guinea pig information
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Guinea Pig Information
The Most Common Guinea Pig Mistakes
It can be both exciting AND nerve-wracking to bring a guinea pig home for the first time. I know a lot of first time (and sometimes even more experienced owners) have the following worries:
- Did I get my guinea pig at the right place?
- Is this guinea pig really healthy and going to be easy to care for?
- Is there any chance my guinea pig is secretly pregnant and the pet store didn’t tell me?
- Did I choose the right cage, food, and bedding?
- What about toys? Is my guinea pig going to be bored all day when I am at work?
- How do I teach my children how to properly care for a guinea pig?
- Should I keep multiple guinea pigs? How do I introduce them? What about introducing my new guinea pig to pets I already own like dogs and cats?
- and so on…
Here are a few common mistakes people make and how you can avoid them:
- Avoid getting your new guinea pig at a pet store if at all possible. Pet store guinea pigs tend to have a few problems you should know about before you buy. First of all, frequently the animals are kept in overcrowded cages in substandard conditions. This means you could be inheriting a guinea pig with preexisting problems such as parasites (mites and lice) and respiratory problems (from being kept in poorly ventilated aquariums or from exposure to harmful bedding.) This means trouble and expense for you later if your guinea pig becomes ill and needs veterinary treatment. Buying guinea pigs from pet stores also increases the likelihood that that you accidentally buy a pregnant guinea pig. Frequently the staff in pet stores are just regular people, not guinea pig or even animal experts. Guinea pigs become fertile after a few weeks of age and it could be really easy for a non-expert to misjudge the sex of a guinea pig and place a few females in the cages with the males.
- Buying Guinea Pig supplies that are not safe! Stores in general are interested in selling more products to customers, not necessarily making sure you buy the best products for your pets. It turns out lots of products marketed for guinea pigs are actually very dangerous. Pine and cedar bedding will cause respiratory problems and possibly liver failure. This can means a short lifetime of infections and breathing problems for your much loved pet (and veterinary bills for you!) Hamster wheels are regularly recommended for guinea pigs as exercise toys when in fact these can easily injure a guinea pig’s spine. The same with hamster balls. Avoid at all cost. Many people also get excited about the idea of taking their guinea pig outside to play and they buy those special “guinea pig leashes.” Again, these can actually injure your pet as a guinea pig has a delicate inflexible spine. Be sure to avoid!
- Unhealthy cages. I see a couple types of guinea pig cage setups on a regular basis that are really unhealthy and the owners don’t even know it. In general you want to avoid most pet store cages as they are simply too small. Cages that are too small will cause both the cage AND your guinea pig to stink! Many people also use aquarium style cages as they think this will keep bedding from falling out. This is actually really bad as there isn’t going to be enough free flowing air to prevent the build up of moisture and this can lead to lots of health problems. Finally, copying any kind of rabbit cage set up is a big “no-no.” Wire cage floors can really injure a guinea pig. Feet can get scraped up and develop life threatening infections and legs can even be broken if you pet manages to fall through. Instead, look for cages made for guinea pigs. There are lots of excellent options for guinea pigs online, on eBay, and made available through rescue groups.
- Guinea pigs need company. Did you know that most people give up their pets to rescue groups because they feel they are too busy to care for them properly? Believe it or not, all your guinea pig needs to be happy is the company of another guinea pig.
To learn more about how to improve your guinea pig’s life, click here.
