Do you know why vets in the UK won't neuter baby boars? I mean do you know what their reasoning is? Because it's a much simpler operation as far as I know and there isn't the 6-week wait till the boar can join sows.
Do you know by any chance what "exotic vets" are called in German? Around here, there are various vets and guinea owners (as well as the local rescue) go to most of them. You wouldn't go to an agricultural or horse vet, but otherwise any 'small animals' vet ('small' includes dogs and cats, excludes farm animals). The nearest vet to me who is supposed to be really good, really knowledgeable with guineas and rabbits, is I think in Lörrach or maybe Weil/Rhein. For me that's a 3-4 hour train journey each way. I wouldn't contemplate it. It's just not possible with my own health. But the UK mbrs on here talk about guinea-savvy vets so I was wondering if you know about the difference between Germany and the UK in that respect?
No worries, uncontrolled breeding and mis-sexing happens in Germany too
Maybe less than in the UK, idk. There was a guinea 'breeder' local to me who had a whole herd of idk how many and not separated by sexes at all. Any boar of any age could breed with any sow of any age, his mother, 2 month-old sister, aunt...
I don't know whether the breeders here neuter boars before they sell them. If they did, I'm sure they'd pass the costs on as part of the selling price. As far as I know, the rescues neuter all boars before re-homing, except occasionally if they get e.g. a 6yo where he's just too old to go thru the op. Then they'll try to find a boar group for him. Here they say boar groups are harder to manage than neutered boar plus sows, and also harder than 2 boars together. There are very experienced owners who manage 3-4 boars.
My local rescue and others say that when sows have a neutered boar in with them they don't tend to get ovarian cysts. Idk if that's true, as in idk if there's been studies on that? In my latter groups I always had a neutered boar with my 1-2 sows. A threesome of a boar and 2 sows is no problem! It certainly seems true that a neutered boar who looks after his ladies properly prevents them from bickering among themselves. So maybe we could say sows are happ
ier with a neutered boar?
It's certainly an interesting topic!
Ovarian cysts are not related to the presence or absence of a boar (neutered or not). It's a long debunked breeder myth. The same as that sows having had babies won't get ovarian cysts. Nearly 20 years of this forum has amply proven the opposite is true, as has my own personal experience.
Most of my Tribe sows over the last nearly 20 years have been living with a neutered boar and I still have had the usual ovarian cyst issues just as much as with sows living without boars, including rescue adoptees that have given birth before they were rescued or as pregnant arrivals in rescue.
The main argument I have heard from UK vets re. baby neutering are concerns about the hormonal development and resulting longer term health and natural behaviourconcerns. But I also suspect that it is just one of those things where the RCVS (the body that regulates vets in the UK) has taken a stance of a categorical 'no'. It would not be the only issue.
Like in Switzerland, German law only states that guinea pigs should not be kept alone but there is no law that says that only mixed gender pairs or groups are allowed.
However, in Switzerland the whole system (including pet shops only selling mixed pairs of babies and full boars are only in the hands of regulated licensed breeders) relies on early castration.
There is still the occasional problem with unregulated backyard breeding cases or potentially mis-sexed babies got much more cheaply from across the border. However, that level of control is not cheap, takes a lot of manpower and it is the main stumbling block to stamp out backyard breeding and malpractices.
This is not the case in the UK although shops will recommend to keep same sex pairs. Good welfare standard rescues won't rehome piggies into single situations and only for companionship with other singles or as a group member. If there is a gender mix, one parti has to be de-sexed.
Minimal cage sizes (unless they have been updated since the Pandemic) are actually smaller in Europe than those recommended by the RSPCA in the UK. There is much more pressure in Germany on much larger cage sizes and more use of wood, especially by some rescues who have more demand than they have guinea pigs compared to over here in the UK although our forum recommendations exceed the minimum. This pressure is at its most extreme in Switzerland where there are in fact waiting lists for adoption and the rescues can pick only the very best places to rehome to. But these are standards and demands that the majority of guinea pig owners in most countries cannot fulfill.
However, this means that the affordability of pet keeping is gradually pushed out of the reach of lower earning segments of the population and will become increasingly the privilege of a well-off middle class and above.
Seeing how much comfort and joy pets like guinea pigs bring to their owners I am not at all happy about this development. With all the pressures of climate change and an increasingly uncertain future the stress-relieving function of pets should still be there for all as long as basic vet care and being free from pain and unnecessary suffering can be guaranteed. With a still rising population, more and more people are living in urban situations and often smallish flats all over the world.
This is then also tied to the question of the level of vet care. In the UK, we have no frills clinics attached to the biggest pet shop chain and the PDSA charity clinics providing veterinary care for people on more comprehensive benefits to allow them to still have pets and be able to look after them.
As to the fact that things especially with hobby breeders can be just as bad in Germany as in other countries? Remember that story that turned into a real nightmare for a German rescue willing to step in with help back in 2020 during the Pandemic - but which we continued to support with donations as much as we could individually afford to give, much to the surprise of the German rescue lady who was not accustomed to this British tradition of chipping in?
Guineas-in-Germany-needing-to-be-rehomed
@Mrs Tiggy Winkle
For exotics vets look under:
- Spezialist für Heimtiere und Vögel
- Exoten-Tierarzt
