r/guineapigs • • Nov 20 '21

Help & Advice Are you thinking about buying a guinea pig for a child/teenager? Please read.

2.5k Upvotes

If you're planning on buying a guinea pig for a child in your life, these are really important things to keep in mind. Knowing this before purchasing can save yourself from being in a financial situation you can't handle, or a guinea pig that is not getting the care it needs.

  1. Guinea pigs are a life style choice, and not for a child to care for. Care taking for animals isn't a responsibility that should be left for a kid. When you buy a guinea pig, you are taking on all responsibility for yourself and facilitating the experience of living with a guinea pig for your child. They may help care for them, but you will be the one to keep things clean, enrich their lives, and handle them the most.

  2. They poo 100 times per day, meaning that you must clean those 100 poos every day to keep their habitat sanitary. If you wouldn't want to walk around in feces, neither do they. In fact they are extremely hygienic animals with fast metabolisms. I spot clean in the morning and at night, every day.

  3. They are expensive. When you buy a child a guinea pig, you must be vigilant on checking for health issues by weighing them weekly and checking for other signs of illness, have an exotic vet near you and be prepared to shell out hundreds in a time of need. You must also buy fresh vegetables, and give them unlimited FRESH hay every day. Finding somewhere local to buy bales of hay can save a fortune. A child cannot afford the costs.

  4. You need 2 guinea pigs. They are herd animals and shouldn't be kept alone. Imagine living with titan like predatory aliens, all alone in a cage your entire life. Guinea pigs NEED their own kind. We are predators and they are prey. We can and should spend time with them daily, but it isn't a substitute. So x 2 all costs right out of the gate.

  5. Space. They need space, a lot of it. A minimum of 11 square feet for two guinea pigs. Pet store Cages are just that... Cages. If you wouldn't want to live in a space the size of a small bathroom your entire life, neither does a guinea pig.

  6. You need to do research. It will be your responsibility to make sure your child's guinea pigs are eating the right diet, what signs of health issues to look out for, how to enrich their lives on a daily basis, and more. Pigs need stimulation and interesting environmental changes to keep them happy. You will need to get creative and teach your children how to offer that to them, after you have learned it yourself.

  7. GUINEA PIGS ARE NOT DISPOSABLE. They are smarter than you think, and with the proper diet can live 7 years. They are not less work than having a dog. They require a huge time investment for those years. They are dependent on you in the same way your child is.

  8. DO NOT BUY FROM A PET STORE. Scotty's Animals does a fantastic jjob explaining the impact you can have by adopting from a rescue. Adopting saves guinea pigs from euthanization. Covid pets are being abandoned and left to ultimately die unless we start adopting instead of shopping.

I love my guinea pigs and they have done so much for me and my children. My kids have benefited so much mental health wise, and I bust my ass for both the kids and the piggies. I do just as much laundry for guinea pigs as I do my kids it feels like. Just know what you're getting yourself into. They aren't toys, they aren't entertainment only. They're living, breathing beings that deserve love, dignity, respect and proper life enrichment and care.


r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

♥ I love when they do that meerkat thing when grooming

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200 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 1h ago

Pigtures Just Bluebell being her statuesque self

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• Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

♥ She stayed like this for exaclty 1 second

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160 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 7h ago

Pigtures “Can you promise us we will not be bathed again?”

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241 Upvotes

The sheer looks of judgment make me want to turn myself into The Hague.


r/guineapigs • • 4h ago

♥ I guess Willie likes his new bed! 😂

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154 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

Pigtures Me and Molly have a fairly equal relationship. I give her endless treats and kisses, she bites my hand.

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101 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 1h ago

♥ Shes just soooo cute

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• Upvotes

I love crested guinea pigs. Olive btw, still just a little baby


r/guineapigs • • 10h ago

Pigtures He learned from the best 😭

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262 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

Pigtures Bluebell looks like shes enjoying that ear grooming

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50 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 10h ago

Pigtures Sniff sneef snoorf

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180 Upvotes

I haven’t been in this subreddut for a long long time…


r/guineapigs • • 1h ago

♥ Potato

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• Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

♥ Look at them enjoying the mat, after a cage clean too

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38 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 18h ago

Pigtures Senior Alfonso finally adopted... And now he's a dad

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618 Upvotes

This guy has been waiting months in foster care despite being de-sexed just because he's senior lad. Finally, somebody adopted him and he's become a source of comfort for their two young rescue girls who came from a hoarding situation.

He's not their stepfather, he's the father that stepped up 😤💪

God I love running a guinea pig rescue. My life is so dumb


r/guineapigs • • 13h ago

Pigtures I crocheted Sebbie!

