Piggies eating from your hand

[mshappy89]

We've had our girls about 10 days.

Love their greens. They will only eat food from their bowls and not during laptime or out of our hands.

Is this something they learn in time?

 

[amywithpiggies]

Congrats on getting your piggies! It takes time for piggies to trust you and want to eat out of your hand. Florence wont take food from me and I've had her since December where as Poppy was taking food from me after a couple of weeks. It all depends on the guinea pig! Keep trying and I'm sure they will get used to you

 

[Doeylicious]

It takes a lot of patience to get a piggy to relax with you sometimes. I am doing 'confidence training' with Snickers Pig at the moment - she came from a home where she was hardly handled and had rabbits round her all the time.

Yesterday I put all the veg in and put my hand next to the veg. Eventually she came out and too the veg from next to my hand.

Tonight she came and took some red pepper from my hand after about ten mins - a big improvement!

Patience, patience and more patience is the only answer here I am afraid. A pig is a prey animal and will only eat when it feels safe and not under threat.

 

[Emiley]

As Doeylicious said, it takes time. My 1 year old boar (Gilly) is still SO nervous he darts around the hutch just to get away from me.. and I've had him just over 3 weeks now.

Saying that, my two 9 week old boars started eating from my hand roughly 3 - 7 days after I got them. It depends on the piggy.

 

[hellsbells82]

mine will all come up for food from my hand but are much happier doing this when in the cage on their own turf than when out, Roy will very rarely eat during lap time, but usually just glares at me and refuses to eat as he doesn't really like being held. I'd spend lots of time sitting nest to the cage and putting things like green beans through the bars, so they learn to relax as you're not going to take hold of them.