Concern for a Facebook group

karonus

karonus

Adult Guinea Pig
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I was briefly a member of a Facebook group for guinea pigs. However I have left as I cannot support a group recommending cooked potatoes as a suitable food for piggies. When I questioned it I was told by an admin breeders have been doing it for years. In the 12 years we have kept piggies I have considered potatoes as poisonous. Have I been wrong.
 
I'm in that group but never had much trouble aside from them saying not to do boar cleanings. They have so many members my posts never get seen as it is. I stopped following the group. I got muted for a month and without warning for posting a cute gpig wallpaper.
 
Feeding boiled potatoes is a very old fashioned idea, much like feeding cats saucers of milk is too. These practises may not kill an animal outright but they are harmful to them and these days we should know better.
There is an odd mix of bad advice out there. Some which is out dated and needs revisiting and some which appears to be made up by people who have been keeping piggies for like five minutes.
 
I was listening to the Virgin Radio breakfast show earlier this week when Vassos Alexander said that guinea pigs don't need hay and his eat carrots and nuts.☹️

I just wanted to cry.😢
 
I left a group recently as someone in a breeders group was saying their pigs didn't seem to eat much of the food they were giving them, which was only nuggets and fruit and veg. No hay. Myself and another mentioned the proportions of food types for healthy GPs, but weren't replied to. Then another breeder piped up and recommended the feed them a certain muesli mix that they feed all theirs - no mention of hay. I replied to them stating muesli wasn't right for them, and another breeder replied to me all defensively saying that their pigs liked it! I said they may well love it, but it didn't mean it was good for them. I felt like saying that they'd probably love shortbread biscuits and sweets too, but you shouldn't feed those either!
Scary info circulating in places where first time GP owners are seeking advice 😔
 
The sad and worrying thing is that people are trying to do the right thing for their guinea pigs and don’t realise they’re getting bad advice.
At least here we ensure that anyone who finds us is given the best advice and treated with respect
 
It's so hard for people new to pet keeping to get the right information though. The issue is a lot of people have experience with an animal but haven't done much recent and relevant research, or have done lots of research and are highly educated but have little experience with specific animals. It's hard to know who to trust. A vet told me that my boys would definitely fight if I didn't neuter them both (spoiler alert they're unneuterd and live happily together), same vet and a pet shop employee told me my tiny cage was fine. Yet social media, pintrest, YouTube and this forum have taught me about large c&c cages and feeding a large range of veggies but pinterest and other forums also told me that piggies like to swim. So you really have to approach all new information with discernment and never just trust what you read even if it comes from a reliable source like here.
 
About 15 years ago when I had my first piggies Lenny & Gizmo, the girl in the Garden Centre where I bought them from told me how to hold piggies safely, how they needed a variety of veg every day (no lettuce of any kind) and that hay was their main diet. She also told me to feed them wholemeal bread occasionally and muesli (NOT pellets) as these where good for them! She sold me a "very large" cage for 2 boars (100cms x 40cms) that I now use as my hospital cage. Lenny & Gizmo weren't in it for very long as my Mum's partner built them a much larger hutch and a separate run.

I guess what I'm trying to add to this thread is that although times change in the aspects of guinea pig keeping and we become better informed, a lot of people refuse to learn about how to keep piggies better and stick to the old ways as they have "always done it" and everything has been fine.
 
I just don't know why people would take breeders as the person with knowledge anyway. Their goal isn't ensuring their pets get best life possible. It doesn't matter if they don't live to the full potential of their life span. Piggies are replaceable and easy to 'make'. They're using animals to make money instead of getting proper job and putting them in danger, as pregnancies aren't always successful. Plus, the idea of making more animals when so many are without proper care and need home is just irresponsible from supposedly sentient beings....
Yes, there's little in the world I dislike more than breeders... :))
I cannot be part of any groups like that.
 
It seems as though there are lots of bad Facebook groups! I also left one (Floofy guinea pigs) as although there was no doubt that the posters loved their guinea pigs, many of them treated them like toys and there was so much bad advice/ poor care.
It actually made me really sad as you realise how lots of guinea pigs around the world live. It wasn't that they were being maliciously ill treated, but some of the photos of their cages were shocking, really tiny/ guinea pigs living alone/ one poster was holding a mobile phone that was constantly receiving notifications right next to a guinea pig sat on a table and asking if the noise it was making meant it liked the noise (the guinea pig was making the noise they make when they are nervous)/ people taking their guinea pigs to the local park and taking photos of them loose on the grass!
As others have said, I tried to tactfully provide accurate information, but quite often people disagreed with me :-(
 
