What should I know about getting a guinea pig?

We are dog people, but we’re not allowed to have dogs where we live and are suffering acutely from lack of animal companionship. I am seriously considering getting a guinea pig because they seem relatively small, manageable, and quiet. I’ve never had a guinea pig, so I don’t know what the specifics are about care, maintenance, etc. Are they a high maintenance type of animal? What should we have in mind about arranging our space properly to account for them? Any specific concerns? Do they chew through cables? Is it okay to keep them caged for long periods of the day when we’re not home? How sensitive are they to heat, especially if they’re left in an un-airconditioned house? What about cleanliness? Do they make a big mess? How is their disposition?

As you can see, I’m a complete novice in this area. Any info you might have would be helpful.

Quiet? You’ve never heard one squeal have you? :wink: Well, ours didn’t squeal all the time, but they can make a lot of noise. They squeal, shriek and whistle.

The thing which became onerous at my house was the cage cleaning. You’ve gotta fill the cage with shavings, then clean that out once a week.

High maintenance? - kind of medium. Unless you really hate cleaning pet cages.
Space? - a spot big enough for the cage I’d think.
Specific concerns? - none
Chew through cables? - I don’t know, ours never roamed free. The kids took it out to play with it and then put it back.
Caged? - ours spent most of its time in the cage.
Heat? - don’t leave your animal outside in the summertime in direct heat for hours, that will kill one. Inside I’d think is fine, even if no a/c.
Cleanliness? - yes they make a big mess. They are similar to mice in that when they need to pee/poop they just go wherever they are.

Hope that helps. :slight_smile:

People who are allergic to cats will also be allergic to guinea pigs.

Aw crap. I’m extremely allergic to cats.

Well, it sounds like your allergies may prevent you from going through with this, but I’ll share some advice anyway.

Guinea pigs are social critters and will generally be happier if they have a friend in the pen with them. Make sure that you have two boys or two girls, though. And also know that they will need to establish dominance, so when you first put two strange guinea pigs together, they will fight like…um…like cats and dogs, until they establish which one is the dominant pig, and then peace will reign from there on out.

We built a “cubes & coroplast” pen for ours, using the guidelines here: http://www.guineapigcages.com/. It’s tucked into a corner of one of our living rooms (ok, it’s actually the “formal dining room” but really there’s a computer desk, a gaming table, and a guinea pig cage in there).

The pigs are going to need a constant supply of hay, guinea pig chow, and fresh veg on a regular basis. Those are going to be your main expenses. We went with fleece bedding so we can just launder it instead of purchasing fresh bedding all the time, but if you go a more standard route, you’ll need to account for the cost of bedding too.

Ours don’t roam free from the pen so chewing on the cables isn’t an issue. They can be quite loud, especially when they decide it is feeding time. Hilariously, I have conditioned our pigs to know that if it is past 10 pm or so and they hear my laptop click shut, it’s dinner time, so they start wheeking their little heads off.

They poop a lot, but it’s like rabbit pellets - easy to vacuum out with a handheld vacuum, or easy to just sweep out of the cage. If you keep the cage and bedding clean (1-2x per week) there shouldn’t be a noticeable odor in your home. As for air conditioning, we turn our A/C off in the daytime in the summer to save on electricity costs, and the house gets up to the mid-80s on a regular basis. The pigs seem perfectly fine with it. They are somewhat sensitive to cold, though.

If you’re going to leave them for long periods when not home, I would definitely be sure to get two so they don’t get so bored/lonely. I know a lot of people have just one guinea pig and it’s fine, but personally I think it’s better to have two. :smiley:

Oh, and also, guinea pigs are prey animals, and they really need to have a hiding place for security. It can be as simple as an oatmeal box (although they will eventually eat anything cardboard in their cage) or you can get little huts for them. We got plastic “Pigloos” from Amazon.com because I got tired of them eating their other huts. We also have a length of PVC plumbing pipe in there for them to run through for fun.

Guinea pigs are great. :smiley:

This may have just become moot, what with the allergy thing, but one thing about guinea pigs is that they don’t live very long. My son had two at one point; the younger died at about 2 years old after a jaw infection and the older one died at about 4 years old.

You may have just had bad luck, shantih. I think guinea pigs tend to live around 6-7 years in a domestic situation. We’ve had ours for nearly 3 years now and both still seem perfectly hale and healthy.

OK, I just checked on line, and average guinea pig life expectancy is apparently 4-8 years. For what that’s worth. :slight_smile:

Growing up my family kept guinea pigs for years. My dad was highly allergic to cats but fine with the pigs, as long as the cages were kept clean. Only way to know is to the handle the pigs yourself at a breeder or pet store.

Things to keep in mind:

*They are some of the sweetest,cuddliest rodents accross the board. It’s very rare that they bite, they are social animals who like interacting with their owners (as long as they’ve been handled enough when young to not be fearful of humans), they generally like to be held, they love to be stroked and even ‘purr’, etc.

