Penny Holder

Hello! We are thinking of getting a couple of guinea pigs. If you had or have a guinea pig could you please share your story with us, pros, cons, etc. Also, what type of cage do you have for them.

Thanks so much!!!

Penny


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Angela S

We have a guinea pig. Used to have two but one died. (old age) They are
nice pets, easy to hold and care for, inexpensive to keep, cute to watch.
But my kids got tired of them and they have a pretty long life span. (5 or
more years) Cats and dogs jump in your lap for attention but you have to go
to the guinea pigs. We keep ours in a huge (50 gal, I think) rubber maid
tub. We use shredded paper for bedding and I clean it out every day. They
get carrots or some other fruit or veggie every day.(they need it) When we
had two, they often wheeked for their goodies, but the one alone is fairly
quiet. The kids do go through spells where they'll play with it a lot, but
then weeks might go by where the only contact she gets is from me. :-( I
guess it depends on your kids and their interest level. If it were our only
pet, it might be more popular, but the cats and horse get way more
attention.

YMMV,

Angela

game-enthusiast@....



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Robin

> --- In [email protected], "Penny Holder"
> <learnathome@b...> wrote:
>
> Hello! We are thinking of getting a couple of guinea pigs. If you
> had or have a guinea pig could you please share your story with us,
> pros, cons, etc. Also, what type of cage do you have for them.


We have two guinea pigs and the first advice I would give is *do not get
them from a pet store*. I know people that have had several pet store guinea
pigs die (and especially if your kids are sensitivite to that kind of thing,
it can be really hard). Also, it encourages the pet store trade of people
breeding pets irresponsibly.

We adopted our 'pigs from a local shelter we found here:

http://www.petfinder.com/

We've had ours a little over a year and they've been great!

>Also, what type of cage do you have for them.

I highly, highly recommend going to this webpage and reading up on cavy
(guinea pig) care: http://cavycages.com/ . A lot of people make some
standard mistakes, like using cedar shavings in their cages (which can cause
respiratory illness in 'pigs) or using cages that are way too small. We
made a cage using the instructions on that website, out of those
snap-together wire shelving things. It was very easy and it's plenty big
enough for them to roam around in. We have a couple of "Pigloos" (plastic
igloos) inside for them to hunker down in (they like small comfy spaces).
When the weather is nice, I've set up our old baby gate contraption that we
had around our woodstove:
http://www.onestepahead.com/product/34185/37/117.html outside in the yard.
It's a nice big pen for the 'pigs to run around in and they keep our lawn
pretty well mowed if I move it every day :-)

Guinea pigs are very friendly little critters and highly social. I would
recommend getting two or more. Just make sure they're either neutered or you
get all females or all males. Pigs are also very smart. Ours have figured
out exactly what the produce drawer in our refridgerator sounds like, and if
you open that drawer you'll hear a chorus of "wheeek wheeek wheeek" from the
'pigs.

Have fun!

Blue Skies,
-Robin-

[email protected]

Penny,
We had a guinea pig and he was great . They are very easy to take care of
and they are friendly. We had a big rabbits cage. The only bad thing about
the cage was the metal bars. The guinea pig loved to kick out all of the cage
liner and his messes. But ohter than that they are a great pet.
Hoped this helped.

Jessica


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scrapgal

--- In [email protected], "Penny Holder"
<learnathome@b...> wrote:
>
> Hello! We are thinking of getting a couple of guinea pigs. If
you had or have a guinea pig could you please share your story with
us, pros, cons, etc. Also, what type of cage do you have for them.
>

I don't currently have a guinea, but I used to a long time ago. I
*loved* my guinea. He was the coolest pet. His "home" was an
aquarium that was on its side with cedar shavings. He was litter
box trained as well. He was free roaming throughout the house,
which had its good moments and bad. Guineas are chewers and they
love paper. He chewed a huge hole in one of my cross stitch
patterns once (fortunately it only effected the border of the design
which was repeating so I was able to figure it out). He also liked
to unroll toilet paper and tear it up. I just learned to keep the
bathroom door closed.

Guineas make this wonderful chirping sound and love to talk to you.
They also love to cuddle on your lap and snooze. Very affectionate
and they have great personalities. I would suggest trying to get a
very young (but fully weaned) guinea so you can hand and litterbox
train it. Older ones will use the same box out of habit, but will
also go wherever they please if they aren't truly litterbox
trained. I would also suggest getting one from someone who breeds
them than from a pet store. There is no guarantee as to how old
guineas are at pet stores. They will tell you they are "young" but
guineas grow to mature size rather rapidly so it is hard to tell.

I also know people who allow their guineas to live in the gardens.

Michelle

Penny Holder

Thanks for the responses! We have decided to get Chinchillas instead.

Penny