Guinea Pig Connection

When Do You Introduce A New Roommate?

When a guinea pig dies, when do you bring home a new roommate for the one left behind to grieve? In the last three weeks or so, we've had e-mails from owners who were facing the inevitability of having to put gravely ill guinea pigs to sleep.

My short answer is "Your pig will tell you."

Until you've had a guinea pig or two (or more) you don't realize how deeply these critters can grieve, or how quickly they can sink into a depression and how long they can stay in that psychological state until you pull them out of it. There's a fine line between letting a guinea pig mourn the loss of a friend and adjust to life without him/her and letting the guinea pig slide into a full-blown depression. Depression isn't to be trifled with, to be treated with a wait-and-see approach for too long. Loss of appetite, decreased water drinking, lethargy, zero interest in things that used to draw a reaction, little to no socializing with human companions -- all are signs of depression, and all can lead to more serious illness if they're not stopped.

Cari's Story

Cari wrote to us about her pair of female guinea pigs, one of whom is very sick and does not have a lot of time left in her life. She wrote to us, "I am worried about her companion. I fear she will be so lonely, and I know they do better in pairs and I want to get another female for her....I also wonder when another should be introduced, before or after?" I give her a lot of credit for thinking ahead like this, and for proceeding with caution instead of acting too soon. For a lot of folks, balancing compassion and restraint is not easy.

My advice to Cari is that she wait until after her guinea pig dies. The sick one is dealing with enough stress from her illness, and the healthy one is dealing with the stress of seeing her friend fade away. (Yes, I am fully convinced that these animals know before us humans when they are preparing to cross over.) Introducing another pig at this time is more stress -- and avoidable stress at that. Let the girls close out their lives together, and when the sick one crosses over, Cari and her remaining guinea pig need to grieve together and comfort each other.

Observation will tell Cari when her guinea pig is getting depressed -- she may see it within a few days, or it might be longer. But it will come, and it's best to act when the symptoms first start to appear. It's rare for a guinea pig who's used to having a roommate to function well as a lone pig for any length of time. They get used to constant companionship -- and not having it for an extended period of time turns their world upside down with unhealthy consequences.

Stacey's Story

Stacey started talking to us when she was trying to make the difficult decision between euthanizing her middle-aged guinea pig or putting her through inordinately expensive and risky surgery that offered disproportionately little in the way of guarantees of post-operative longevity. The prospect of needing to get a new roommate (someday) for her remaining guinea pig was never brought up. Honestly, as rattled by the experience as Stacey understandably was, adoption of another pig was not something I expected her to consider for a while.

After putting Cupcake to sleep, Stacey -- grieving and worried about her remaining guinea pig -- bought two 5-month-old females on the same day as Cupcake's death. Warned by the pet store clerk that her guinea pig might fight with the new ones in order to establish herself as "alpha female," Stacey did some online research to find out how to introduce them all. Introductions on neutral ground went well -- sharing space in the cage did not. After breaking up the fighting, Stacey did more online research. Her next steps were a) cleaning everything in the cage with vinegar, and b) giving everyone a bath together. After another rough beginning, the younger girls got the hint that there was only one queen bee -- and it wasn't either of them. When last I heard from Stacey, there seemed to be some kind of continuing peace in the cage.

In her last e-mail, Stacey wrote, "I thought it would be easy to bring new pigs home." I thought to myself, "You don't know what a lucky break you had. The fight could have been worse, blood could have been drawn by a bad bite, those three pigs might never have called a truce -- and then you really would have been stuck."

I can't say I blame Stacey's pig for her initial reaction. She was not happy about losing her friend and acquiring two strange roommates in her cage on the same day. It's a lot of adjustment to ask her to make. (Stacey was acting from a broken heart and concern for her guinea pig, so you can understand her impulse.) I'm just relieved it seems to have worked out as quickly as it did.

