can hear them upstairs in my bedroom. However, they only rarely make those noises and usually just when it’s feeding time. I normally top off their peeg chow, hay, fresh veg., and water right before I go to bed, and they are quiet through the night after that. (Guinea pigs love a handful of fresh grass, by the way, if you have any access to that. Just make sure it hasn’t been, um, “contaminated” by dogs, or pesticide-sprayed.)

I think going out for a weekend would be fine, but in that case I would hang two or even three water bottles in the cage just to make sure they don’t run out. Everything else should be fine.

Congrats on picking a cavy! I went through the same thought process you did: “Should we get a hamster? Rat? Wait, guinea pig, seriously?” but I’m really glad we got ours. IMO they’re much friendlier and more rewarding than hamsters or rats.

PS: Our fleece system involves a fleece cover over regular household towels (they have been designated as guinea pig-only towels now, of course) - the towels get changed out 2x/week, but we only launder the fleece 1x/week. It works really well, we don’t have a strong guinea pig odor in the house, and the pigs seem really happy with this system.

PPS: I think Mama Zappa is actually one of the people who convinced me to go with guinea pigs, when I was mulling this over and posting about it on the Dope - so thanks, Mama Zappa!

24

No, it’s soy-based ink, so if you have a white porker it might stain, but won’t hurt. We used to run stacks of newspaper through a paper shredder, and top that with a thin layer of the fluffier, more absorbent, and much more expensive Carefresh.

Also, a good bedding option if you have the storage space is to get a bale of shredded aspen or Carefresh/generic brand paper pulp stuff from a feed & seed kind of store, the sort that sells horse supplies. I usually get about five times the volume for the same price when it’s marketed toward livestock owners. Anything sold under “pet supply” labels are generally far more expensive. We store it in a Rubbermaid type garbage can with a lid, or one of those big rectangular lidded bins.

I have never heard of using blankets or cloths as bedding for healthy pocket-pet-type critters. Don’t the fleece and towel users worry about their piggies nibbling and getting bowel obstructions, or loosing toes to loose threads?

25

I ran out of time to keep editing my post. One more thing is that guinea pigs have to have little huts or enclosures of some sort that they can hide in. I bought a couple of spiffy little straw houses for them, but anything that they can get inside and hide will work. Sometimes I will throw in one of the big cardboard boxes that a 24-pack of soda pop comes in, and they really like that. We also threw in a giant PVC Y-joint that we got at the plumbing section of Home Depot, and some oatmeal boxes with the ends cut off. They like running through them.

26

Yep, I get my stuff from some BFE feed n seed store. It’s far far cheaper and it was recommended to me by several pig owners.

I beg you to not even try the fleece. It sounded great in theory (reusable! no shavings falling all over the floor!) but even with puppy pee pads it stank horribly. There was always tons of pig hair in the fleece and the dang hay bits just refused to be vacuumed off. Then the washer would be coated with hair on the inside and you’d have to clean that and even using tons of baking soda and vinegar, the fleece would still stink. Yuck.

27

I actually got the idea from some of the guinea pig forums on the Internet. The fleece we use doesn’t actually have any loose threads and the pigs don’t seem interested in eating it. They eat everything else in sight, but they don’t nibble the fleece. I kept a close eye on it for the first couple of weeks, because I had similar concerns, but it actually has worked out really well. I tuck the ends of the fleece under the bottoms of the towels and then make sure the whole system is flush up against the sides of the cage so they can’t burrow underneath or anything.

PS: (I am a post-editing fool today, apparently): We use a polyester fleece – I just got it from Jo-Ann Fabric – and do not have a problem with stinkiness. Maybe it depends what type of fleece you get.

28

When I had peegs, I used to grow a small flat of rye grass for them to hang out in and eat on the back porch-- one of them would sit right in the middle and eat while looking suspiciously through the tall blades of grass. It was adorable! Rye grass without pesticides or fertilizer is easily found in most Home Depot/Lowe’s type places, and a large plastic or ceramic dish is just fine for growing it in.

Guinea pigs are great little creatures with distinct personalities all of their own. Out of the three I’ve owned, each of them was a little different and entertaining. Go and handle the ones that you’re thinking of getting and see if you and the guinea pig “jive” together; if you’re okay with training a little hand-shy behavior from a small pig, you may be able to find a rewarding companionship with them. However, there are plenty of peegs that come friendly and curious right off the bat, and improve with age and increased interaction with their people. My first guinea pig used to toddle after me in the apartment like a lost duckling, and a lot of that had to do with how much time I spent hanging out and making friends with her; my other two were not as loyal, but neither were they anywhere near as intelligent as the first one.

29

Alternatively, you can use the Marchorio 82 or 102 cages. These are well built, not that expensive (I just saw a much smaller cage, made by a different company, at Petsmart for $110; the smaller Marchorio is half that or less). Also, buy one of the books written by Peter Gurney; he was the world’s foremost expert on cavies.

30

Yes, get two. Two guinea pigs is pretty much exactly the same maintenance as one and they’ll have someone to play with. I’ve had it explained to me as, imagine you’ve been transported to some alien planet, and you’ve got a little house and food and water and every now and then a giant alien guy drops by to spend some time with you… wouldn’t you still be much happier if there were another human around, even one you weren’t particularly close to? Guinea pigs are social animals, they’re not solitary animals like hamsters.

