Hello.
I got new guinea pigs yesterday, (i'm a first time owner) and one of them (willow) is letting me hand feed her (sometimes) and she moves around the cage when I'm nearby - but not often (she is 11 weeks) but my other piggy (penny, 7 weeks) just freezes and doesn't move at ALL for hours. I've draped a blanket over a half of the cage, and placed veggies in front of her but she left them for hours and willow stole them. I'm just concerned about her, I even thought she was dead because she wouldn't even run out of her hide when I tried to clean it out or react at all
. Is this normal and do you have any advice? Secondly, willow keeps lying on top of small penny and chasing her + kicking her out of hides but she doesn't move as she is too scared . Should i stop this or let them be? Thanks.
Hi and welcome
Please give your piggies time to settle in and ge their bearings. Place a sheet over the whole cage to give them a feeling of protection and encouraging exploration; make sure that they have some hay and fresh veg closer to where they are hiding. They are young prey animals ripped from their group and coming from an environment with minimal human contact into a home with lots of scary new sounds and smells (but no other guinea pig smells). Your frozen baby has basically got lost and found a hole to hide in.
It is normal that it takes a few days with commercial pet shop or for sale piggies to find their feet.
However, hunger and thirst will even drive your petrified piggy to eat some hay (which should make over three quarters of the daily food intake) and drink from a bottle, if they have learned it.
Place some extra larger couple of chunks of cucumber inside where she is hiding with more outside for the companion to steal so she has some access to fluid that her companion isn't getting to instantly. She will start exploring when nobody is in the room, so replace the cucumber and veg last thing in the evening again. Your bolder piggy will profit and likely overeat but once your shy one has settled in, things will normalise.
Create distinctive calls/melodies for regular activities like food, hay, picking up, spot cleaning etc. so they learn to anticipate what is coming. Piggies won't understand the words instantly although they can learn their names and their friend's names, nicknames etc. But they have a fine ear for different tone pitches and emotional shadings so having a distinctive cadence for every action is very helpful in turning the current chaos into a more structured rota over the coming days.
You may find these very practical guides here helpful to understand where your piggies come from and how you best settle in your piggies and deal with the most commonly encountered stumbling blocks.
This is a very practical step by step guide that talks you through the whole settling in process from the moment of arrival and all the commonly encountered problems and stumbling blocks.
You will hopefully find it very helpful:
New Guinea Pigs: How to Best Manage Arrival and Settling In
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Arrival in a home from the perspective of pet shop guinea pigs
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How Do I Settle Shy New Guinea Pigs?
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Understanding Prey Animal Instincts, Guinea Pig Whispering and Cuddling Tips
All these links are part of our very extensive practical information resource, into which 20 years of collective forum experience, up to half a century of personal owner experience and literally tens and tens of thousands of questions have gone into. You may want to bookmark the link for easy access. Our guides specifically address all the little how-to issues and aim to be as clear and precise as possible.
New Owners' Essential Information and Practical Tips Starter Collection
We are of course always here for any questions, little or large but since we are all doing this for free in our own free time and cannot type the whole advice out every time, we have created our practical how-to guides. The format allows us to update and add to our resource at need and as we have some extra time next to our own guinea pigs and jobs and personal commitments.