Again, how long you wait before bringing someone new home really does depend on the individual pig, but I firmly believe that the grieving process needs to be given space and time. We humans would demand and expect that for ourselves, and, knowing what emotions animals are capable of, I think they expect it as well.

Suitable Travel Carriers For Guinea Pigs

We're in the midst of our peak vacation boarding season at the rescue, which means pigs coming in and out of Cindy's house every weekend. We usually have a few people each summer that we need to educate on the subject of "safe guinea pig travel" -- though the number gets smaller each year (happily).

You need at least one travel carrier for transporting your guinea pigs anywhere outside of the home, including to the vet and to wherever you board your pets while you're on vacation. Transporting guinea pigs by any other means, such as cardboard boxes, plastic storage boxes, cages, or in a towel in someone's arms or lap is not safe. Sudden stops or other sudden movements in a vehicle could cause injuries to a guinea pig if s/he slides around in an unsuitable carrier.

Any hard-sided carrier that is marketed for cats is large enough to accommodate a pair of full-grown guinea pigs, without being so large that they could slide around as much as they would in a box or cage. (We do not favor soft-sided carriers for small critters.) Carrier floors can be lined with towels (or puppy pee pads) to give your guinea pigs' feet some traction, plus a towel/fleece pouch/cozy cup for them to curl up in and stay warm.

The Petmate Portable Kennel has secure locking doors on the top and front of the carrier. The top opening makes it easy for you to slip food into your guinea pigs while they're in the carrier, and to check on them in the car without risk of them escaping.

The Small Kennel Cab has a secure locking door on the front of the carrier. The carrier provides only one way in and out.

Geared more toward small critters, the Cabin Kennel has a slide lock on the side and opens from the top. The wire vent on the top of the carrier provides a small door that you can slide back so that you can slip food into the carrier, or even your hand so you can check on them during travel. This carrier isn't ideal for longer trips, but it will be sufficient if the only road trips your pigs ever go on is to the vet.

The cat carriers work for ferrets, bunnies, and chinchillas, too.

Should Guinea Pigs Be Housed Outdoors?

In the comments section of one of our older posts, Katherine Buchanan asked about housing guinea pigs outdoors here in the U.S. She wrote:

I am curious: as a child in England, our piggies lived outside year round, in their hutch under a covered porch in summer, in their hutch in an unheated shed in winter. They had sawdust on the floor and a big box of hay to sleep in in their sleeping box. They grazed outside in an ark with a sleeping box from April until October.

Are they a different breed of piggy? I have never heard of anyone keeping a guinea pig indoors in England (maybe a garage but never in the house). And if you waited for it to be 65 they would only go outside about two weeks a year!

Ours (brothers) lived happily until 8 years old and were never sick.

We are keeping them inside because that is what we were advised (although we did take them out on the grass on a warm day this week and they loved it, especially clover). I am just curious why they are treated so differently. We live near San Jose so it is pretty warm 9 months of the year, although cold at nights.

There are many reasons for the difference in housing practices over here.

• Veterinary knowledge has evolved over the years, and vets have learned more about how sensitive guinea pigs are to drafts, breezes, extreme temperatures at either end of the thermometer, and climate control (or the lack thereof). Warm temperatures, humidity, and sunny weather lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and sunstroke. Cold temperatures and drafty or damp weather can lead to colds, pneumonia, and upper respiratory infections.
• In many areas of the U.S., it's not uncommon for there to be as much as a 30- or 40-degree difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. This is very hard on guinea pigs, even in well-insulated cages.
• Guinea pigs become acclimated to climate-controlled environments. Keeping them inside for half the year, then putting them outside -- even in warmer weather -- can be a shock to their system if the transition is not managed carefully.
• Guinea pigs housed outdoors are in danger from feral cats and stray/wild dogs, raccoons, foxes, and snakes. In the U.S., we have predators that England doesn't (or, at least, I don't think it does) -- bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, cougars, and more. (Here in Connecticut, there's been a problem with coyotes going after cats and dogs.) They're all coming into populated areas with increasing frequency (the price we've paid for over-developing the land), and they're all looking for a meal...any kind of meal.

