New here -- question about bathing guinea pig

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Squishys_mom

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Hi all! I'm new here. My name is Jessica. I recently adopted a baby guinea pig. His name is "Squishy". He was 3 weeks old when I got him and already weaned and weighed 251 grams. He's a Peruvian mix. Gray and white (very handsome I must say :-D) He's now 3 1/2 months old and weighs in at a whopping 779 grams (I weigh him every few days to make sure he's not fluctuating too much). He eats a small amount of Timothy pellets daily but he eats a huge salad daily and is free fed Timothy hay 24/7. I used to own guinea pigs many many years ago. I also have 3 birds, a goffins cockatoo, a timneh African gray, and a jenday conure. I also have a miniature schnauzer. Oh and i also have a fiancée! I wanted to know however, how do you bathe a guinea pig? His fur feels so greasy and I'm not sure why it's greasy but I want to bathe him and see if that helps. And what type shampoo do you use? Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your help!
 
Hi, it sounds like his grease glad is making him greasy . If you type in grease gland into the search box it should bring up lots of threads and it will also tell you how to bathe him :)

I can't link anything as I'm replying via my phone :)
 
Hi! Welcome to the forum!

Your boy is certainly spoiled and delicious!

Here are tips for bathing (including cleaning grease glands with a bum bath):
http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=47314

You may want to reduce the amount of veg you are giving a bit. We recommend that up 50-80% of the daily food intake should be hay; hay is the best thing to grind down the back teeth and keep the guts going.
Mixed veg should be only 50g/1 cupful, but it would be great if you included one vitamin C rich veg like peppers of any colour, broccoli, fresh parsley, dill or coriander. Please do reduce your portions slowly, or you will have a revolt on your hands! We recommend giving growing piggies unlimited pellets (you will know what he roughly eats in a day) and then reduce them slowly once he reaches most of his adult weight from 6-9 months onwards to the 1 1/2 handful a mature adult needs; piggies reach adulthood at about 12-15 months old.
Keep him weighed once weekly; that is enough to keep an eye on him and spot any problems early.

Is he a single piggy?
 
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Thanks. He eats hay ALL the time. He goes through hay like crazy! I would say he gets may e just a little more than a cup of salad per day. He does get 1 slice of green pepper a day and he also gets 1 baby carrot per day (the carrot is his fav! If he doesn't get it i think he'd break out and figure out a way to raid the fridge himself!) then he gets a mix of whatever leafy greens I bought but usually romaine, green leaf and red leaf. He is a single piggy. The person I got him from had an accidental breeding and the mom just had the one baby and the person I got him from didn't want to keep him.

Thanks for the advice! Didn't even think of a grease glad. And I pet him all the time all over an probably distribute the grease all up and down his back, eww!
 
Hi Jessica, OH (your fiancee) and Squishy welcome to the forum :)
sounds like he's getting some extra spoilt time from you!
Have a look around the forum and you'll see some great threads/stickies that you'll find full of great info.......please ask questions when ever you need to :)
Butt baths can be quite easy, once you have done them a few times........ get all your bathing requirements setup first....... shampoo etc... and oh yeah the treats to settle (bribe rolleyes) Squishy once his bathing is finished and you want to dry him off!
Hope you can put up some pigtures in our stories section of Squishy soon x)


Glynis, Velvet and Onyx x
 
all i do is fill the sink with abit of warm water, then use my hands to cup the water over them, use small animal shampoo and the rinse, and towel dry then hairdry (which they hate!)

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http://www.seapets.co.uk/products/p...rays/johnsons-small-animal-shampoo-110ml.html
 
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