Review: The Guinea Piglopaedia

[mikulinek]

Hi everyone. I just thought it might be useful for us to pass on our opinions on the various piggy literature around.

I already owned the Mini Encyclopedia of Guinea Pigs by Myra Mahoney, and will write a short review in due course. I just thought I would give you my initial reaction to the above book by Margaret Elward and Mette Ruelokke - I will give you a more succinct review tomorrow or Monday

This book arrived today and, unfortunately, I am already astonished by the following passage (and I quote):

"...are small rodents, belonging to the family Caviidae in the mammalian order Rodentia. This order includes rats, mice, hamsters and rabbits."

Rabbits are lagamorphs and not rodents and belog to the Lagamorpha order. This massive mistake is on page 1 of the book can you believe?

 

[kjones]

I've got this book - it's a fairly useful reference for illnesses etc but the internet is far more helpful! Also has quite an emphasis on show pigs and breeding.

It also doesn't have an index, so you have to look through the whole thing for what you're looking for...

 

[mikulinek]

I know. I'm just about finished reading it - I'll post a more comprehensive review later but the lack of an index is pretty poor and there are a few misleading "facts" in there. The illness section is probably the best bit.

 

[piggiewiggie]

I use this book for the illness section it has been so helpful

 

[mikulinek]

Finally read the whole thing

Although this book contains some very useful information, particularly chapters 6, 7 and 8 about Care, Anatomy and Illness respectively, on the whole I wouldn't recommend it.

The style of the book is a mix of sections which seem to be written for children and have a reading age to suit and other sections which are written in a scientific/medical style. Whilst the above sections can be helpful, the lack of any kind of index makes the book hard to use and the illnesses are only listed alphabetically NOT according to symptoms or body parts (e.g. respiratory illnesses, digestion etc.).

As usual with many guinea pig books, much of the content is taken up with breeding and showing information. There is also an entire chapter dedicated to classroom guinea pigs which seems a little pointless.

Much of the general pet information is either incorrect (referring to rabbits as rodents for example) or not comprehensive. The authors make reference to just three or four guinea pig calls with not much of a description or explanation.

All in all, I would say that more information can be found on the internet and other guinea pig books.

I hope you found this review helpful

 

[CiaraPatricia]

I have this book and it was good, but it is fairly simplified, which you'd expect for the size and price. Good for first time owners, but you can get more information after reading it, from other books and the internet.


I have one major problem with it. The cage size they recommend for two pigs is something like 2ftX1ft, because otherwise the pigs will be scared and wild. Though they do recommend a good size run, but the cage does need to be bigger, that's tiny!