While there may be very small pockets in the U.S. where the temperatures are moderate enough year-round to accommodate outdoor housing for guinea pigs, most areas are not suitable. And the threat from wild animals is cause enough for concern. For all the above reasons, you will not find many folks in rescue on "this side of The Pond" who support outdoor housing.

Building A Play Area For Your Guinea Pigs (Part 2)

Once you've built a play area for your furry friends, what do you put in it?

Play areas need things that cater to guinea pigs' instincts to tunnel, explore, and hide. These objects do not have to be fancy or expensive, though you’ll want to maximize the benefits of playtime by providing different items and toys than what your pigs have on a regular basis in their cage.

Homemade Options

• Take a paper grocery bag, cut a hole out of at least one side, and lay the open bag in the play area, creating both a tunnel and a hideaway.
• Cut the bottoms out of empty super-sized oatmeal containers (and remove the plastic ring typically found at the top of the containers) to create usable, chewable, disposable tunnels.
• Take a small paper bag, cut random holes on the top and sides, and then stuff it with hay (preferably something different than what they ordinarily have in their cage).
• Take a segment of a wrapping paper tube, cut random holes in it, then stuff it with hay or with lettuce leaves. (Wrapping paper tubes typically do not have the glue on them that paper towel and toilet paper tubes do.)
• Take a new, clean plastic dishpan, cut one or two holes at opposite ends, and turn the dishpan over to create a sizable combination hidey house and tunnel that’s washable and affordable.

Store-bought Options

• Purchase the large-sized Chube or Chewbular tunnels, which are colorful, chewable, and disposable. These are perfect for even the pudgiest adult guinea pigs.
• Purchase PVC pipe or landscape tubing, both of which make for washable tunnels. Both are available at places like Home Depot, typically at half the price of the plastic tunnels found in pet stores. You can often find Y- and T-shaped tubes, as well as elbow (curved) and straight tubes. Where adult guinea pigs often outgrow the diameter of the plastic Funnels in pet stores, most of the landscape tubes and PVC pipes are wide enough to accommodate all but the pudgiest pigs.
• Fiddle Sticks tunnels/houses, which are big enough to accommodate a couple of snoozing guinea pigs.
• Fleece and fabric tunnels, tents, cozy cups, and cozy sacks. You can make your own, or purchase them; they're often found in the same aisle as ferret supplies.
  

We have illustrated lists of recommended play area items on one of our Squidoo pages, and on Amazon, that include items not mentioned here.

As your budget will allow, have a variety of toys that you can swap out every few weeks to give your pigs new combinations of toys to entertain themselves with. You’ll have as much fun watching them respond to your creative ideas for their playscape as they’ll have playing in it!

Building A Play Area For Your Guinea Pigs (Part 1)

Are your guinea pigs bored?

If they’re spending 24/7 in their cage, with outings only for lap time, they’re guaranteed to be bored. And likely a little pudgy. And maybe a little less interactive with you than you'd like.

Many new owners don’t know that guinea pigs benefit greatly from out-of-cage playtime, preferably on a daily basis. Playtime gives you a chance to interact with your pigs, setting up interesting playscapes for them to explore, hand feeding them healthy treats, and even just sitting by the play area and talking with them. A good play area provides ample room for a good run, games of “chase” and “hide and seek,” and general rummaging about for treats and such. It also gives them a much-needed change of scenery from their cage, which contributes to good psychological health.

Guinea pigs need to get out for at least two hours a day, every day. Guinea pig playtime is good for the humans as well; even if you’re not playing with your pigs the whole time, it's very relaxing to curl up with a good book or a good movie nearby while your guinea pigs entertain themselves.