*Since they are very social animals (with adorable social behaviors) and it’s best to start with two or three. I think it’s cruel to keep them singly.

*Unlike rabbits (which can be litter-box-trained) and most pet rats (mine never, ever pooped on me and rarely did more than leak a little pee), it’s very difficult to teach them to control their bladder and bowels. They will flood you with piss when you are holding them (I always carried mine in a towel), and if you let them loose in the house, they will just go wherever they walk. They drink a lot of water and they poop (moist droppings) and pee a LOT. Lots of waste means lots of work to keep their enclosure clean, healthy for them and non-stinky for you. This is the major drawback of guinea pigs, for me.

*They are rodents and they will chew anything. If they’re going to be loose in the house they need close supervision (and you better not have carpets, because of the peeing and pooping and stepping on the squishy poop).

*They are the noisiest caged mammals you could keep. I find the noises adorable but they talk all the time, have a whole bunch of cute sounds they make, and can squeal VERY loudly (usually when they are anticipating treats).

*I don’t see them properly housed in most cases, but ideally they should have an enclosure/cage with as much open floor space as you can possibly manage. Guinea pigs LOVE to run and will stay healthiest if they have the opportunity to be very active. When kept together in enough space they frolic and chase each other all day… it’s adorable. The happiest pigs I have seen were those who were kept outdoors with a large fenced yard area (and hutch/coop to take refuge in), or who had half a room in the house sectioned off for their use.

*For a small caged mammal, they have a decent lifespan - all of ours made it to at least 7 years (and the oldest to 9). A much more long-term investment than a rat, gerbil, hamster.
Honestly based on what it seems you’re looking for, I would recommend a pet rabbit (or two - they are often available in shelters as bonded pairs) instead of guinea pigs. They are cute, come in a huge array of sizes and varieties, are easier to keep solitary (many are aggressive towards the same sex, or even all other rabbits), quiet, have less of a need for exercise, can be quite affectionate, are easily trained to go only in their litter boxes, can be left loose in the house - some chew what they shouldn’t, some don’t - or kept in a limited area like the kitchen.

Wow, thanks for all the advice, folks.

I’ll have to consider the rabbit issue.

With both the guinea pigs and rabbits, is the local pet store an okay place to get them?

We got our guinea pigs from a local animal shelter. I would go that route if possible. People are always buying guinea pigs from pet stores for their kids and then abandoning them shortly afterward when they turn out to be too much work or whatever. Or breeding them (grr) and then winding up with too many babies. So animal shelters that take small animals tend to have plenty of guinea pigs that need homes.

You’ll need to get a minimum of 2 piggies and give them a minimum of 6 square feet for them to be happy. See http://www.guineapigcages.com for ideas on making your own cage.

Although the piggies themselves are relatively clean, I would classify them as a messy pet. They run around their cage which tends to kick out wood chips and other detris from their cage. If you let them out, they seem to love finding little hiding spots in your house to poop. You should put aspen wood chips down in their cage instead of pine. You must clean the cage weekly or it will get very stinky.

They are very cute animals, but I would not classify them as very cuddly. They can be picked up, but they don’t really seem to bond to you in the same way that a dog does. But they are so adorable we love them anyway.

Honestly, I think rabbits may work better for you if you’re looking for more of a dog-like pet.

http://craigslist.org may be a good place to look.

Shelter/rescue is always the kinder, better option. And I wouldn’t worry too much about behavioral issues – it’s not like you’re going to get someone else’s “bad seed” guinea pig who wears black leather jackets and robs convenience stores.

So, now tell me about bunnies.

You may want to message a mod to change the thread title to include rabbits - I know if this were a rabbit thread, I wouldn’t have opened it to see if there was guinea pig discussion, and the same might be true in reverse for rabbit owners. :slight_smile:

You’re DC metro, right? Check out mgpr.org for their adoptable piggies - they do rescues strictly, and the pigs are a little pricier than from the pet store, but they do a lot of education, and the pigs have been neutered by the time you adopt. We got 4 of the 5 we’ve owned from them.

Look at making as large a cage as possible. You can make them out of coroplast (corrugated plastic) + shelving cube grid squares. My google lookup isn’t working right now but I think it’s www.guineapigcages.com. The MGPR people can also sell you one pre-assembled.

The point is, piggies don’t climb - so you can have an open-top cage.

They’re fairly personable critters, for rodents. As a friend once said (though she was speaking of smaller birds) “of course they’re neurotic. They’re FOOD and they know it!”. They do, however, learn to associate you folks with yummies and they WHEEEEEEK for treats whenever they hear the fridge open or even a plastic bag rattling.