I’m the same, I joined a couple and saw horrible misinformation and decided not to bother. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try it again, today I’ve decided I might just leave them all. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall sometimes. I’m glad that I found this group years ago rather than taking to Facebook, it makes you realise how much of a god send the forum is
 
I also avoid FB groups now. The only groups I have are books group. I had experience in the past of linking this forum to a post for advice, and an admin removed my post saying no outside links allowed and was warned. So I left that group. Another group was a poster kept on posting her small guinea pig cage and being defensive about it. Loads are saying that her cage was fine since she gives them floor times anyways. I left that group as well. I stopped responding to a rescue's FB group coz even there, loads are giving misinformation. I'm only active in this forum now.

My hubby has been keeping guinea pigs for years and he used to house 2 boars in Ferplast 100. During the day though, he used to put them in the green house where the piggies have another enclosure. When I arrived in the UK in 2011, we bought our newly adopted sows a 2-floor hutch after living a couple of months in the small cage, thinking the hutch was better and bigger. Then I started letting them run in a small area of our living room. Eventually I started attaching a C&C cage at the bottom of the hutch and using the fleece you can buy from shops as bedding. When I joined the forum, I read about how piggies needed a bigger cage and that there are loads of ways I can use C&C and fleece. From then, our current setup evolved. My piggies were free roaming already though before I joined here, so at least it gave me relief that I was doing a good thing giving them maximum space, even if hubby refused at first. I stopped him putting the piggies in the green house because it's so tedious cleaning the piggy area there and I can't see the piggies during the day.
 
Animal groups on Facebook are the absolute worst. I joined a group for the Atlantic provinces which had a few thousand members. Most people had their pigs in horribly small, store-bought cages. If anybody mentioned that the cages were too small, a bunch of people would comment essentially “well my guinea pig lived until 8 and he lived in a small cage his whole life and he was happy!”. Trying to provide logic or reason was always fruitless. I also remember one user who fed her lone guinea pig apples every day and as a result, it got what I assumed were acidic burns on its mouth. Some people recommended going to the vet but most of the responses were natural home remedies which didn’t make much sense. I do not participate in these settings any longer!
 
The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything and it's often impossible to say what's useful information and what's garbage. I haven't tried joining any Facebook animal groups, but I've perused a couple and seen a lot of terrible advice. Some of it's outdated, some of it's nonsense. I'm in Canada and the prevailing wisdom seems to be that small animals are easily replaceable toys for children that aren't worth the money for vet care and as someone who has had rodents and small animals my whole life, that infuriates me. Once on a Facebook friend's post about her child's hamster dying, a friend of hers (not mutual, thank God!) commented on how they got their kid a hamster with the promise that the child would feed it and give it water, and when the child didn't keep up with feeding and watering the animal, they let it die to teach the kid to be more responsible! Like... you let an animal die horribly! I didn't respond to this stranger, but I actually cried... I have hamsters too and the thought of either of them starving to death and dehydrating in misery breaks my heart.
 
Freela said:
The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything and it's often impossible to say what's useful information and what's garbage. I haven't tried joining any Facebook animal groups, but I've perused a couple and seen a lot of terrible advice. Some of it's outdated, some of it's nonsense. I'm in Canada and the prevailing wisdom seems to be that small animals are easily replaceable toys for children that aren't worth the money for vet care and as someone who has had rodents and small animals my whole life, that infuriates me. Once on a Facebook friend's post about her child's hamster dying, a friend of hers (not mutual, thank God!) commented on how they got their kid a hamster with the promise that the child would feed it and give it water, and when the child didn't keep up with feeding and watering the animal, they let it die to teach the kid to be more responsible! Like... you let an animal die horribly! I didn't respond to this stranger, but I actually cried... I have hamsters too and the thought of either of them starving to death and dehydrating in misery breaks my heart.
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That's horrific. I've had 5 hamsters and each had as much personality and individuality as any other animal - I mean can you imagine doing that to a cat or a dog?!
 