Play time starts with an enclosed play area — a space that gives guinea pigs plenty of room to run and romp without risk of finding, biting, or getting tangled up in electrical wires and without risk of getting stuck under or behind furniture and appliances. This means that the play area must be fully enclosed.

The Fence

The play area, at minimum, should be the same size as the cage but preferably 1.5 to 2 times larger than the cage (or even larger, if you have the space). You want the fence to be high enough to prevent pigs from getting loose, but not so high that it looks like you’re trying to contain a Rottweiler puppy.

You can create the perimeter of the play area using either the small pet fences sold at pet stores (you may need to buy 2 or 3 to create a large enough play area) or using Neat Cubes (available at places like Target). The Neat Cubes let you build a play area that’s long and rectangular, L-shaped, U-shaped, or a just a really large square. Just fasten the cube squares together (with the round connectors) as you would for storage cubes or for C&C cages.

If you have baby guinea pigs, Neat Cubes, similar storage solutions, and many pet fence products are not suitable for them until they are several months old! The open spaces in these products are large enough that a baby guinea pig could get through and escape, or could get partway through before getting stuck — and getting hurt. For the few months that they're that little, use storage cube solutions with mesh panels. Later, when the babies are older and bigger, you can replace the mesh grids with the wire grids and move the mesh grids off to another purpose.

The Play Area Floor

Start by purchasing an inexpensive piece of vinyl flooring remnant (from Home Depot and other stores) and cut it to the desired size for your play area, with a couple of inches to spare all the way around. This creates a solid surface for your pigs to play on, and protects your carpets and bare floors from the moisture that would otherwise soak through the towels and potentially stain your floors.

On top of the flooring remnant, place old bath towels, lightweight cotton or fleece blankets, or yardage of fleece or terry cloth from the fabric store. These materials are washable, soft, warm, and give your guinea pigs' feet needed traction while they play. Wash these materials at least once a week in warm or hot water and fragrance-free detergent.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about toys...

More Thoughts On Cold Weather Care

Although the temperatures of the last few days might have us starting to think otherwise, winter is not over yet (bummer).

We've been looking over our last post on cold weather care for guinea pigs and realized there's a couple more quick notes we should add to the list.

• On cold evenings, consider making daily out-of-cage time snuggle time instead of on-the-floor play time. Cold air sinks, which means any room is going to be colder the closer to the floor you get. Don't believe us? On the next below-freezing evening, sit on the floor for awhile and see how long it takes before you start to feel chilled.
• If your guinea pigs are starting to get scrappy and fussy with each other as a result of too much in-cage togetherness, and play time is the only way to get them settled down, drop towels or fleece blankets on three to four sides of the play area fence to provide some insulation. Even with that insulation, you'll probably still want to keep play time shorter than normal.
• Watch young, and elderly, guinea pigs the most closely. They're the most susceptible to illness resulting from cold and drafts.

We promise -- your guinea pigs will not object to the extra snuggling!

Guinea Pig Care During Cold Snaps

With temperatures fighting to get into the double digits over the next several days (and fighting to stay out of the minus range the next several nights), we thought it would be good to talk about your guinea pigs' needs during (frigidly) cold weather.

Even though your guinea pigs are inside, you still need to be concerned about them staying warm enough on cold days and nights. Cold chills are as dangerous for their health as heat and humidity, and so they need you to watch them closely and give them some extra insulation.

• Keep cages far away from windows and doors -- even interior doors leading to breezeways and garages. Drafts from doors and windows can cause colds, respiratory infections, and pneumonia.

• Cover cages at night with something lightweight but warm (e.g., heavy towels, yardage of fleece from the fabric store, fleece blankets, baby blankets). The typical fleece blanket sold for $10-$15 everywhere from Walgreen's to J.C. Penney is large enough to cover the whole top of a 2x3 C&C cage and hang about one-third of the way down both ends and the back of the cage. (No matter what type of cover you use, medium-sized binder clips are a cheap and easy way to hold the cover in place.)

