Where Do You Buy Guinea Pigs
Are you passionate about your guinea pigs? We sure are! Welcome to the Guinea Pig Market where you will find only the best products for you and your guinea pig's cage and care. And we really mean the best. We are the CREATORS of C&C Cages and the cage size standards that have been adopted around the world for decades. We know guinea pigs! We advocate for guinea pigs. We rescue guinea pigs. We support guinea pig rescues. We are constantly working to bring you only the best -- the longest-lasting, highest quality, most absorbent, easiest-to-clean -- cozies, bedding, and accessories for your Guinea Pig C&C Cage or the Midwest Guinea Pig Habitat cage. We offer the largest selection of fabrics and products available anywhere -- all shipped quickly with fantastic customer service and support. We are committed to you and your guinea pigs!
where do you buy guinea pigs
Our products are truly functional as well as cute. Guinea pigs are little poop factories and the challenge to caring for these darlings in your life is giving them a properly-sized and outfitted cage environment and then keeping it clean!
Meet our co-founders, Rik & Helen, the husband and wife team behind HayPigs!. Read their story, from adopting their first guinea pigs in 2014, to taking on the challenge of championing guinea pig welfare and enrichment around the world!
Guinea pigs make great pets. They live for several years, so you can enjoy them longer than most other rodents. They have different personalities and are very vocal, making it easy to know their individual identities and get attached. They are fun to play with and very entertaining. I recommend guinea pigs as pets for anyone, especially as a first pet for a child.
Guinea pigs should be housed in large, solid bottom cages with ample bedding such as timothy hay or corn cob chips. A cage needs to be large enough for them to run around and play. They also like a hut or hutch they can hide in.
Guinea pig chow should be offered daily in bowls and water should be provided in bottles with sipper tubes. Keep a close eye on the water as guinea pigs love to play with the sipper tubes and spit food back into the bottle, so it gets dirty quickly and sometimes the stopper gets clogged. The diet can be supplemented with some fruits and vegetables, but the pellets should be the largest part of the diet. Remove uneaten fruits and vegetables daily as they can spoil.
Guinea pigs lack an enzyme that allows them to make vitamin C so it must be added to the diet. Giving your pet some orange at least weekly will meet the requirement. You can also purchase vitamin C supplements at pet stores. Insufficient vitamin C can result in your guinea pig getting scurvy. Classic signs include weakness, hemorrhages, reluctance to move around, and even swollen joints.
Guinea pigs are also very social animals. They do better with a friend, but be careful that they are the same sex or you will start a breeding colony. Guinea pigs can start breeding at one month of age. Their gestation length is 69 to 73 days. The pups are born precocious, fully furred with their ears and eyes open. They will start eating chow on day one and wean at three weeks.
Keeping your guinea pig happy and healthy is very important. You can purchase toys such as balls and tubes where you insert hay or other treats. There are even tunnels that guinea pigs can play in. Adding a hide hut is a very good idea. Since their teeth grow forever, things to chew on will be utilized often. Cardboard tissue paper rolls and even wooden chew sticks are nice.
When a guinea pig gets sick, it stops grooming, so an unkempt coat is one of the first signs of illness. An ill guinea pig will not move around or vocalize normally. Check their underbelly often to see if they are having any gastrointestinal or urinary issues. Guinea pigs make two types of feces, as they eat some of the feces to obtain the vitamins that were made in the cecum. So if you see your guinea pig eating from its anus, that is normal. If you notice diarrhea or pasting of feces around the anus, get your animal to the veterinarian immediately. Dehydration can kill a guinea pig quickly.
Guinea pigs, also called cavies (or cavy for a single guinea pig), originated in South America. They were probably introduced into Europe soon after the first Spanish explorers returned from that continent in the 1500s. They became favorite pets in the early part of this century. Guinea pigs are also bred as show animals with a wide variety of coat colors and fur types.
Guinea pigs live, on average, 5-6 years (although some can live to 8-10 years of age). Their teeth grow continuously throughout life and it is critical that they eat grass hay (such as Timothy hay) every day to help them wear down their teeth as they grow. Guinea pigs, like humans and primates, require a dietary source of vitamin C, as their bodies cannot manufacture vitamin C on their own.
