Please don’t buy from a pet store. The sites linked to in the thread are all affiliated with each other and run by tofuburger-munching hippies with PETA memberships, but they have a point. Pet stores are out to make a profit and sell small animals as loss leaders, so they can sell you supplies. I’ve never been to Petco but I’ve been to other large chain pet stores and I don’t see why Petco would be any different. I didn’t know at the time, but the animals’ living areas were generally overcrowded and unsuited for them. I also have a number of personal stories about pet stores.
When I was seven I got my first guinea pig from a pet store. We didn’t receive any advice on how to take care of her and she died after a few months for unknown reasons.
I got my hamster from a pet store in Canada. The employee told me it was male but it was actually female and in a cage with males. Fortunately she wasn’t pregnant. My friend from that time also got a “female” hamster from a different pet store that was actually male. Another friend from Australia bought a male guinea pig from a pet store that was female and pregnant. Basically, in all the pet store experiences I and my friends have had, they’ve been wrong about the sex just as often as they’ve been right.
When I bought my second guinea pig two years ago they told me he was eight weeks old, but after getting my third pig (who I knew for sure was seven weeks old) I realised it couldn’t have been true because Third Pig was TINY. He is five months old now and only now about the size Second Pig was when I got him. And they wonder why so many pigs come home from the pet store pregnant.
Pet stores sometimes seem knowledgeable but the more you know the less you realise they know. When I got Second Pig the store told me to feed him a mixed feed with the occasional carrot. They said a mix was better than pellets. This is actually horrible advice, but I didn’t know it at the time and neither would a lot of people. Guinea pigs need unlimited timothy hay, a plain timothy-based pellet and at least a cup of vegetables per day. Out of all the pet stores I’ve been to I have never seen one that met these requirements. A lot of them also kept the pigs housed together with rabbits, which is also a very bad idea for various reasons. Carrots should be fed sparingly because they’re high in oxalic acid and vitamin A and may cause bladder stones. Guinea pigs can live up to eight years but most pets never do because of misconceptions about their care. And the truth is, pet stores don’t really care because they’re just trying to make money.
There was also a legal scuffle a while back about Petco killing animals by sticking them in a freezer, but I dunno how that turned out.
Petco is usually better than most pet stores in providing caresheets for each species that they carry and offering non-pocket pets (eg, cats and dogs) through adoption from shelters rather than actually selling them. Their staff has always been very knowledgable to me, and as an Animal Science major, I can usually tell when I’m being whooshed when it comes to animals.
BTW, I wasn’t trying to promote breeders (or supporting Petco) earlier, just giving information on where to find them if you went that route.
I just now noticed your location. We’re also in northern VA and as I mentioned earlier, got 2 pigs from a rescue group. It’s Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue (www.mgpr.org) and they’re good folks. They usually have more pigs available at their “meets” than you’ll see on the web page - only one of the 2 we got had been listed. They do ask some screening questions, like what sort of cage you have, what other pets, etc.
They also recommended a vet who is very knowledgeable about guinea pigs (a lot of vets aren’t that “up” on small-animal care). We have only seen the vet once in the nearly 3 years of pig-ownership - when our male, Panda, decided that pigs really can fly (somersaulted out of my arms onto the hardwood floor; knocked out front teeth and got fluid in lungs; he’s fine now). The vet is in Vienna - not to far from where you live. (http://www.seavs.com/).
I have a Vienna address (we are outside the incorporated limits, in Tysons) and we took Coco to SEAVS when she began her rapid decline, so I am very familiar with it. I was surprised when I called my last vet and they said guinea pigs are considered exotics, so they sent me to SEAVS.
Two things from their web site that relate to other topics discussed above:
This is what they told us Coco needed.
Somewhere I read advice to put vitamin C in the animal’s water, but
Why aren’t the pellets fortified with vitamin C?
Coco used to go crazy for iceberg lettuce–is that OK for a pig?
Decent-brand pellets are fortified with vitamin C so supplementation shouldn’t be needed, as far as I know, especially if you try to give them veggies that are also decent sources of the stuff. We feed ours Oxbow Cavy Cuisine, plus good quality veggies and we’ve only rarely done any kind of vitamin C supplementation (as in, for a while when we had it onhand and remembered…). Oxbow makes a chewable C supplement that the piggies seemed to like.
Supposedly iceberg lettuce is a no-no - not because it’s harmful per se, but because it’s nutritionally useless. We never tried it with ours, because we don’t like it. They love Love LOVE romaine lettuce though - Typo Knig likes to substitute the letter ‘c’ for the R and the M in the name of the lettuce, that describes their reaction to it nicely
No clue on the molar trimming - I’ve heard of this but haven’t experienced it. Poor Coco
Guinea pig pellets are fortified with vitamin C. The problem is that Vit C degrades as time goes on and as it’s exposed to sunlight. Even if the pellet companies said “x% of daily vit C” they’d be wrong since some (if not most or all) of it would be degraded so far as to be useless.
http://www.guinealynx.info is one of the best sites around for the care of piggies. Look at their vitamin C charts and their calcium to phosphorus charts as well. It’s very important not to give pigs too much calcium; one of my first (of my first pair), Ethel, died of bladder stones caused by too much calcium. I didn’t know about the whole calcium issue, and a poor innocent piggie suffered in pain for a while because of it.
