Choosing A Guinea Pig

Choosing A Guinea Pig

Guinea pigs can learn complicated paths to food, and can accurately remember a realized path for months. While guinea pigs can bounce small obstacles, they can not jump very high. Most of them are poor climbers, and aren’t particularly agile. They startle easily, and when they sense danger either freeze in place for lengthy durations, or run for cover with rapid, darting motions.

guinea pig

While these short-tailed rodents are recognized to be pleasant, tame and easy to care for, earlier than you sign the adoption papers, let’s get to know a factor or two about Guinea pigs. Popular decisions include fleece, which may be bought from a craft retailer after which washed and reused when it gets dirty, and various kinds of paper-based small animal bedding. Guinea pigs are well-liked pets, especially for households, largely due to their great temperaments.

Is A Guinea Pig Proper For Your Family?

They have small petal-shaped ears that are laterally positioned at the apex of the top. Their eyes are laterally positioned mid-way down the snout, between the ears and nose. They have small triangular-shaped mouths, which include 20 teeth in a / dental arrangement. Like many other rodents, guinea pigs have continuously growing teeth, and tooth size is maintained by grinding them together osteodystrophy in satin guinea pigs during feeding. As a result of selective breeding, 20 totally different phenotypes exist for hair shade and 13 totally different phenotypes exist for coat texture and size. Their wild ancestors, however, are thought to have had brief brown hair which probably camouflaged them from predators.

Ideally, somebody ought to spot-clean the habitat several occasions a day, but when nobody is house in the course of the day, the enclosure has to be cleaned out a minimal of each night. I discover it best to use a fleece cage liner and cover it with a towel, which I change every single day, and then change all the bedding each few days. There are thirteen commonly recognized varieties or breeds of guinea pig. These embody breed standards guinea pigs the American, American satin, Abyssinian, Abyssinian satin, Peruvian, Peruvian satin, silkie, silkie satin, teddy, teddy satin, texel, coronet and the white crested. Different breeds are often characterised by their hair color, hair texture, the diploma of sheen of the pelage, and the color patterns of the pelage. Guinea pigs stay, on common, 6 to 8 years, weigh about two to 3 kilos, come in quite lots of colors, are very social, and make nice pets for youngsters and adults alike.

Timothy Hay Wafer

The extra space, the better—and the cage measurement should improve depending on the variety of Guinea pigs you have. The Spruce Pets makes use of solely high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed research, to assist the details inside our articles. Read our editorial process to study extra about how we fact-check and keep our content correct, reliable, and reliable. Guinea pigs are fairly giant for rodents, weighing 500 to 1,500 grams and having a body 20 to 40 cm long.

  • We know the various kinds of hay could be complicated, from 2nd cutting Timothy to alfalfa and all over the place in between.
  • Hay is a diet staple, and a contemporary supply ought to be available at all times.
  • However, based on more modern excavations on West Indian islands, the animal will have to have been launched to the Caribbean around 500 BC by ceramic-making horticulturalists from South America.
  • Marketers tried to increase consumption of the animal exterior South America.
  • A guinea pig pup can run when they’re three hours old, helping them to evade predators at a young age.
  • Please discuss with your institution for steerage in case you are unsure of local policies.

Baby guinea pigs should obtain Timothy and alfalfa hay, but plan to wean your pig off alfalfa when she or he is about 6 months old. To delay its freshness, retailer it in a cool darkish area away from all gentle and maintain out moisture using an hermetic bag or container. Spanish explorers discovered guinea pigs while exploring South America over four hundred years in the past. They brought these furry associates back with them to Europe the place they were domesticated.