Piggies!

A couple weeks ago (April Fool's Day to be exact), I woke up and randomly decided I wanted to go get a guinea pig. I've always wanted a guinea pig, but my parents never let me get one. I had hamsters and birds but never a guinea pig. I realized that I'm the parent now, so I can get a guinea pig. The boys' karate instructor told me about this pet store in Wallingford that sells ridiculously expensive puppies and has all sorts of exotic pets, so that is where we went. They had a couple of older guinea pigs for sale with the cage and everything in the cage for fairly cheap. I chose one, and on the way home the boys named him Bruce Wayne. I call him Bruce. I then took a picture with my phone and sent it to Aaron. All his colleagues thought it was an April Fool's joke! Poor Aaron.

Noah feeding him some Timothy Hay.

Hello.

Please let me play with him!

As is my nature, I immediately came home and started learning all I could about guinea pigs. I really had no idea how to take care of a guinea pig. Of course the first thing I learned is that they are herd animals and will be lonely by themselves. Crap! Now I needed to get another guinea pig. But wait! They also need more room than can be provided by a pet store cage. I would need to build them a cage first before getting another one. So I collected all the supplies necessary to build a larger cage. I spent an entire day on that project, driving around to get the cheapest wire grids I could find and then to another store for the corrugated plastic and then I forgot the zip ties. Sheesh! But I finally figured it out and excitedly put Bruce in his new and improved cage. He seemed much happier already; he came out of his hidey house much more often and wouldn't run away whenever we walked by the cage.

I then spent several evenings searching Petfinder and Craigslist for a young, male guinea pig. I finally found someone nearby, so out we all went to pick up another guinea pig. He was born on Valentine's Day, so he is just a couple months old. He is much smaller than Bruce and a lot faster. We decided to name him Remy, after the rat in Ratatouille.

Isn't he a cutey!?

I then spent several nights researching the best way to introduce guinea pigs to each other. I was a bit nervous about it but finally took the plunge. We needed to introduce them in neutral territory; somewhere neither of them have ever been before. I decided on the bathtub. We put them both in and they immediately started sniffing each other, circling each other, and humping each other. The hope was that Remy, being much younger, would allow Bruce to be the dominant pig. After about 20-30 minutes in the tub we moved them into their cage. The one thing I wasn't prepared for during the introduction was the smell. Being males, they both were trying to put their scent on everything, and it stunk! I had candles going all night and the next day. It took a couple days, but Bruce finally won the alpha male title. They cuddle together and sleep together in the same "pigloo." Remy looks to Bruce for protection and hides behind him. Since he's younger he's still quite a bit more nervous than Bruce.

They like to cuddle up in this corner. Bruce always lays in front of Remy to protect him.

Here's a pretty good shot of the cage. It's called a c and c cage which stands for cubes and coroplast. They even have a little hay loft with a ramp.

We settled on keeping them in Sarah's room. She is the most interested in them after me. She likes to watch them and try to hand feed them their hay. She also hates going to sleep at night by herself and having them in her room has actually helped with the bedtime routine. I'm also less nervous about leaving since Ruby isn't allowed upstairs.

Today, while taking a nap in Sarah's room after church I heard them making all sorts of noise. I looked up and saw them running around a popcorning (click to see a video of what popcorning looks like) all over the cage. Popcorning is when a guinea pig jumps up into the air as a way to show excitement or happiness. It was so cute and made me happy to know that they are settling in and happy in their new home together.

Keeping guinea pigs is definitely not as "simple" as one might assume. They have a lifespan of 5-8 years and require daily feeding of pellets, hay, and veggies/fruit (for vitamin C) as well as cleaning out their cage every 3-5 days. They are also happiest if they can get some floor time for exercise each day, and it's best to hold and talk to them a little bit each day to make sure they are used to your smell and voice. Aaron thinks I'm crazy for spending so much of my attention and effort on "rodents" but whatever. What can I say, I'm a weirdo!