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pinklizzy

pinklizzy

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi all,
I'm a newbie who is very excited to be rehoming a piggie after a break of 13 years ( that makes me feel so old!) He is a 4 year old neutered male who belongs to my teenage siblings who don't have the time for him anymore. He has lived with his mum and sister who have both sadly crossed the rainbow bridge leaving him on his own.
He will be coming with his cage (although I've been looking into a new larger house for him, initially I will leave him somewhere he is used to) and some of his normal diet which is a museli mix. My intention is to transition him onto a pellet diet although I'm not decided on which brand so would be very grateful for any suggestions!
Obviously I also need to stock up on some good quality hay and have been looking at hay racks? I quite like the idea of being able to keep it up off the floor and clean but not sure how well they wok in practice.
At the moment he is kept on newpaper with some hay and shredded paper as bedding but I'm not sure whether this is best? I'm a bit wary of shavings and we don't use them in practice.
Apologies for all the questions :red It has been so long since I had my own piggies and although I work with animals, we don't see very many and looking after them in a hospital setting is very different so I thought I'd be better asking the experts!
 
Hi there and welcome to the forum, it is so exciting getting a new piggy, you must post some pictures when you get him home.
Food wise I think burgess are the best nuggets for gp's but mine wont eat them, they will only eat P@H nuggets so that is better than muesli.
Hopefully you are thinking of getting him a pal, post where you live and I'm sure someone will know a rescue near you. :))
 
Hi there and welcome :)p

I like Harringtons Optimum previously known as Wagg. Everywhere sells it, like your Asdas and Wilkinsons and you can pick it up at around £3 for 2kg. My piggies are currently on the Wagg Museli Mix but they pick all the pellets out anyway so i've started to mix the two!
And mentioned above, Burgess nuggets are really good too.

I use to use a hayrack in my 120 cage and I really loved it, and so did the piggies! I use hay to line the cage anyway but keeping the hay in a rack ment that they were eating clean and fresh hay and they love stretching up to get the best peices! I now use a haytray which is actually a cat litter tray as i've moved onto using a fleece cage liner, I put some newspaper in the bottom so they can do all there business in there and its easy to clean out. Its really up to you, some people do and some don't :)

Same with bedding, its up to you. There are lots of different things you can use like, woodshavings, carefresh, newspaper, hay, fleece, towels, vetbed ect.
This is a thread with the different reviews on bedding: http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53208
It maybe good to trial each bedding and see which is best for you. I've used woodshavings with hay most of their lives and they havn't had any problems but i've recently bought a cage liner from one of our members on the forum as the cage is alot bigger (C&C) and having a boar with long hair, I want to keep him as clean as I can :)

HTH a little :)
 
Thank you both for the advice, I've brought a small bag of burgess excel GP food home from work with me today and I think I'll look for a hay rack too and see how he gets on with it.
As far as getting him a friend, I'd love to but just not sure about the best way to go about it? I suppose I need to get to know him a bit better first, to have more of an idea about who he'd get on best with?
 
I would put wifepig at the top of the list! :))
If you say whereabouts you are someone may be able to suggest a rescue near you?
 
Wifepig! :)) I'm in Mid Wales/Shropshire border if that helps?
 
For pellets I would either go with Oxbow or Burgee's Excel. Oxbow Cavy Cuisine is the best nuitrionally and most pigs love the pellets and eat all of them, but Oxbow is quite expensive so some people tend to use Burgee's Excel. Oxbow is around £8 for 2.2 kg of pellets which should last just over a month, Burgee's Excel is around £5 for 2 kg, I would go with Oxbow to be honest as they are much better and guinea pigs seem to like the taste.

For Hay I would buy some Timothy or Meadow hay, they are both the best types of grass hay. You can get 9.5 kg of Timothy and Rye Mixed hay for hay for pets for £16 which should last you for around 2 months and is very good value for money and very good quality hay. I do reccomend a hay rack as well a they like to climb up and the bars and pull the hay out and I guess it is more fun for them. They also keep the hay off the floor as you said. My guinea pigs also like it when I put hay in a toilet roll but cut the top of the tube lengthways so you guinea pig's head doesn't get stuck!

As for bedding their are a wide range of different options. As you said you shouldn't really use wood shavings as they aren't very absorbent and tend to smell bad when urinated on. There have also been cases where Guinea Pigs have gotten ill from the dust given off my wood shavings. There are many different products to use as bedding, CareFresh is good but very, very expensive! You end up spending around £32 a month if you use CareFresh so probably don't use CareFresh. I personally use MegaZorb which you can buy online. It's very similar to CareFresh in texture and is the best for asborbing urine and keeping the cage fresh. You can buy a HUGE sack of it online for about £12 (including delivery) and it will last for just over a month if you clean them out once a week. Also I would buy a separate batch of hay for bedding and sleeping in. Hay is really soft for the guinea pigs and they love to burrow under it. Bedding Hay is cheap, you can buy a bag from you're local pet store for about £3 which will last you a week+. Don't go for expensive hay when buying hay for bedding because it only needs to be soft.

I hope this helped you.
 
Oxbow has good hay and pellets. Also I don't use a hay rack I just take four toilet paper tube, cut them in half, and stuff them with hay. This will last one pig about a day. I use fleece with a towel under it for bedding.
 
Well, he arrives tomorrow, I have a nice big bag of timothy hay and another one of bedding hay, a hay net, some toys and a hidey-house. I hope he will settle in ok, I think I drove my OH mad last night, worrying about whether he'd be homesick!
Next on my list will be sorting him out a friend-I've learnt so much from being here over the last few days.
 
pinklizzy said:
Well, he arrives tomorrow, I have a nice big bag of timothy hay and another one of bedding hay, a hay net, some toys and a hidey-house. I hope he will settle in ok, I think I drove my OH mad last night, worrying about whether he'd be homesick!
Next on my list will be sorting him out a friend-I've learnt so much from being here over the last few days.
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Sounds like you've got everything sorted! Be sure to post some photo's when you Guinea Pigs are settled. :)
 
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