Friday, August 31, 2012

A Guide to Bringing Your Guinea Pigs Home

By David Emery


First Introducing Your Pet to Their New Home

Bring your guinea pigs home and introducing them to their new living quarters is a rather important and also stressful time in the life of these little animals. After bringing your pet home you will, of course, be tempted to hold and cuddle them, thinking that this will comfort them as it would a baby or small child. However, doing this to a guinea pig who is in a strange, frightening location can cause them great stress.

Let the first few days they are home to be for exploring their cage in a quiet environment free from stress or loud noises, both of which will scare the guinea pig.

Important Note:

Remember that when bringing an animal such as a guinea pig into the home, whether it's just one or several, each of them will need to have their own special "hiding place." Guinea pigs must have a place to feel safe, and also a place to go in the case of a fight breaking out between cage mates.

Keeping Your Distance

Notice everyone in the family hovering around the cage? Watching the guinea pigs every move? Although cute and interesting, doing this is definitely going to scare the little guys!

Your close presence is easily misinterpreted by an animal as small as a guinea pig who will probably think a predator is nearby. If you want to watch your guinea pig be sure to bend down so that you will be at eye level with the cage and your pet, allowing them to see that it's a friend watching them and not a foe.

Bribing Your Guinea Pig

The best way to get your pet to trust you is, without a doubt, bribery. Sound crazy? Perhaps. But it's true! Bribing the small animal that you want to love and adore is the best way for trust.

Bribing a guinea pig, who usually have great appetites, with treats is ideal for showing them that you are there to help and not harm them.

Best Bribing Ways?

It isn't hard to bribe your guinea pig with treats so they'll trust you.

To start, show you guinea pig what you have for them and leave it at the open door of their cage. Wait near the cage quietly with your hands sitting in your lap.

After a certain amount of time, if he hasn't taken the treat, carefully and slowly pick it up again, close the cage door, and leave. Try this several times a day until he gets the idea that he has to come and get it.

Each time he comes, try to move a little closer to your pet's cage. This way, he's going to get used to your presence slowly.

Before long, your pet will eventually take the treat from you, but probably with plenty of trepidation in the beginning. However, with even more patience on your part your guinea pig will be nibbling treats right from you hand without any fear at all and even become happy and excited when they see you.

How to Pick Up a Guinea Pig

Don't make the common mistake of using treats to bribe your guinea pig into letting you pick them up for the first time. You certainly don't want to break the bond of trust you've spent so much time building up.

Start by slowly and gently petting and stroking the guinea pig, letting them see you aren't a predator but instead their friend and new family member.

Holding Your Guinea Pig

Be careful when you pick up your guinea pig! Because of the shape of their body, you can damage their lungs if you grasp them too hard.

Lightly cup your guinea pig's torso while supporting their back end while lifting slowly. Carry them gently but securely while making sure the entire body is fully supported.

If you have children, teach them how to pick up and hold the guinea pig and younger kids should always be supervised as these tiny animals can easily be injured, or worse, if dropped or squeezed.

Keeping Your Guinea Pig Relaxed

Don't you just love the idea of sitting on your couch, petting your guinea pig in your lap, and reading the paper or watching the news? It's a great idea, but in practice, it takes a while.

When you first handle your guinea pig, do so in a quiet room, and make sure that nothing is going on. Have a treat ready, and see if you can get him to eat it on your lap.

With some patience and understanding, bringing your guinea pigs home can be an exciting and enjoyable experience for everyone.




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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

What To Use As Bedding Material For Your Guinea Pigs

By Dann Nuss


Having a pet guinea pig is such a joy. Watching them play, eat, and scamper around in their cages is fun especially because they are so cute and cuddly. To keep your pets healthy and happy you should invest in proper bedding for them. There are many options for their bedding and this includes straw, paper, or even wood shavings.

Paper is abundant and cost efficient source of bedding. In terms of the comfort, paper is to guinea pigs, while feather is to humans. In addition, clean paper does not have dust and they absorb liquids easily. However, the only concern with paper is if it contains ink that is poisonous to guinea pigs.

Some may consider soft wood shavings as the best option for bedding. Shavings have a number of shapes depending on the order. Wood can be cut to look like pellets or actual shavings, or something complete different.

As we all know, shavings come from wood. Since wood carries a smell with it so does its shavings. Pine tree's shaving is an example of good smell and affordable materials. The only concern is that they can make dust.

However, if you are still decided in using the shavings, you should let the scent out of the system outside of the house and letting the wood shavings dry. Remember guinea pigs have allergic reactions to some scents. It would also help minimize the effect of the scent on the guinea pig if you would use cage instead of an aquarium.

The third kind of material is straw. With straw, the owner is hitting two birds at a time because the straw is used as bedding and as a source of nutrients.

Before using the straw, make sure it is dry and mold-free. The disadvantage of straw is that when it gets wet, say from water or urine, it can spoil easily and thus needs to be changed.

Avoid using sawdust as it can cause pulmonary problems with the guinea pig when they inhale the small particles of dust. Neither should you use materials that are hard because it can pierce through the eyes of the guinea pig.




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Monday, April 9, 2012

Do Guinea pigs need vitamin C supplement?

By Allan Bakier


Guinea pigs can't provide their own C-vitamin, so you've to ensure that your pets gets adequate vitamin C in their daily feed.

How come cavy needs ascorbic acid?

You may be having vitamin and mineral pills to be sure to consume enough vitamins, but you should also make confident that your guinea pig receives adequate vitamins. Distinct from most other mammals, guinea pigs are unable to form ascorbic acid in their body system.

The ways to give your guinea pig vitamin c

The good news is, you can effortlessly give your guinea pig vitamin c and you can attempt this number of ways:

When you give food to your guinea pig with fresh greens, choose vegetables and fruit with high high content of C- vitamin. Use for example, parsley (that guinea pigs love) which includes approx. 40 times as much vitamin C as carrots. Also bell peppers, broccoli, rose hips and orange contains a lot of C- vitamins but you should solely feed the orange as well as other citrus fruits once a week, because the acid that they contain may damage your guinea pig teeth's when the get it too often.

Look for feed pellets made designed for guinea pigs - they usually are added vitamin C

Vitamin C droplets can be put into drinking water.

Ascorbic Acid sadly rapidly cease working in water, so it's not the best way to do it, and you can risk that your guinea pigs don't like to drink water because it tastes wrong

If your guinea pig is expecting, it should have double the amount vitamin c usually!

Shit Vitamins

if you find that your guinea pig eats some of his own waste, do not be afraid, there is nothing wrong with your guinea pig, when it eats its own feces it reuse some minerals, vitamins and microorganisms that it needs to be healthy. If you look hard you may notice, that it only consumes some waste that looks slightly distinct, they are smaller sized and looks softer.

Indications of vitamin c deficiency

Already after 2 weeks without vitamin c, your cavy well-being is influenced.

Check for the following symptoms because they may be a sign of that your pet cavy doesn't get sufficient C-vitamin: diarrhea, losing weight or eating under usual. Also a uncared for coat could be a sign of vit c lack.

When you eat your own vitamins think that also your cavy needs natural vitamins and sensible food.




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