How To Select The Perfect Guinea Pig
When purchasing guinea pigs, you should put some serious thought into purchasing two or more — even though one guinea pig is probably enough to keep you entertained and alert.
As extremely social creatures, guinea pigs love the company of others. If left by themselves, they get lonely and their health will suffer.
Your guinea pig needs attention and is going to get lonely very fast and cry for your attention more often if you have just one. You don’t have to spend quite as much time with them if he or she has a partner or playmate to keep them entertained.
The Sex of the Matter
Should you get two men, two women, one of each, or three men, or three women or three… My Word! When you get up to higher numbers, just imagine all of the combinations you can think of.
Sex doesn’t matter too much if you’re going to get just a guinea pig. Male guinea pigs have more energy and need more exercise by nature, while their female counterparts are going to be more docile and less active.
A common misconception is that if you put two male guinea pigs in the same cage, they’re going to fight to the death. While it sounds like something violent you would watch on Pay Per View, it’s nothing but wrong.
If two male guinea pigs don’t have enough cage space they will fight but given plenty of room, each will have his own territory and be content with it.
You cannot introduce a female guinea pig to a cage if you already have two male guinea pigs. A fight for dominance — and therefore the female — will ensue between the males and the loser would have to be removed from the cage immediately. The dominate male will keep the loser away from both the food and water if he’s left in there and he will starve to death.
You will find that two females will get along well in the same cage, though they will ‘bicker’ a bit of food and water (Please, no ‘typical female’ jokes from the men!) It’s very unlikely that major fight will break out, however, because of their docile nature.
A female and a male will actually get along best in the same cage. The male accepts the female as his and acts peacefully towards her because she acknowledges that he is dominate.
This peaceful situation’s only problem? When you leave a male and a female unattended, the puppies (The term for baby guinea pigs) can happen.
I’ve very possible that two lively guinea pigs can give birth to literally dozens of puppies in just a year because the female cycle is only 18 days, and the gestation of guinea pigs are only two months, which is relatively long for rodents.
I’m Staring at my Guinea Pigs… Help!
Many pet stories will have a least one if not two or more cages of guinea pigs. There is a demand for the puppies guinea pigs produce, and they give birth a lot.
Make sure to get two from the same cage if you’re purchasing more than one. This will resolve many issues that might come up from fighting in their cage.
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hi my name is rica. we have a guine pig.