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guinea stress

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I have a 3 year old. I also have a cat.

My son is very well behaved. I have been preparing him for the new pets, and I know he will be very gentle with his voice around the piggies & obviously he wont be picking them up or holding them for a while. That's mama's job as he says.

However I'm wondering about whether the loud noises that sometimes come with having a small child will overly stress the guinea pigs. I already know where i will put their cage when we have family come visit (they can get loud). But normally their cage will be in our family room. They will be in a spot that isn't necessarily the center of attention but is still part of everyday life.

Also i wonder if having a cat stare at them will freak them out at all? Obviously the cat cant get to them for two reasons: the table the cage rests on will leave no space for him to sit up there with them & it has a top.

I ask a lot of questions on this forum dont i. Lol
 
Well I'm just gonna say don't worry, your pigs get used to whatever they may at first find scary, my pig Marmite is in my room where i play pretty loud music quite often and at first he didn't like it now he lays there and just sleeps through it with the old rumble at certain songs.

Bentley and Chester live in my boyfriends room, where he get's over angry when playing xbox and shouts alot and the pigs don't really care at all, although if there in the middle of the cage they run into a hidey house sometimes.

Back to marmite again, my cage for him is on a coffee table which brings it to the same heigh as my bed really and my cat often just sits there and stares at Marmite he doesn't notice, and sometimes when he's laying on my bed with me my Cat is more jealous of him getting attention then anything else, and she cry's if he sniffs her, she's a bit of a scaredy cat !

I wouldn't worry, pigs aren't to bothered as long as they get nap times ! haha.
 
I think they must adapt pretty well to regular noises, mine only took two days of me hoovering and blow drying my hair and now they don't even bat an eyelid! Can't help you with cats though!
 
When my 4 are out in their runs, my cat and 2 dogs always go up to say hello. Once the guineas realised the other animals weren't a threat , they were fine. Now, the guineas come to the bars as soon as they see them and almost rub noses!
One of my dogs is very gentle, as is my cat, but my yorkie would like to have the guineas for breakfast i think, but even if she paces round the edge of the run, the guineas aren't bothered.
Needless to say, when all the furries are back in the house, the guineas are housed in very safe cages, well off the ground.
 
My boys aren't freaked out by loud noises at all. They will rumble at some noises that they don't like though. As for cats, the first pig when I lived with my parents shared a house with two cats and a dog. My cat Jack would sit on top of the cage and his tail would be down inside the cage, Chewy use to nibble on his tail and when he was out of the cage would snuggle with Jack.
 
I have 3 piggies and a 3 year old girl, we got the piggies 2 months before she turned 3. Like you I was concerned because she was so young and it would be very unfair and unrealistic to even try to make her be quiet all the time, but I have to say all my concerns have been proved wrong. Although I never leave them all together unattended just in case.

My advice would be to explain to your little boy that for the first few days the piggies will be very scared, just like he would be if he were in a strange place without his Mama, and that everyone in the house has to be a little more quite and kind to them until they learn that they have come to a good home, that is how I explained things to my daughter.

After a few days I would just let things get back to normal, I have noticed that my piggies don't mind my daughter's loud playing at all, but they do seem to be upset by angry voices even if they are not that loud.

Also I would advise lots of hidey places in the cage for the piggies for the first while, it makes them more confident about exploring if they know that they have a safe place to scoot into. Later you can remove them to give the piggies more room to run around when they've got more confidence. Don't worry about buying the extra hidey's that would just be a waste of money, because their favorite one will be a cardboard box with a couple of holes cut in it, or a piece of cloth tied like a tent across the corner of the cage. The placing of the holes in the cardboard boxes is something that your son can get involved with, my daughter loves doing that with me and now she is always on the look out for good boxes for the piggies when we go shopping, she has really become inventive with it, last time we did it she got me to cut round holes in two boxes and then she set about joining them together with a piece of drain pipe that the piggies use as a tunnel :))

You do need to be extra careful during floor time as it would be very easy for a piggie to get stood on by a small person who just wants to get from A to B to get or see something that has caught their eye, and they have forgot that the piggies are in between, I made it a rule that you could only be in the piggies floor time area if you were sitting down and that went for everyone, adults too! Actually I found that the piggies responded really well to my little girl, possibly even better than to me, I think she was so much smaller, and maybe they saw her as less of a threat, I really don't know, although she really does have a most unusual ability to sit still for a 3 year old, but now if she gets in and lies down they will all come over and climb on her and sniff her face and it has to be said nibble her hair rolleyes, I do keep a very close eye all the time just in case of accidents, and she knows to ask before sitting up and I am there to keep watch and tell her if there is a piggie near her feet that needs to be moved before she can sit up, and when it is my turn to get in with them and be climbed like Mount St Mommy, she keeps a look out for me!

One other thing that we did together for months before the piggies even arrived, was read guinea pig books, mostly for adults, but they almost always have lots of pictures, I know that lots of people dismiss the general guinea pig books as at best rubbish and at worst dangerous rubbish, and mostly I agree, but for getting a three year old who was very used to sharing all her food with her best friend (our dog) to understand why she can't share all kinds of food with her new friends, not to mention all the other little bits of information she picked up, I found the books brilliant, we read them every night in bed instead of bedtime stories, and even now she will tell anyone visiting for the first time how important it is that guinea pigs only have the right kinds of food that they are herbivores :).
All I can hope is that your piggies bring you and your family as much joy as ours bring us, we count ourselves very lucky indeed that these wonderful little creatures entered our lives.
 
Mandfpiggies, thank you so much! Wow you really helped me feel confident in how i am approaching our piggies arrival with my son. Like your daughter, my son is very good at listening to directions and sitting still. Thank you so much.
 
Username said:
Mandfpiggies, thank you so much! Wow you really helped me feel confident in how i am approaching our piggies arrival with my son. Like your daughter, my son is very good at listening to directions and sitting still. Thank you so much.
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You are very welcome, I'm just glad to be able to help :)

I got a very harsh response (not on this forum), when I asked for advice, as my little girl really wanted to keep guinea pigs and I had never had them before (although I had, had just about every other kind of animal)

For us the books and preparation was very important, it went on for 6 months before we got the piggies, I really wanted to be sure that the idea would not be just a passing thing. However when a two year old consistently not only remembers by herself but chooses to buy things for guinea pigs that have not even been got yet, rather than sweeties or toys each week for 6 months, it's time to accept that this is not a passing thing.

We read as I said before, but my daughter was also allowed to buy one item each week to be prepared for the new arrivals, it seemed to help too, it seemed to bring home to her a feeling that she too was responsible for the animals well being.
 
People have already covered it here to be honest. I have an 11 year old cat who is amazing with my piggies. They will actually run up to him, and usually scare him off in the process. So long as you have a top to your cage, i really wouldnt worry much about the cat at all.

And as for the noise/children. I cant account of kids because i dont have any. But piggies adapt very well. All piggies will be nervous in new surroundings, loud or quiet, but they will soon get used to life in a busy household.

Good luck with your new additions when they come.

Pictures will have to follow. :)

x.
 
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