They’re fine in the cage all day while you’re out. Our current two have never learned to like being handled so they don’t get as much floor / lap time as they should (sigh) but really, they’re safest in the cage except when you’re right THERE to keep an eye on them. I wouldn’t trust them unsupervised around wires / cables - their nature is to chew, after all.

There’s relatively little smell with guinea pigs, especially if you do a good job of keeping their cage clean. Little mandatory daily care also - you make sure they have fresh water, plenty of hay, and pellets (Oxbow Cavy Cuisine is supposed to be the best), and give them some fresh veggies every day. Ours go WILD for romaine lettuce.

They do like to be around people - keep them some place where you’re around a lot, vs. in the basement or whatever. And whatever temp is safe for you should be OK for them - they can’t be left outside especially around here in the summer or winter.

Oh - also, if you do get either a pig or a bunny, you should find an exotics vet. I know of two in NoVA.

Met the one fellow on an emergency basis the day one of my piggies leapt out of my arms while I was standing. Something had startled him, and he ran squealing around the house before I could catch him. Poor critter had landed on the hardwood floor, broke several of his teeth (which grew back), and probably had fluid in his lungs. He was fine with treatment, but I had to tell the kids that I broke their guinea pig.

Warnings about rabbits from a rabbit owner:

  • They do not, at all, do well in a house with no AC in hot weather. My AC is on at all times when the temp goes above about 75 degrees. During a power outage I took them out in the air-conditioned car in their carrier (and coincidentally had a vet appointment the same day) and was placing a lot of cloth-covered solid plastic ice packs in their cage otherwise. I had to deal with this problem when I owned ferrets, too; both are better with a chilly house than a hot one.
  • Rabbits will try to chew through anything like string, power cables, etc. This could well kill them. They will continue to chew on cord-like things even if they do not taste like food (example: laptop power cords with aquarium hose cut down its length and slipped over the cord - I had to replace that with hard plastic sheathing).
  • Rabbits can do well in a large cage but should be allowed running-around time daily in a large playpen designed for small animals, or preferably in a rabbit-proofed room. Improper floor material can harm their feet.
  • They should go for regular vet checkups by a vet who knows rabbits. Even rabbits eating a good diet could have something wrong like maloccluded teeth - which may not even be visible without an intrusive exam - that might not get ground down by chewing, and can begin to hurt the rabbit’s mouth and discourage them from eating. This can be temporarily fixed in the office and will require regular touchups.
  • They are happier if they have a rabbit buddy to keep them company. This is easy if you buy them in a (same-sex please, the rumors are true) pair when young. Introducing two older ones might lead to vicious fighting if you aren’t careful.
  • They will have a smaller risk of health/behavioral problems (which includes humping) if spayed/neutered at around 6 months or so. Males are much cheaper to fix than females.
  • My rabbits are pretty darned good about peeing in the litterbox; not so much with the pooping. At least it’s dry and innocuous.

You might also want to consider a chinchilla. I had one and they are by far the cleanest rodent. They are so soft and do that cool dust bath thing.

The definitely require more space than a guinea pig, but they are worth it. They rarely make any noise, but when they do it’s the weirdest thing I ever heard. I had mine six months, then I heard this odd noise, I tracked it down to the chinchilla.

Another warning: Rabbits do not have terribly strong spinal cords - cats are darned near elastic in comparison. They can injure themselves/be injured if they fall/are dropped, or panic due to apparent danger and writhe too hard out of your grasp trying to get away. Do not pick them up in the air for longer than absolutely necessary, and try to provide a safe, calming environment. I know of at least two friends who had rabbits that had fatal/crippling spinal injuries; the former from the rabbit panicking, the latter from the rabbit biting a child who was holding it in his arms, and dropped the rabbit.

That being said, my two rabbits are fine with our surround-sound entertainment system playing videogames and movies, but sometimes hide from sounds coming from outside the house. One is an “attention slut” and loves sitting on my lap and being petted; the other would much rather run around the living room and explore than sit on my lap for more than 5 seconds. Running around the living room involves temporary hardware cloth (chicken wire) barriers put up to block off the entertainment center and the passage to the dining room, plus all cords removed from access, and even then we supervise.

What should you know about Guinea Pigs?

That they are terrible, terrible pets.

They stink. They don’t DO anything. They just sit there and chew things. Their fur has an unpleasant texture, so petting them is out, but that’s ok, because they don’t like people.

They’re not pets. They’re food animals. A role to which they’re well suited. They’re unpleasant and have no personality to speak of, so you don’t feel bad when it’s dinnertime.

The only ones I’ve ever known were solitary, though. Maybe they’re less depressing when they interact with others.

Rabbits are little bastards, (they tend to go into ‘AUUGH I’M ABOUT TO BE EATEN’ mode, but they’re active and entertaining little bastards, and they do sometimes deign to let you pet them.


I suppose the same could be said of me, really . . .