pepperpots
Junior Guinea Pig
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2007
- Messages
- 30
- Reaction score
- 81
- Points
- 200
Having had lots of small animal experience, especially with rats and mice, I have finally got to do my dream job - taking on nervous critters from my local RSPCA and taming them with the object of making them easier to home.
Last week my first new residents arrived - Dodger and Doughnut, two petrified guinea pigs.
I haven't had piggies before, so I read up on them on lots of different sites.
I have made them a cage out of an old bookcase with the shelves removed, mesh top and pond liner base, lined with newspaper and hay. They are fed on a small amount of pellets (Excel) a day, ad lib hay (normal and timothy in the rack) and loads of veg like mixed bags of lettuce (not iceberg), peppers, coriander, broccoli, carrots, kale, spring greens, beetroot, grass and dandelions. They don't seem to like fruit :
.
They have chubes, pipes, a 'tent', cushions (Dodger loooves his pink fleece cushion!) and I stuff paper bags and carboard tubes with veggies or hay and dried herb mixes.
They are in my office (I work from home), so they should be getting used to me being around. They also seem to like Radio 4, which I put on because the voices are quite soothing!
I give them a few cuddles a day - when I clean out their cage and in the evening when I can give them a health check, a brush and let them run in the bathroom - well, maybe they will have fun once they stop being scared. They always get yummie veggies when I put them back in.
I also spend quite a lot of time just sitting next to the cage chatting to them, or putting my arm in the cage and leaving it there (they will eat after a few minutes). They won't take food from my hand.
Any suggestions for anything I can do to help them relax would be much appreciated. they are lovely and I want to do the best I can for them.
Last week my first new residents arrived - Dodger and Doughnut, two petrified guinea pigs.
I haven't had piggies before, so I read up on them on lots of different sites.
I have made them a cage out of an old bookcase with the shelves removed, mesh top and pond liner base, lined with newspaper and hay. They are fed on a small amount of pellets (Excel) a day, ad lib hay (normal and timothy in the rack) and loads of veg like mixed bags of lettuce (not iceberg), peppers, coriander, broccoli, carrots, kale, spring greens, beetroot, grass and dandelions. They don't seem to like fruit :
.They have chubes, pipes, a 'tent', cushions (Dodger loooves his pink fleece cushion!) and I stuff paper bags and carboard tubes with veggies or hay and dried herb mixes.
They are in my office (I work from home), so they should be getting used to me being around. They also seem to like Radio 4, which I put on because the voices are quite soothing!
I give them a few cuddles a day - when I clean out their cage and in the evening when I can give them a health check, a brush and let them run in the bathroom - well, maybe they will have fun once they stop being scared. They always get yummie veggies when I put them back in.
I also spend quite a lot of time just sitting next to the cage chatting to them, or putting my arm in the cage and leaving it there (they will eat after a few minutes). They won't take food from my hand.
Any suggestions for anything I can do to help them relax would be much appreciated. they are lovely and I want to do the best I can for them.
