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Choosing a Guinea Pig and Bringing it Home

Click on a link below to find out more about choosing a rabbit:

• Are You Ready For A Furry Friend?
• Which Guinea Pig Will You Choose?
• Bringing Your Guinea Pig Home

Are You Ready For a Furry Friend?

Before buying a pet you must make sure that you can care for it properly.

You MUST be able to:

provide the right housing
have room for it to exercise
feed and water it daily
handle it daily
exercise it daily
groom it regularly
clean out the cage daily to control germs
check for signs of illness or disease
take your pet to the vet for regular health checks and other procedures
know someone who will look after it for you when you are away

Once you are happy that you can provide everything that your new pet will need you can then choose the perfect rabbit for yourself.

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Which Guinea Pig Will You Choose?

Controlled breeding of guinea pigs has led to a wide variety of colours and textures of coats. Cavy colours are classed in 3 sections – Agouti (the hair has several different bands of colour), Self-coloured (solid colour) and cavies with markings (combinations of colours in marks on the coat).

There are many different textures and appearances of the coat, ie: Smooth haired; Satin coated (softer and more dense that the Smooth haired); Crowned (with a crown on the head); Abyssinian (with “rosettes” all over the body); Rex (curly hair); Peruvian (long haired with “rosette” on the head); Sheltie (long haired without “rosette”; Texel (long, curly hair); Merino (long curly hair with two “rosettes”);
Alpaca (long, curly hair with “rosette” on forehead).

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Bringing Your Guinea Pig Home

Once you are happy that you can provide everything that your new pet will need you can then choose the perfect guinea pig for yourself. Make sure that you have everything ready for him before you collect him, so that you can pop him into his new home as soon as you arrive and he can spend the first 24hrs getting use to his new environment. Don’t forget that he is naturally timid and will be missing his brothers and sisters.

He will like you to talk to him and will soon get used to the sound of your voice. We suggest you don’t handle him too much for the first day or two, but give him plenty of clean water and feed only hay for the first 24hrs to avoid digestive upset. Introduce his new diet gradually. You will soon know when he has settled in as he will begin to eat, drink and groom himself.

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