Caring for your Guinea Pig

So, you've made the right choice: You bought a guinea pig. And you you came to my glorius site, Super Guinea Pigs! LOL. Guinea Pigs are gentile animals, don't cost much to take care of and very rarely bite unlike hamsters.

To care for your guinea pig, you'll need the following:

  • A reasonably big cage, which your new friend will be able to see out of
  • Water Bottle, which might just come in handy, LOL
  • A food bowl, which also might come in handy
  • Food to go in the bowl, VERY important!
  • A large package of sawdust, or shredded newspapers. I recommend the former, your guinea pig might lick the ink off of the newspapers. When buying your sawdust, you should more likely than not buy cedar, pine is OK, but aspen wood is THE best.Harumpf.
  • Treats or something to clean up after your guinea pig in case he/she goes on a rampage and kickss lotsa saw dust out of his/her cage might also be nice.

    So, you've got all that, or most of it at least? Good.

    Guinea Pigs get dirty sometimes, so it advisable they take a bath every 6 months, check out how at the 'Bath Time!' page

    For feeding your guinea pig you should adopt one of the following strategies from the VERY beginning of your friendship with him or her:

    1. Have their food bowl reasonably full 24 hours a day

    2. Feed your guinea pig at 5 exact times every day, e.g. 7 AM, Noon, 4 PM, 9 PM and right before you go to bed.

    Like humans, guinea pigs can't produce their own Vitamin C, so it is advisable to feed your guinea pig a food high in Vitamin C such as an orange, apple, pear or romaine lettuce at least once a day.

    When feeding your guinea pig lettuce, please make sure it is NOT iceberg lettuce. There is something in there poisinous to guinea pigs. Romaine lettuce is the preffered choice since it contains many nutrients.

    A hay rack in your cage might also please your guinea pig. Hay is a welcome treat once in a while.

    During the summer months, you can let you guinea pig 'graze' on a lawn, as long as there are no pesticides or growing-stuff on the grass. Make sure that your guinea pig is not in direct sunlight or near a draft, you wouldn't want your guinea pig to have a sun stroke, would you?

    When you get a male and a female guinea pig, you are doing it for one particular reason: you want to be a guinea pig breeder! If you did this and didn't know that male and female guinea pigs mated as well as humans. I suggest you run over to the vet right now and get one or both nutered. In case you were wondering, here is a chart showing the guinea pigs reproductive information:

    AGE AT PUBERTYGESTATION PERIODLITTER SIZE
    55-70 days68 days1-4

    That is all I can really think of about caring for your guinea pig, happy caring!

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