A
Anthora
Good afternoon!
OK, so I know I haven't posted anything since I received them aside from food questions but here is a quick run down of my two girls Vivi (older) and Rikku (young one).
I rescued Vivi from a animal shelter 2 weeks ago, she was surrendered by owner and you can tell she had been handled by humans and had no real issues being picked up /held...
That day we went to a pet store and I picked up another girl - fairly young - who obviously has not been handled before and is extremely skiddish.
At first we had them in separate cages so they can hear eachother and know that they weren't alone. We introduced them and now they're ok!
We built a C&C cage (6 by 3 on one side, and by 2 on another, and have an upper lvel for them..its rediculously huge, but the ramps are too steep so we need to fix that...)
Anyway - they're in the piggy mansion now and get along just fine like long lost friends and popcorn to their hearts content.
Everytime I try to take rikku out since the beginning she is extremely skiddish and will do ANYTHING to get away..she's our 'wet soap' girl and I expect her to be this way until she gets used to being handled... damn near impossible to get a hold of her though....
Then with Vivi, the last time we took her out of her cage (before we built the new one we combined the two so they could spend time together), she was very skiddish and difficult to pick up. I attribute this to those two developing seperation anxiety...I hope that's what it is... So needless to say I didn't give her too much lap time and put her into the new cage.
Now, vivi is getting used to feeding time and is being cute by putting her front paws up on the choroplast and waits for the food..far too cute. however, when i try to pet her (give her a few moments to get used to my voice and let her sniff my fingers/hand), she moves away from me and seems perhaps a) scared, or b) doesn't want to be seprated from Rikku (young one).
Vivi never had an issue with this before and was usually cool and calm (when being picked up)before we introduced them to eachother.
But what I would like to know is if this behaviour is normal with two guinea pigs. (She has taken to Rikku and any time rikku is scared, she'll run and hide behind Vivi)... Does anyone have any input on this? Should I show some tough love and despite their seemlinly-scared reactions take them out and spend some lap time with them so they get used to being handled? Or should I leave them be? They have A LOT of room in the cage (6.15 feet by 2 feet-ish) so they don't really need floor time....
Any ideas how to approach this? Any advice on the older one developing this scatter-when-being-picked-up/petted attitude, and any advice about the young one who hasn't been handled before i took her in?
Thank you!
OK, so I know I haven't posted anything since I received them aside from food questions but here is a quick run down of my two girls Vivi (older) and Rikku (young one).
I rescued Vivi from a animal shelter 2 weeks ago, she was surrendered by owner and you can tell she had been handled by humans and had no real issues being picked up /held...
That day we went to a pet store and I picked up another girl - fairly young - who obviously has not been handled before and is extremely skiddish.
At first we had them in separate cages so they can hear eachother and know that they weren't alone. We introduced them and now they're ok!
We built a C&C cage (6 by 3 on one side, and by 2 on another, and have an upper lvel for them..its rediculously huge, but the ramps are too steep so we need to fix that...)
Anyway - they're in the piggy mansion now and get along just fine like long lost friends and popcorn to their hearts content.
Everytime I try to take rikku out since the beginning she is extremely skiddish and will do ANYTHING to get away..she's our 'wet soap' girl and I expect her to be this way until she gets used to being handled... damn near impossible to get a hold of her though....
Then with Vivi, the last time we took her out of her cage (before we built the new one we combined the two so they could spend time together), she was very skiddish and difficult to pick up. I attribute this to those two developing seperation anxiety...I hope that's what it is... So needless to say I didn't give her too much lap time and put her into the new cage.
Now, vivi is getting used to feeding time and is being cute by putting her front paws up on the choroplast and waits for the food..far too cute. however, when i try to pet her (give her a few moments to get used to my voice and let her sniff my fingers/hand), she moves away from me and seems perhaps a) scared, or b) doesn't want to be seprated from Rikku (young one).
Vivi never had an issue with this before and was usually cool and calm (when being picked up)before we introduced them to eachother.
But what I would like to know is if this behaviour is normal with two guinea pigs. (She has taken to Rikku and any time rikku is scared, she'll run and hide behind Vivi)... Does anyone have any input on this? Should I show some tough love and despite their seemlinly-scared reactions take them out and spend some lap time with them so they get used to being handled? Or should I leave them be? They have A LOT of room in the cage (6.15 feet by 2 feet-ish) so they don't really need floor time....
Any ideas how to approach this? Any advice on the older one developing this scatter-when-being-picked-up/petted attitude, and any advice about the young one who hasn't been handled before i took her in?
Thank you!
