Can A Pig See Colours

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gizzy

gizzy

Adult Guinea Pig
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I free range a group of pigs through out the night , and so that they are not wandering around in the dark l have a low power light on all night .
Recently l bought led lights as the power consumption is a fraction of standard bulbs , and for my pig room l bought a very low power adjustable led bulb so l could have it standard brightness when l am in there doing things , and a would adjust to just a few watts for them to see whilst free ranging


This low power setting had a funny efect on certain colours , orange (carrots ) would take on a phosperesant glow , and when l fed them carrot in normal light then tured the light down the carrot slices would change color, and the pigs (all of them ) would react , some would stop eating for a few seconds and others would reject the carrot and leave it for up to 5 minutes, l assume till they consider it to be safe :eek::eek:
 
gizzy said:
I free range a group of pigs through out the night , and so that they are not wandering around in the dark l have a low power light on all night .
Recently l bought led lights as the power consumption is a fraction of standard bulbs , and for my pig room l bought a very low power adjustable led bulb so l could have it standard brightness when l am in there doing things , and a would adjust to just a few watts for them to see whilst free ranging


This low power setting had a funny efect on certain colours , orange (carrots ) would take on a phosperesant glow , and when l fed them carrot in normal light then tured the light down the carrot slices would change color, and the pigs (all of them ) would react , some would stop eating for a few seconds and others would reject the carrot and leave it for up to 5 minutes, l assume till they consider it to be safe :eek::eek:
Click to expand...

Guinea pigs can see colours mostly similar to us, but they perceive reddish tones differently. That is likely the reason for the reaction.
 
Wiebke said:
Guinea pigs can see colours mostly similar to us, but they perceive reddish tones differently. That is likely the reason for the reaction.
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Thanks Wiebke, just went googling :) Really interesting. Apparently their depth perception in vision isn't great. I find it odd that we don't all see the same, vision is fascinating.

Blind piggies do seem to do very well also. Meg used to navigate fine, the occasional bump but all in all could build up speed without crashing into table legs etc.... I guess they use their whiskers also
 
sport_billy said:
Thanks Wiebke, just went googling :) Really interesting. Apparently their depth perception in vision isn't great. I find it odd that we don't all see the same, vision is fascinating.

Blind piggies do seem to do very well also. Meg used to navigate fine, the occasional bump but all in all could build up speed without crashing into table legs etc.... I guess they use their whiskers also
Click to expand...

High depth perception is more typical for predators.

Blind guinea pigs use a combination of scent (their usual paths through the grass are scented), touch from paws and whiskers as well as being able to build up a surprisingly big and detailed mind map of their territory.

My blind old lady Mali liked to follow the scent spoors of the exloring triplets which had often been roaming before her right across the hall into the loo or the kitchen and she liked to engineer her own zooming loops, clearly following here own scent spoor.

Mischief quite obviously rebuilt her own mental mind map of the lawn and borders again after she lost sight pretty quickly. It was a fascinating process to watch. At the end of it, she was even doing little zoomies through the border, clearly following that year's path along the length of the flower border. Her companion Minx loved to race it at breakneck speed and would gnaw off whole stems of a rosebush if necessary (not quite to my liking) if she decided to eliminate a kink!
 
This is really interesting, I am going to show my daughter this thread. It is one of the (many) guinea pig related topics she has quizzed the vet about!
 
I've read that guinea pigs do see color, but may not have the same range of colors that we do. Many animals only see part of the color spectrum- including us. Many insects see colors that we don't! From my understanding, guinea pigs rely on sight far less than we do (which is why blind pigs adapt fairly easily, like my Sundae!) and they have typical herbivore/prey vision- poor depth perception, but a lot more peripheral vision than we do. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint- predatory animals have better binocular vision because depth perception is important for hunting, while prey animals have no real need for depth perception, but benefit from eyes further to the sides with wide peripheral vision to catch movement behind them and give them a chance to get away.
 
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