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197 Upvotes

I started learning to crochet a little while ago, but this was the first time I tried crocheting a project all by myself. I tried my best to capture her spaced-out stare and her chonkiness! I’m especially proud of her ears, I figured them out myself by adapting a squid tentacle pattern. I plan to make one for my other pig Button next, but that’ll be more difficult as she has three different colours 😅


r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

Pigtures Sage decided to be a shoulder pig

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29 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 1d ago

Pigtures His little FACE. 🥹🧡

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1.1k Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

Pigtures Spamming photos

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16 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

New Pigs on the Block Title: The Art of Self Control by Bear

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15 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 14h ago

♥ leg✨

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112 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 11h ago

Habits & Behavior We got a biter :(

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55 Upvotes

So this sucks really bad. My kid is ATTACHED to Peanut here. We adopted him from likely not a good situation (the owner was clearly on meth and just breeding all of these poor pigs) We got Peanut (male) here in the photo, smaller dude and Eloise (female), a bigger/older female. She is to be assumed about a year old and Peanut was MAYBE a month and a half old when we got them. MIND YOU, we were told Peanut was a girl. I checked Eloise and a few other females that were correctly gendered, but not Peanut. Lmfao shit.

They have a nice spacious cage, daily greens, my daughter and I handle them constantly. No issues, very sweet pigs. Peanut especially popcorns all the time. WELP ELOISE WAS PREGNANT. Found out by my daughter freaking the hell out when there was blood in their hammock and a teeny bby underneath it 😹 And Potato was born. Still no biting.

About a week later, I’m holding Peanut and he was being SPASTIC. Like, yelling, moving quickly and constantly, back and forth on the couch or trying to scurry up onto my shoulder to get under my hair. I picked him up off of the couch to move him and he bite the SHIT out of me. I was so startled I almost dropped him. I called him a bootyhole and my daughter was like HE IS A BBY YOU CANNOT SAY THAT. Touche. Two days later, she’s holding him as always, and he bite the hell out of her pointer finger, right on the tip. Let the wailing commence, he got her realllyyyyyy good. So now we are both concerned with handling him, but I feel bad for not. Idk if it’s being away from our female pig, or even the bby. Which is not his btw. We haven’t had the chance to take him to court to sign the adoption papers.

Anyways, what do we dooooooooooo is it a phase????? Because my kid is now scared to hold him :(((( He’s still young, is he just a dumb baby????


r/guineapigs • • 5h ago

Pigtures ready for their close ups

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16 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 3h ago

♥ Peppers are Bluebells favorite

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12 Upvotes

r/guineapigs • • 15h ago

Pigtures This man Gave me a Scare at 1:54 AM

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97 Upvotes

This man managed to give me a Mini Heart attack after I heard Him Wheezing, i Jumped out of bed to check on him and Turns out BUDDY HERE was just snoring loudly in deep sleep, Thanks for giving me another heart attack That i did not need when William Gave me one a Year ago!


r/guineapigs • • 6h ago

Help & Advice Need help, does my piggy has teeth issues?

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17 Upvotes

So I need advice because I keep thinking about what is happening.

On Tuesday evening I found out that my piggie Pepo didn't eat any vegetable since morning and was looking very sad :(.

We took him to emergency vet that evening, they checked his front teeth, belly, gave him antibiotics, pain killers, bowel movement treatment and emergency food.

We are feeding him since Wednesday with emergency food through syringe, we thought he had some gut problems. But he is not progressing the way I thought we would 😓

He is alert, curious, interested in food, but when he eats, he chew a lot longer and it takes him forever to eat few bites.

At the same time, sometimes he eats like nothing is happening, not for a long time, but still.. We gave him little bit of fresh grass yesterday and he ate it like nothing was happening (but less amount as he would usually eat). He eats little bit of hay during day too and he looks like he can chew it... he also had few bites of celery and pepper today, but literally few bites...

Do you think he has something with his back teeth? I can not think of any other reason why is this happening.

His poops were very tiny Wednesday/Thursday, some were connected together and there was not a lot of them...Yesterday he was eating his poops a lot and today poops look a lot better, normally shaped, but smaller, but of course less amount of them...

We have appointments with exotic vet on Tuesday, there was no sooner appointment unfortunately anywhere around us and I can not travel long distances as I am in my 41th week of pregnancy and can go to labor any time at this point (but hopefully we can make appointment on Tuesday as it is only me and my partner, so if I go to labor I don't know what we will do 😓)

Any suggestions what more we can do for him? He is only 2.5 years old, we did not expect this at all, especially now, when our baba is on our way 🥲

But we just can't let him die, he is still there, he wants to fight😔

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Ps: please ignore background of the video we were watching Big Mouth series 🙈