• Portable heating devices of any kind (e.g., electric space heaters, kerosene heaters) should not be near cages. Hay and bedding falling (or getting kicked) out of the cage become fire hazards when portable heating devices are nearby.

• Cages should not be in basements (unless they've been converted into well-heated family living space).

• Guinea pigs' living environment needs to be 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. On single-digit days, 68 degrees is probably the best, and healthiest, minimum temperature. If you're worried that the room they're in might not stay warm enough during frigid weather, relocate the cage temporarily to a space that doesn't worry you. Trust your intuition -- when in doubt, move the cage out.

• Guinea pigs will draw warmth from each other and from cozy cups. On really cold days, consider giving them some extras like fleece saks, pieces of fleece from the fabric store, or old thick hand towels (bath, not kitchen). Our ferret-loving friends tell us that they cut up old sweatshirts and sweatpants.

• Don't take guinea pigs outside unless it's absolutely necessary (e.g., vet visit, family leaving for temporary quarters due to extended power outage after a storm). If you do have to take them out, put towels and a fleece sak in the carrier, and drape a towel over the carrier before stepping out in the cold. (Cindy sometimes wraps a heat disc in a thin towel and puts that in the carrier.)

And don't forget -- cold weather is great for snuggling!

Sometimes It Just Takes The Right Roommate

Bud and Sedona have been with us for awhile, each challenging Cindy and the vets at Pieper Olson in Middletown with long lists of ailments and woes.

Sedona, who came to us young and pregnant from horrible circumstances in Pennsylvania, has always been a bit of a brat. She is very cute...and she knows how to work it. Anyone who picks her up quickly finds a guinea pig wedged under their chin, conning them into carrying her all over Cindy's house. She's spent much of her time in her own cage, not because she doesn't get along with anyone but because of her chronic teeth problems (her lower front tooth is a mere sliver, and her upper front teeth require regular trimming). It took her all day to eat what other pigs devoured in 15 minutes, even with Cindy chopping her lettuce, carrots, and peppers into very small pieces. Living with other pigs, she never had a fair chance at her veggies.

Bud is an older neutered male who was mishandled before coming to the rescue, and has been plagued with more than his fair share of medical problems, including one of the worst abscesses we've dealt with. As a result of the prior mishandling, and all the poking and proding (albeit gentle) that came with his medical treatments, he is -- quite frankly -- a cranky middle-aged male. In the giant sanctuary cage, he didn't fit in with the herd, and had problems with Shane (an even older male) in particular. He didn't like being held by anyone but Cindy, who may be the only one who truly understands him.

To combat their loneliness, Cindy put Sedona and Bud in side-by-side cages. She'd pull out the divider grids so they could play together for a few hours after they'd both eaten. Early in the fall, she decided to leave Sedona and Bud together all the time, figuring that if Sedona started losing weight, she'd separate them again. A couple of nights later, during evening feeding time, Sedona snatched an entire lettuce leaf away from Bud and proceeded to munch quite happily. The next day, she swiped Bud's carrot and red pepper. 

We have no idea what changed, whether some healthy competition between Sedona and Bud sparked her eating or something else happened that you'd have to be able to "speak guinea pig" to understand. All those months spent chopping and dicing veggies because she couldn't eat them whole and then things change as if someone flipped a switch. Bud's disposition has improved greatly, and he no longer expresses objections about being held by someone other than Cindy.

What we do know is that neither pig has ever looked happier. At any time of the day, you can walk up to their cage and find them munching contently together or curled up in a cozy cup.

Just goes to show you that the right roommate can change everything...

A Better Hair Dryer For Guinea Pigs

Guinea pigs, by and large, don't need regular baths. That's not to say that they couldn't benefit from one every once in a while, but it's not necessary.

