Is there a scientific question you would like answering about Guinea Pigs?

[RoyalDuke]

A bit early, but next year I've got to do a dissertation and potentially another research project, and I would love love love to do one on guinea pigs! But, i could only do it if I had the right question to answer. If you can think of a question about Guineas that a budding researcher could investigate, please post!

 

[DMS260820]

Il come back to you on this

 

[PigglePuggle]

Hi @RoyalDuke its great you would be interested in doing your dissertation on guinea pigs but I see you are in the UK and as you probably know there are many ethical approval hurdles to overcome before any study on furry animals, or indeed even questionnaires for humans who care for small furries, can be conducted! Please tell us what university you are based at, what your degree programme is, and whether you plan to conduct a laboratory study or a survey of pet owners, and who is responsible for supervising your dissertation research.
I supervise many zoology dissertation students myself, but I personally would discourage them from trying to study pets as there are so many ethical issues and so many confounding variables!

 

[RoyalDuke]

Hi @RoyalDuke its great you would be interested in doing your dissertation on guinea pigs but I see you are in the UK and as you probably know there are many ethical approval hurdles to overcome before any study on furry animals, or indeed even questionnaires for humans who care for small furries, can be conducted! Please tell us what university you are based at, what your degree programme is, and whether you plan to conduct a laboratory study or a survey of pet owners, and who is responsible for supervising your dissertation research.
I supervise many zoology dissertation students myself, but I personally would discourage them from trying to study pets as there are so many ethical issues and so many confounding variables!

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Hi, I'm at Hull studying zoology, since my dissertation would technically be next year (2020 or 2021) I'm not sure who my supervisor would be. So far I've only had one idea which would be mostly opinion based - seeing whether there is a bias against different coat colours/breeds. I wouldn't like to do anything that would hurt them, so anything like needles/biological samples, unless it was done ever so so carefully. I'm mostly collecting ideas at the moment, it would be great to do it on guineas as they are so special to me, but if I couldn't find the right question then I would look elsewhere. Thanks for you help!