Advice needed?

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Carebearpiggy

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hello, I’m planning a trip for October and will be leaving early a wed morning and coming back late Friday evening. I have 4 Guinea pigs and while I have asked someone to look in on them, I’m not sure I can 100% trust them to care for them properly. I need advice on how to leave the piggies for this long if the person I asked to look after them doesn’t do a good job? Thank you
 
Is this person definitely going to be reliable enough to go in twice every day?

You can make it easier by preparing boxes or bags with each days portion of food in (veg in one bag, pellets in another) so all the person has to do is empty each box into the cage on the appropriate day and time of day. (I have just done this to aid my sister when I went on holiday - she is reliable but not experienced with piggies so i made multiple bags for each of my pairs of animals labelled it with their name and the day and time it was to be fed).

With everything else it will be a case of showing what has to be done - refilling bottles, how much hay to add and how to spot clean etc.
 
Piggies&buns said:
Is this person definitely going to be reliable enough to go in twice every day?

You can make it easier by preparing boxes or bags with each days portion of food in (veg in one bag, pellets in another) so all the person has to do is empty each box into the cage on the appropriate day and time of day. (I have just done this to aid my sister when I went on holiday - she is reliable but not experienced with piggies so i made multiple bags for each of my pairs of animals labelled it with their name and the day and time it was to be fed).

With everything else it will be a case of showing what has to be done - refilling bottles, how much hay to add and how to spot clean etc.
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That’s the thing I thought so, but now I’m not so sure and unfortunately I have no one else to ask and I do not trust a pet sitter. Is there ways I can leave them just in case she doesn’t without having to cut my trip short?
 
Carebearpiggy said:
That’s the thing I thought so, but now I’m not so sure and unfortunately I have no one else to ask and I do not trust a pet sitter. Is there ways I can leave them just in case she doesn’t without having to cut my trip short?
Click to expand...

No, I’m afraid leaving them for that long without somebody checking on them would not be safe - you wouldn’t be able to leave extra veg and pellets in the cage because they would just eat it and potentially then cause themselves to have digestive upsets. Hay and water would need to be topped up regardless.
An actual professional pet sitter (insured and with references etc) should be able to be trusted.
 
Piggies&buns said:
No, I’m afraid leaving them for that long without somebody checking on them would not be safe - you wouldn’t be able to leave extra veg and pellets in the cage because they would just eat it and potentially then cause themselves to have digestive upsets. Hay and water would need to be topped up regardless.
An actual professional pet sitter (insured and with references etc) should be able to be trusted.
Click to expand...
Okay thank you for the reply
 
That's a really difficult situation. Backup measures I can think of are making sure they have multiple water bottles so they don't run out of clean water, and hanging hay bags on the side of the cage so they have a supply of clean hay (just a paper bag with a couple of holes cut in it works fine). They absolutely must not run out of either water or hay, those are the two crucial things. They are guinea pig life support.

This whole thing is not ideal, I hope you manage to figure out some kind of arrangement that you can rely on. It must be pretty worrying to think you have everything figured out and then realise you can't trust the person you thought you could rely on.

Edit to add: a trustworthy person who can look in once a day is definitely better than an untrustworthy one promising to come twice. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush etc.
 
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