Always give your pigs fresh veggies daily; fresh hay is also a requirement. The minimum recommended space for two pigs is 2x3 of those cube squares (which is what I’m making do with since I literally have no more room for a larger cage until I move). I also highly highly highly encourage you to get two pigs. Even if they aren’t best friends, pigs are so much happier with someone else there with them; they’re naturally herd animals and need companionship. Getting a second pig (Penelope) was the only thing that drew Magdalena out of her shell. She would just sit around and not move for hours. As soon as Penny entered the picture, she started talking and asserting herself and running around.
http://winstonlf.com/hotaru/piggie/babyandmaggie1.jpg This is Maggie (brown) and Penny (black n white) back in December when I first got Penny (I can’t find the recent pictures I took, but hopefully I’ll uncover them soon). Who would’ve known that the same pig (Mags) that would sit like a statue when she was by herself would evolve into a nicely bossy, assertive (yet cowardly in the face of humans ;)) pig when living with another pig?
I would advise you to go to guinealynx.info and check out their nutrition charts. I’ve found them very useful and while they seem a little overwhelming at first you’ll soon get a feel for the content of veggies you feed often. Here is a short rundown: you should stock up romaine, sweet peppers and coriander (cilantro) as those are pretty much staple foods for guinea pigs. Coriander is expensive so you can do like we did and plant your own. Otherwise, just try to feed it as often as possible because it is one of the best foods for guinea pigs. Pigs LOVE carrots and they’re okay in small amounts, but don’t feed them more than one baby carrot a day. Calcium and phosphorus levels should be kept low but don’t completely cut calcium out of their diet because they need to get more calcium than phosphorus, otherwise they develop a whole other set of problems.
Once again, this sounds complicated but it doesn’t take very long to get the hang of it. If you have any questions the folks at the guinealynx and cavycages boards are very knowledgeable and helpful, if a little zealous. Good luck, eh.
Vitamin C overdose should not be a problem normally, since you don’t need to give them supplements as long as they get fresh veggies every day, and it’s hard to give them too much that way. If you really heap on the supplements they can get pseudo-scurvy, which is when they build up a tolerance to vitamin C and develop scurvy-like symptoms when the dose is brought back down to normal levels. I don’t know how that’s treated but it’s pretty rare.
Phew. Well, no, but here’s where we are. I have submitted an application to MGPR, a guinea pig rescue outfit. They responded with a bunch of questions. They have a rigorous adoption process. I can understand why, but they don’t make it easy. You need to have a cage and supplies first, which makes sense. Then once you are approved, you receive an invitation to a “meet” where the foster parents bring the guinea pigs to meet potential adoptive owners. However, the nearest meet is about an hour’s drive from my home and there’s not way to find out who’s available until you actually get there (their web site shows some of their pigs but not all and it’s not always up to date).
I have also contacted a breeder who lives about an hour away but comes to my area frequently, and would be willing to bring a few pigs to my house to visit.
I have no doubt that either one would be a good choice and take very good care of their cavies. In any case I am putting more distance between me and the pet store.
I am not in a rush to do this, but I’ll keep you posted.
We are now the proud owners of two baby cavies, Expo & Euro.
I got in touch with a wonderful breeder, who brought several cavies for us to meet to our area. She was very accommodating, and was also concerned about qualifying her buyers. She has turned down buyers in the past.
Although the local Petco had a few nice-looking pigs, we had a hard time finding anyone to help us who seemed knowledgable. We decided to avoid a pet store after all we had heard.
We had been to the county animal shelter and looked at several adult guinea pigs, although honestly we felt that the pigs there were too old to provide enough years of petship, although it was a wrenching decision for me.
I also contacted MGPR and submitted an application. Their adoption process is a bit tedious and inconvenient, and I would have considered it if my primary goal were to rescue a guinea pig. It would have involved trips about an hour away to visit available pigs with no assurance we would return home with one (or a pair).
After considering all these choices, we went with the breeder and got two Peruvians born 6/10.
You can see some photos and a video at my web site.
Guinea pigs are awesome pets. I hope you have some great years together! If you haven’t found it already, this guide is very helpful and, frankly, better than any guinea pig book I’ve ever read. Good luck and all
Forgot to mention earlier - there’s a chain of animal feed stores that has decent prices on guinea pig supplies: Booth Feeds. Their CareFresh large bags are a dollar or so cheaper than PetSmart, and they also carry the big boxes of Oxbow hay, as well as Oxbow Cavy Cuisine. There looks to be a location not too far from you (Tyson’s; we go to the Lorton location ourselves). They also have a good selection of birdfeed, to the delight of my backyard freeloaders