There are, of course, exceptions. The most common exceptions include:

• guinea pigs who are being treated for mites, lice, or skin irritations

• long-haired guinea pigs whose fur is not trimmed up above floor level (thus being left to drag through cage bedding)

• guinea pigs who have gotten dirty as a result of diarrhea or excessive urination

• long-haired guinea pigs that have been poorly groomed and brushed

• guinea pigs who have been living in/rescued from filthy living conditions

Some guinea pigs enjoy a good, warm bath. Most protest over some part of the experience, if not the entire affair. If there's a part that they hate, it's being dried by a hair dryer. You can understand why -- most handheld blow dryers are noisy and hot.

 Enter the Vidal Sassoon Answers blow dryer for fine hair. Created for humans with baby-fine, limp hair that's prone to breakage at the hands of brushes, dryers, and curling irons, this dryer is also an excellent product for anyone who has to groom small pets.

Its light weight means it's easy to hold with one hand while you're using the other hand to keep a wet and very peeved guinea pig from wandering off. It's significantly quieter than the typical hair dryer, which means it won't hurt your piggy's sensitive hearing or drown out the reassurances you coo to help steady rattled nerves. It circulates effective drying air without making your piggy feel like he's standing in front of an industrial turbo fan. And its heat settings are not nearly as hot or harsh as those found on the average for-all-hair-types dryers. Lastly, there's the "ion output" -- we're still not entirely sure what that means but do know it has something to do with the fact that your piggy's coat is soft and shiny when it's dry.

This product can be found online and at stores like Walmart for about $20.

Myth #10: Small Cages Don't Do Lasting Harm

Sparky came to us by way of a thrift store, an abandonment case that involved pre-teens who were not taking proper care of him and a newly pregnant mom who thought she couldn't be around him. (Sparky was the inspiration for our Myth #9 posting.) When I arrived at the store that Saturday morning two weeks before Easter, I wasn't sure what I'd find. When you're picking up an abandoned guinea pig, you're never entirely sure what you're going to find; too often, it's a sad, thin, unkempt piggie.

Sparky turned out to be a beautiful black Peruvian-Abyssinian mix with a swipe of white on his nose. Despite the commotion of the thrift store, and all the people who stuck fingers through the cage bars or put their faces up to the cage, he was remarkably even-tempered. He was sociable, clean, healthy, and overall well cared for.

Except for his cage.

The cage was about 22" x 14", thinly lined with pine bedding. The wire cage top was falling apart pretty much every way that it could fall apart and was held together by binder clips and twist ties. Sparky was sitting on the right side of the cage; his food dish, water bottle, and pile of hay was on the left. He had less than 10" of space for moving around. And no hidey house.

When I brought him home to foster, he was placed in a C&C cage. For three days, he stayed on the right side of the cage...not venturing more than six inches in any direction. I spent an evening coaxing him to be a brave piggie and walk around the cage. For four days, I had to artfully position veggies around his cage to encourage him to move around. And he was obsessed with his waffle-block house.

Once he was comfortable with the cage, I put him in a play area that was bigger than his cage. Again, he would not venture more than six inches in any direction. Even the girl piggies in the neighboring play areas could not lure him out. Strategically placed veggies didn't either. It was all enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Finally, after four days, I put my male in the play area with Sparky. In a few minutes, they were doing a piggie train around the perimeter of the play area and criss-crossing back and forth across the middle. The next night, though, Sparky forgot what a brave little piggie he'd been the night before and Winston once again had to pay a visit and coax Sparky around. And had to for several more nights.

I eventually got Sparky to the point where he'd run around my dining room or, at least, around the perimeter. In his cage and play area, he still favors the right side. And whenever he's introduced to a new environment, he reverts to his old habit -- right side of the cage, six inches in either direction. It's all still enough to bring tears to my eyes.

We can't stress it frequently or loudly enough -- pet store cages do not give guinea pigs enough room to live and play. The single best cage environment that owners can give their guinea pigs is a C&C cage. Your pigs will love you for it!