Bar chewing

Perkypanda

Perkypanda

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Apr 8, 2016
Messages
257
Reaction score
236
Points
365
Location
Kent, England
So my girl Hetty has developed a new habit of biting the bars (it’s only started about 2 weeks ago) when I’m chopping up the veg. Now she is starting to do it at about the time for dinner - or when she thinks it should be. I’ve tried pushing her lightly down and saying no. She knows and even at the word no she gets down but then it starts again. I’ve also pegged up a tea towel to stop her as I don’t want to give in and feed her as she will then carry on doing it. Any more tips? It’s annoying now and I don’t want her to hurt her teeth (or ruin the bars).
Picture of her looking all innocent.
Thanks!
 

Attachments

  • IMG_4201.webp
    IMG_4201.webp
    51.7 KB · Views: 2
Dear Hetty,
Welcome to Team Bar Chew. I'm sure Wally (@AidaB ) will send you a wheekmail soon. The Hoomans have lots of discussions about how to stop us doing this but nothing really works.
Rumbles and kisses,
Mischievous Master Boris,
P.S. You are very beautiful
P.P.S. The correx is good fun to chew too
IMG20240317222926.webp
 
Wheeky, wheek, welcome to team bar chew Hetty!
I loooove chewing the bars, my hoomans tried everything.
I once went really loopy one full moon, zooming, chewing just being a loopy piggie. The hoomans said I was a werepig!

Just look after your teeth pls.
To chew or not to chew that is the question?!
With wheeks from Wally 💘

IMG_6671.webp
 
Apologies for Wally, he loves a chew on the bars.
In all honesty, nothing works.
Our Hamish & Hector 🌈who are no longer with us, had a mini bar chew habit. Just delaying food until the chewing stopped or covering the bars with a blanket or fleece worked and we broke the habit. Even just stopping for 30seconds and food arrived- was enough to disassociate the bar chewing and food.

Wally is however another level, we tried the covering the bar’s trick & distracting.
We have cardboard in a couple of spots preventing access to the bars, inside his CC which if he is really determined won’t stop him!

I still try and encourage him away from the bars to eat. So if I have a piece of veg/a pellet in my hand…. Wally will be standing at the bars, or chewing the bars. I will hold my hand behind him so he gets down off the bars and turns to eat his veg, away from the bars.

Safe to say it’s still a work in progress, he has calmed a lot in the last 9 months with us, but he is a loopy character, who we love, apart from his bar chewing habit. ❤️
Wally has not yet broken a tooth. 🤞🏽🤞🏽

If you pop bar chewing, cage biting or any thing similar in the search box you will find many discussions on the same theme, with various suggestions, which may give you a few other ideas to try.


Your Hetty looks very sweet and innocent.
:luv: Almost like she could have been Hamish’s 🌈 cousin.
IMG_5558.webp
 
One of mine is also a bar chewer - although they live in the shed so it’s not continuously annoying for me - but he does it as soon as I approach the shed at dinner time.
I ignore him, feed the others first etc but nothing stops him - I try as I might to train him into stopping but at the same time he is trying to train me into realising it’s Hugo’s world and he needs to be obeyed!
 
The Tribe collectively bar chew as soon as we hear mummy chopping veg in the kitchen or rustling with the pellets. We keep it up until the last of us has been served in up to 13 cages. So far, we have successfully defeated any attempts of her to undermine this activity, including abusing daddy for the veg chopping - after the third time we had made the connection!

Mummy is still working on learning how to time split so she can chop veg and serve it and any pellets to everyone of us simultaneously. Doctor Who as been contacted years ago but has so far not answered any urgent requests for help.

PS: In all those years and with around 90 piggies, there has only been one case of snapped incisors in an elderly sow.
 
Dear Hetty

If you read my replies to piggies in distress you will see that bar biting (though not so hard it breaks your teeth) is one of the many ways to train your Slave into giving you want you want. Although they say to the contrary, they find the noise it makes strangely comforting.

Bar biting is in many of the GPU Manuals as helpful advice on training Slaves.

Your friend in a crisis

Miss Bramble
Shop Steward
 
For over 6 years I have been telling Red not to bite the bars or he will break his teeth. Just over a week ago he broke a tooth, snapped it in half. It has now almost reached the length of the other one and the bottom teeth have worn even so not too much of disaster luckily. Red has taught every other piggie that has come into this house to bite the bars, although none have mastered the art of making so much noise or being as persistent as him. He now has perspex on the bars on the two sides that are open to the room, he can no longer bite his favourite bars and stands there licking the perspex and looking furious when he's wanting me to hurry up with veg. Red thinks hooman's are infuriating and stupid!

IMG_1748.webp
 
Thanks. At least I know she isn’t alone 😂
Annoyingly the bars are white so they are losing the paint which doesn’t look good as well as obviously not being good for her. I’ll keep up with the distraction and not giving in to her and hopefully that might work 🤞🏼
 
IMG_1764.webpIMG_1763.webp


Reds got a piece of Corex where the cage goes into the alcove then Perspex to the bottom corner and across the bottom. It is slid between the Corex and the grids and held at the top with a bulldog clip. Brillo has Corex along the side of his cage to protect the curtains!

IMG_1768.webp

He is not amused!
 
Perkypanda said:
Thanks. At least I know she isn’t alone 😂
Annoyingly the bars are white so they are losing the paint which doesn’t look good as well as obviously not being good for her. I’ll keep up with the distraction and not giving in to her and hopefully that might work 🤞🏼
Click to expand...
Yes mine were white too, but are now rusty in the chewed places. I might need to get some new grids
 
Pretty Hetty,

I'll happily be your man and partner in crime. No doesn't exist and I drive the whole neighbourhood crazy if I want to. IMG_20240821_180806.webpYou can call me Chip Bar Bite Tamale, girl!

/Chip, wants a girlfriend
 
Mourne is a constant bar chewer unless he wants my attention. If he wants my attention he goes to his begging corner and props himself against the grid. The bar chewing is for Bann's attention, and because Bann ignores it, he does it more. 🤷‍♂️
 
Unfortunately guinea pigs are very quick to learn associations, and very, very, very slow to unlearn them (if they ever do). Our two screamed at Pig Daddy this morning because he opened the kitchen drawer and picked up a sieve! Apparently they associate the faint noise of sieve handling in the next room with being fed?!

So yeah, once the association between bar biting and food has formed, it's really hard to shift it.

Covering the bars seems like a good move but I feel like you would have to keep them covered for a good long time to have any chance of them unlearning the association.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top