Been reading up on this on some websites searched through google, it is NOT natural for guinea pigs to swim. they CAN swim for survival purposes, so to save their lives if they should ever find themselves in that situation, but they are NOT built for swimming and forcing them to swim can put them under considerable amounts of stress and can cause health problems such as pneumonia if any of the water is inhaled into the respiratory system, ear infections if the water enters the ears and chills if the water is too cold or if your pigs are not carefully dried afterwards. Theres also of course the possibility of drowning.
The general rule of thumb is that consider yourself in this situation. If you wouldn't like it done to you, then don't do it to your piggies.
Why don't you try playing with your pigs on dry land instead. You can make lots of fun tubes and hideys for them to play in which I'm sure they'd enjoy much more than a bowl full of water.
Unfortunately I have seen many videos of guinea pigs on youtube who have been thrusted into water and the poster has said "Look at my guinea pig having a great time!" But all you can really see is the poor thing frantically searching for dry land. All you are doing by forcing them to swim is putting them under stress and potential danger when there is really no need to.
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