Freela said:
The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything and it's often impossible to say what's useful information and what's garbage. I haven't tried joining any Facebook animal groups, but I've perused a couple and seen a lot of terrible advice. Some of it's outdated, some of it's nonsense. I'm in Canada and the prevailing wisdom seems to be that small animals are easily replaceable toys for children that aren't worth the money for vet care and as someone who has had rodents and small animals my whole life, that infuriates me. Once on a Facebook friend's post about her child's hamster dying, a friend of hers (not mutual, thank God!) commented on how they got their kid a hamster with the promise that the child would feed it and give it water, and when the child didn't keep up with feeding and watering the animal, they let it die to teach the kid to be more responsible! Like... you let an animal die horribly! I didn't respond to this stranger, but I actually cried... I have hamsters too and the thought of either of them starving to death and dehydrating in misery breaks my heart.
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Some people shouldn’t have pets! 🤬
 
Freela said:
The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything and it's often impossible to say what's useful information and what's garbage. I haven't tried joining any Facebook animal groups, but I've perused a couple and seen a lot of terrible advice. Some of it's outdated, some of it's nonsense. I'm in Canada and the prevailing wisdom seems to be that small animals are easily replaceable toys for children that aren't worth the money for vet care and as someone who has had rodents and small animals my whole life, that infuriates me. Once on a Facebook friend's post about her child's hamster dying, a friend of hers (not mutual, thank God!) commented on how they got their kid a hamster with the promise that the child would feed it and give it water, and when the child didn't keep up with feeding and watering the animal, they let it die to teach the kid to be more responsible! Like... you let an animal die horribly! I didn't respond to this stranger, but I actually cried... I have hamsters too and the thought of either of them starving to death and dehydrating in misery breaks my heart.
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OMG that is so awful!
Someone at my work told us that her children had lost the school guinea pig and she thought a fox had taken it. She said "I told them there were foxes around and they still left it out on the grass". I was horrified thinking that she knew the danger but left her primary school children responsible for the guinea pig because she'd warned them! So irresponsible.
 
I am part of said group and some of the information given is ridiculous!

Ive just this minute been told off by an admin for advising that lettuce apart from iceberg can be fed daily and her telling me that lettuce can’t be fed daily and that cabbage and spinach can!
 
Freela said:
The problem with social media is that anyone can say anything and it's often impossible to say what's useful information and what's garbage. I haven't tried joining any Facebook animal groups, but I've perused a couple and seen a lot of terrible advice. Some of it's outdated, some of it's nonsense. I'm in Canada also and the prevailing wisdom seems to be that small animals are easily replaceable toys for children that aren't worth the money for vet care and as someone who has had rodents and small animals my whole life, that infuriates me. Once on a Facebook friend's post about her child's hamster dying, a friend of hers (not mutual, thank God!) commented on how they got their kid a hamster with the promise that the child would feed it and give it water, and when the child didn't keep up with feeding and watering the animal, they let it die to teach the kid to be more responsible! Like... you let an animal die horribly! I didn't respond to this stranger, but I actually cried... I have hamsters too and the thought of either of them starving to death and dehydrating in misery breaks my heart.
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I totally agree! Also in Canada, and the myth that guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, mice etc are “children’s pets” that don’t require adult supervision and intervention is very concerning.
One of my coworkers has the two most destructive and badly behaved young kids I’ve ever seen in my life. When I rescued my first two piggies boys, he asked me if he should get guinea pigs for his kids and I was like “please please no”. They require more work, care and attention than adults here will acknowledge...and that only means suffering and possibly death for our small friends. (He ended up getting two kittens...which is probably a better plan as they actually require less daily upkeep, can entertain each other and the parents more understand the need for vet treatment and supervision of the animal care. I still “pray” for these kitties!)
Finding proper medical care and information for small pets here is not easy (nor is it cheap, and lots of parents don’t want to put $100s to medical bills for their “disposable” child’s pet).
 
I sometimes wonder what grows out of children after they've seen their parents neglecting and abusing animals... I mean, you can be banned from keeping animals, but you can continue having children... UK's animal laws are very basic and to be prosecuted you have to do something evil, most of the time kids see it.

It's very shocking to hear that Canada is like that. I've considered it to be modern country with resources to provide for their pets. Guessing they've moved to the "consumer stage" use and replace? Very sad...
 
Hath said:
I sometimes wonder what grows out of children after they've seen their parents neglecting and abusing animals... I mean, you can be banned from keeping animals, but you can continue having children... UK's animal laws are very basic and to be prosecuted you have to do something evil, most of the time kids see it.

It's very shocking to hear that Canada is like that. I've considered it to be modern country with resources to provide for their pets. Guessing they've moved to the "consumer stage" use and replace? Very sad...
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It’s just a mindset that needs to change. Small pets have long been cheap pet store purchases and classroom teaching animals. I think it is changing...and seems much better now than when I was growing up. We just need to keep reinforcing that animals are not toys or disposable. It would help to have better information at pet stores and rescues about care...and more experienced vets. There are only a handful in Vancouver and it took dedicated effort to find them. I can only imagine in rural locations, it’s basically impossible to find a vet with extensive knowledge of small animal care.
 
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