Cavy Behavior

Our family acquired a cavy for Christmas. He spends almost all of his time in "hiding", either under a log arch or under a shelf in his cage, coming out only to dash across the cage for a drink of water or bite of food. If he happens to be out of hiding and there's any sound or movement in the room, he dashes back into hiding. If we give him "floor time" he either immediately hides under something or sits in the same spot until we move him (i.e., for at least an hour). He has sometimes climbed back into his cage.

He has a fairly large cage and water, food, etc., and seems otherwise to be in good health. He's not entirely happy being picked up, but will sit placidly on a person's lap for petting.

Is this behavior entirely unusual? Is he merely taking a while to adjust? Any advice would be appreciated.

-- Scott

He's simply just adjusting, when I first got my guinea pig she did the exact same thing, just give it some time, it will pass eventually, in the mean time try to pet him when you go by the cage and hold and snuggle him alot, also try to keep the house quiet. He should come around sooner or later.

I don't think that will stop the hiding, because our two still hide a bit (one more than the other). But your cavy needs you to adopt a samesex friend.

SRT - Cavies are prey animals so they always tend to be scared of anything loud and large. I've had some of my cavies for almost two years and they still run and hide when someone walks in the room. As soon as they are being held they settle down and are snuggly.

Deandra is right that your pig is still adjusting to it's new environment. Try feeding him some veggies by hand so he'll associated your hand with food. It may help tame him up a bit quicker.

Also as Roozy pointed out you may want to look into adopting a same sex guinea pig to pair up with your current pig. Cavies are herd animals and very social. I think you'll see a positive turn around if you adopted another.

my gp was very scared at first during floor time but now whenever i have his door open hell climb out and explore the house! not just my room

My sister's boyfriend's guinea pig is a really bad biter now becuase they fed him while holding him, I don't know if that's the case with most guinea pigs though.

Biting is usually the pig trying to tell you something.

Feeding a couple pieces of veggie by hand has worked for alot of people to bond with their pig(s).

let them smell your hand so they can get used to it, and if they bite have them smell the palm of your hand because it doesnt have any thing sticking out and they cant bite flat stuff

Well, this certain GP, which was offspring of one of my GP's, ( pet store pregnancy:: ), has always been on the skittish side.

So it's probably safe to say that the guinea wasn't biting because they hand fed it?

Well, when they stopped hand feeding it, it stopped biting.

Okay

Even though our cavies were b-day presents for our 6 yr old, I'm the one who does most of the cage maintenance. Of course, that has them bonded to me the most. He wonders why they don't run from me like they do him. I've tried to explain to the boy that because I'm up there picking poop, they have gotten to know me. I don't take them out of the cage during spot cleaning time. They come up to my hands to investigate what I'm doing, and I don't even try to touch them. In the beginning, they used to bite me<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/embarassed.gif ALT=""> , but they've come to not try so much anymore . When they did bite, I gave them a little bump with my finger against their nose. That seems to have given them a result they don't like for biting, so they don't do it much anymore.