The main things you should do are:

  1. Build them a nice big cage, a 4x2 foot cage is a good size for two pigs. That might sound excessive, but guinea pigs are big animals and love to run.
  2. Feed them vegetables and hay. No iceberg lettuce (gives them the runs), not too much carrot (they can get kidney stones), for some reason all the guinea pig sites recommend cilantro as a staple. I don’t know if cilantro is cheap in the US or something because I sure as hell can’t afford to buy that much cilantro but keep that in mind.
  3. Find a small animal vet, cat and dog vets don’t really know what to do with guinea pigs. And find one now, because once they’re sick guinea pigs can go downhill scary fast.

That’s about it.

31

I bought two sisters yesterday. I built a cage out of plastic drop cloth and those racks that you build shelves with. I zip-tied the plastic around the outside of the cage. When I get a spare second, I’ll make a coroplast floor. I’m not sure how big the cage is now. It’s roughly 4.2x1.2. I’ll make it bigger as soon as I can.

So far, they’re terrified of me. I expected that. How long til they start to like me and the gf?

32

Feed them. Once they associate you with goodies, you will be a god to them.

33

Is there anything better than a peeg snuffling up to you and then nibbling a baby carrot out of your hand? I submit that there is not.

34

I’ve tried to give cilantro to several pigs, and they all ran away in revulsion. Then again, I have the same reaction to it.

35

Guinea pigs will always be a bit skittish, I think. I’ve had Darcy for over five years and he jumps around excitedly and squeals when he hears me/food containers, runs up to sniff my fingers etc but he’ll still run away when I go to pick him up. As soon as he’s out of the cage he’s happy again, though. But as for how to win them over in the first place… yeah, food. Also, don’t be afraid to just reach in there and grab them. They’ll get used to it.

36

I had a chinchilla and of all the rodents I think they are the best. They barely smell, the rarely make a noise and they are fun. There fur is so soft of course. They need a big cage but that’s not too much of a problem and they like it cold so you should have A/C. If you don’t have A/C you can get around it by buying two or three marble slabs. You freeze them, then once they are frozen you put the slab in the cage and if the chinch gets hot it’ll sit on the frozen marble.

They also take dust baths which are very fun to watch.

However chinchilla’s are not cuddly like Guinea Pigs, they will tolerate being held but prefer not to be.

37

Yeah, at 80 degrees F a chinchilla is subject to stroke, so we constantly had issues in spring and fall with the chilled-water service provider for our condo’s air-conditioning. Their policy of not turning on the AC until multiple 90-degree days had occurred would have killed him had we not been vigilant. Finally we bought a one-room air conditioner.

The marble slab we bought was sold under the irresistible brand name “chin-chiller.” I’m a sucker for a pun.

Congrats to the OP. My cardinal rule for pets is: invest time and effort into learning about them and into interacting with them and you’ll get much, much more reward out of the experience. Read, read, read, and of course spend time interacting with them (as soon as they let you).

38

  1. Do they smell? The animals don’t smell at all but their waste will smell if you don’t clean the cage. Once a week is good, sometimes I stretch it to two weeks but there will be a smell after that long. You should avoid oily woods as a bedding. The best is aspen shavings or that recycled paper stuff.

  2. How much maintainence do they take? Refresh food & water daily. Vitamin C is essential. You can add it to their food and water daily, although my vet recommends feeding it to them directly with a medicine dropper. I don’t think so. :rolleyes: They should be taken out of the cage once in a while for playtime with people. We have two long-haired ones so I have to groom them about twice a year (haircuts, I do it myself). In some cases you get health problems, like teeth coming in wrong, which will require veterinary care, like trimming teeth. Our first one died of a respiratory infection. They are rather fragile if they get an infection. Time from first symptoms to death was less than 72 hours. But when we took her to the vet they started talking about keeping her overnight with an IV etc., etc., at a cost of hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Fortunately we were spared making any decisions as she died the same day we took her in.

  3. Do I absolutely have to get 2? They’re happier with company but it’s not an absolute necessity. Remember, two guinea pigs need almost twice as much cage space. I have a 3’ x 3’ cage for my two.

  4. Any random advice about selecting a good one, taking care of it, etc? Check the animal shelter first, but their life span is only a few years so you don’t want to get one that is already 3-4, unless you are on an animal rescue mission. Alternatively buy from a breeder. Avoid most pet stores, though Petco seems to me better than most about caring for its animals.

You can see mine here when they were about 2-3 months old. Note that the video link is not a streaming video, it’s a 6M download. Ours actually have a pedigree and are show-quality animals according to the breeder, though we never had any intention of showing them. I never even heard of a guinea pig show.

39

A couple of additional notes about food: Feed hay freely. Avoid cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower); too much calcium. Lettuce is good, especially red or green leaf lettuce and Romaine, but avoid iceberg. They might also enjoy citrus fruit or other vegetables, hard to predict.

40

Well, if you’re not gonna post pictures of them … can you at least tell us what they look like? Pretty please?