Handling piggies - advice needed!

[Lolapiggie]

Hi all,

I have four piggies - two aged around 6 months, and two aged 15 days (aw!) I have only had the older piggies about 6 weeks, and after discovering that one was pregnant when I bought her, I tried not to handle her too much. Also - as she's been looking after the babies for the last two weeks, I've been trying to give her a bit of space then, too.

The result of this is that I haven't been able to handle the piggies as much as I would have liked - and they're not overly tame

I can put my head in their cage and talk to them, can sit with them every day during free range time, and can also hand feed them quite happily. But they really don't want to be picked up, and tend to flee if I put my hand near them (e.g. to stroke them). Also, if I do pick them up, they struggle until I put them down (and I'd heard that guinea pigs love 'cuddles!')

I'd appreciate any advice on how to tame them up a bit and how and when I should be handling them. As I say, I have been trying to keep things calm for Mum pig (Lotte) so now I'm not in the habit of holding them - and nor are they!

Thanks so much! Really interested to know your thoughts!

 

[Lady Kelly]

right from information I have been told on here so this is directly from someone more experienced than me hehe is that picking up cuts as close to their natural prey instincts as you can get. My girls are very timid and it was suggested that I cut a side off a small box and pad it to kind of "herd" them into for picking up as it takes out a lot of the stress. They tend to be ok once on my knee but don't like being picked up