Cavy / Guinea Pig adoption

[FBaggins]

We've decided to adopt a pair of female guinea pigs that need a home.

We're researching care and feeding and I'm just about done with a fair-sized "C&C cage"... but I'm looking for tips/advice from anyone who cares for them. Anything that 1st-time care givers are likely to miss? It would be awful to "rescue" them only to end up hurting them.

We have four kids (5-9) and no other pets (apart from the four kids aged 5-9).

One specific question: - We travel on occasion. Do you put your cavies in care (either a neighbor or vet) for a two-day trip or are they just fine as long as they have space/food/water/etc?

[dropkickpa]

1. For 2 days they should be fine

Any longer and they should have someone who visits to change their water and food.

Gu9inea pigs are great pets for kids, just make sure the kids know how to handle them and that you watch the cavies for stress. Mine were great with Dropkid and vice versa (they're all dead now, they lived good long lives, the oldest and last just died at almost 6 years old). They were great for teaching her responsibility, also. She was responsible for feeding and watering, and as she got older she also took over cage cleaning duties (surprisingly enough, she was glad to do it!). Mine loved their pigloos and had toys to play with that they liked. The #1 favorite toy of all of them was this rocking wieghted toy that had a bell in it, they just loved that damn thing.

[FBaggins]

2. Thanks!`

That should work fine. We're often away for a day or two, but only gone longer than that once or twice a year.

I'll look for a rocking bell toy.

[LibertyLover]

3. 2 or 3 days is fine. Make sure that their water bottle is full

and their food dish is full. You might also leave a pile of timothy hay or alfalfa for them to munch on in addition to the guinea pig food. I inherited my step daughter's two guinea pigs several years ago. The one, Margarita, was pretty old for a guinea pig when my step daughter moved her into our house along with herself, her four ferrets and a puppy. In fact the stepdaughter's selling point for moving the guinea pig in was that she wouldn't be living very long. Yeah, right. Two weeks after this skinny half dead cavy arrived, she was fat, happy and sassy. So much so that the stepdaughter went out and bought her a companion, Spot. When stepdaughter moved out a year later, we got the guinea pigs. They lived for 4 years after that. To be honest, I didn't do much more than feed them, water them, clean their cage a couple times a month, give them carrots or celery and pick them once in a while. If you really want to know - guinea pigs do 3 things - eat, sleep and poop. They aren't a very interactive pet. Oh, and sometimes they squeek "weeeee, weeee, weee" and they have been known to bite. It's not particularly painful, but you know it when they do.

Oh and thank you for adopting them. I adopted my 2 rats and am very happy with them.

[catchnrelease]

4. Be careful where you put the cage

When my daughter was young, we had Guinea Pigs for several years. All the above advice is good, just watch that you don't have the cage too close to a wall. Their urine is like acid! It will eat even metal eventually and I'm not kidding. It's very corrosive. So put something protective between cage and wall....plastic or something that you could change. Ours lived very long also, the male was 7yrs when he died. His molars had grown long and he wasn't able to eat properly. The vet tried to file them down a little, but the stress of doing that was too much for the old guy. We enjoyed them a lot.

[FBaggins]

6. Thanks. That's a good tip

We're building a "C&C cage" condo. The second "c" is "corrugated plastic" which should be immune to it. I think I'll make the side that's going against the wall a few inches taller just to be safe.

[JCMach1]

5. They are great with BBQ sauce I hear

Peruvian delicacy...

:sarcasm:

[tilsammans]

7. Believe it or not, they enjoy music, and . . .

. . . they definitely respond to certain songs!

Guinea pigs are sweet, cute pets and great for kids.