If a guinea pig senses danger, it will either freeze or make an explosive attempt to run away. Guinea pigs do not see well but have well developed senses of smell and hearing. They are communicative and use a wide variety of sounds to express themselves. Young guinea pigs display a unique behavior called popcorning when they are happy, in which they jump straight up in the air and let out squeals of delight.
Housing your guinea pig is not particularly difficult, as there are a large variety of hutches and cages commercially available. Guinea pigs should be kept indoors. They need supervised time out of their cages each day to run around and exercise. An indoor cage size of 18" x 24" (45 x 60 cm) should comfortably accommodate a guinea pig. Even though guinea pigs are not good at jumping or climbing, the cage should be secure and at least 10" (25 cm) in height. Remember, bigger is better.
Food dishes should be large heavy ceramic crocks that are hard to tip over, and water is readily accepted from a sipper bottle that should be cleaned and replenished with fresh water daily. A small upside-down box or container with a cut out for a door is a welcomed hiding area. Since guinea pigs are social, they can be kept in small- to medium-sized groups. However, if the sexes are mixed, they will mate and therefore quickly increase in number! To avoid this problem, they should be kept in same sex groups, or the male should be neutered. Spaying the female is an option, too, but a more involved and difficult procedure. Temperatures between 65-80F (18-26C) are ideal. Anything over 80F (27C) will increase the likelihood of heat stroke, especially in animals that are overweight or pregnant.
Guinea pigs reach sexual maturity at around 3-4 months of age. If young males and females are housed together, they should be separated by this age, otherwise they are likely to breed. After about eight months of age, the female guinea pig's pelvic bones become more tightly fused, and if she has not had a litter by that time, giving birth can be more difficult. Sows give birth to 2-4 fully developed, relatively large, fully furred offspring with open eyes and the ability to eat solid food (although they will still nurse). These large babies have a hard time getting through the pelvic canal unless the mother's pelvic bones are relatively immature and malleable or mobile.
These large offspring also predispose the mother to a life-threatening condition called pregnancy toxemia. This is a metabolic disorder causing the pregnant female to have low blood calcium and high blood pressure. It manifests as loss of appetite in the early stages, deteriorating to muscle twitching and coma. Prompt veterinary attention can save affected animals, but the likelihood of developing the problem can be reduced by providing the pregnant animal with plenty of water and high-calcium greens during pregnancy. Ideally, all pregnant guinea pigs should be checked by a veterinarian to try to prevent pregnancy-related problems.
The average gestation period for guinea pigs is 63 days. If gestation continues over 70 days, the guinea pig should be seen immediately by a veterinarian, and it is likely that the entire litter will be stillborn. As with many rodents, the female guinea pig will be able to mate within a few hours of giving birth but should not be allowed to; she needs time to recover and replenish her metabolic reserves before becoming pregnant again. If your guinea pig has a large litter (over three or four piglets), consider fostering one or more of the piglets to another sow (female), since guinea pigs have only two nipples to suckle their offspring. This is something to discuss with your veterinarian.
Although there are no fixed rules, you should take into account not only the sex of the guinea pigs but also their individual characters. However, the most important factor is the kind of habitat you provide for them. If they are kept in an unsuitable environment, and there is too little to keep them occupied, even the most mild-mannered guinea pigs will develop aggressive behaviours.
Group sizeThe minimum size for a group of guinea pigs is two. However, there are good reasons why should consider acquiring three or more at the same time and keeping them together:
Those so-called phase 1 studies involve a small group of healthy people to determine the right dosage and to get a first look at what the side effects in humans might be. A drug that passes the first test will then move on to larger human studies where it is typically compared with a placebo or other treatment in patients suffering from the condition it's meant to help.
Every time someone picks up medicine from a pharmacy, or gets a prescription, they owe a debt to the human guinea pigs. "If it wasn't for people like us you wouldn't get that medication," Biafore says.
Guinea pigs are sociable animals and Swiss law prohibits owners from keeping the furry rodents on their own. But what happens when one dies? Don't fret, just call Priska Küng, who runs a 'rent-a-guinea pig' service to provide companionship for grieving, lonely animals in the twilight of their years. 041b061a72