Animal Welfare: 4-H Manual

[cavy_cuddler]

Mods: I know you've heard this a thousand times, but I'm not positive this is in place, so please move it if it's not.

I stopped by our county extension office today to get signed up for 4-H. I sign up, get my manuals, and out I go. In the car, I was reading the manual for small animals. It had a section on cavies, so I turned to it and started reading. I was soon outraged. Here is some of what it said:

"You can keep guinea pits in almost anything, but make sure their house is ready before you buy your pet. A box or pan about two feet square with 5- or 6-inch sides can be used for one or two guinea pigs. Use metal if you can. It's the easiest to clean. The best guinea pig home will have a solid floor rather than a wire-mesh floor." And later on: "Other foods such as grass, carrot and celery tops, dandelions, lettuce, hay and rolled oats may be fed as treats but should not make up the majority of the diet."

My first problem with this is that it says you can keep one or two pigs in a 2 ft. sq. cage. That's not big enough for one pig, let alone two! They also fail to point out that wire-mesh floor is extremely harmfully to cavies. And then there's the diet issue. Hay and veggies should be fed as treats?! What are they supposed to eat all day besides their pellets? There's also a spelling mistake in the first line. I am going to rewrite the whole cavy section in the manual and include it in my notebook for 4-H. Hopefully then they will see how wrong they are.

[AnimalHouse36]

Please, please don't take part in 4-H. They breed and just spread horrible information just like you found.

If you plan on showing your cavies, please rethink that also. It brings them into a stressfull enviroment that exposes them to an unneseccary risk to sickness.

[cavy_cuddler]

This is the only animal project I'm doing. The rest is stuff like crafts and geneology. I was thinking about showing one of my pigs, but one is overweight and the other isn't very social. I will definitly rethink showing one now that I've seen what kind of information they put out there. I would also hate for one of them to get sick.

[Ly&Pigs]

Mods: I know you've heard this a thousand times, but I'm not positive this is in place, so please move it if it's not.

I just want to say to all members that you do not have to put this statement at the beginnings of your posts. If it's not in the right place, we will move it.

[Peggysu]

I don't support 4-H in my town. I don't believe in it. It's big here though.

[babybunny]

I have posted this before but the first year I moved to AZ, and went to the county fair, I saw the small animal exhibit put on by the 4Hrs. Almost none of the animals (birds, gps and bunnies) had water (in 100+ F heat). A few out of the 30+ pigs there had hideys. I saw 1 little girl about 8 years old had 4 (supposely all male) GPs in a 1x2 cage and was selling them off for 5 bucks a pop, including her "blue ribbon" winner. All of them were suffering in the heat and the dust being blown around by a huge fan.

I was heartbroken and upset by such a sight. I couldn't find anyone to contact then and there, however the next day the fairgrounds office and the head of 4H got an earful.

[fieryone]

Even if someone has never seen this site or others like it, common sense should tell someone that 2 square feet isn't enough room for any living being to be housed in. A full grown GP would barely be able to move in something that small. How could anyone see that and think it's okay, much less spread the word that it is? It makes me sad

[CavySpirit]

I've said this before. 4H is really 4B: Brainwash, Brag, Breed, Butcher.

Participating in showing of any kind is to support breeding.

[Peggysu]

Originally Posted by CavySpirit

4H is really 4B: Brainwash, Brag, Breed, Butcher.

I like that! So true.

[cavy_cuddler]

I've said this before. 4H is really 4B: Brainwash, Brag, Breed, Butcher.

Participating in showing of any kind is to support breeding.

I won't show my pigs to support breeding, rather I will show them to raise awareness of the bad information in the 4-H manual. This is my chance to support a change for the better, and I'm going to take it.

I have posted this before but the first year I moved to AZ, and went to the county fair, I saw the small animal exhibit put on by the 4Hrs. Almost none of the animals (birds, gps and bunnies) had water (in 100+ F heat). A few out of the 30+ pigs there had hideys. I saw 1 little girl about 8 years old had 4 (supposely all male) GPs in a 1x2 cage and was selling them off for 5 bucks a pop, including her "blue ribbon" winner. All of them were suffering in the heat and the dust being blown around by a huge fan.

No disrespect (I completely understand how you feel), but our fair will be lucky to have 30 small animals being shown, let alone 30 guinea pigs. I will do whatever possible to insure my cavy's health. She will have everything in her travel cage that she normally has in her home cage. If a fan is blowing dust around, I will find the farthest place away from it; if it's hot, I will try my best to keep my pig cool. We don't live in a place that gets into the 100s very often (maybe a few days of the year), so the heat shouldn't be too bad.

I in no way plan to support breeding at the fair. I don't see how simply showing a healthy animal at a county fair supports breeders.

[Peggysu]

I got an idea for you so you don't have to stress your guinea pig out and expose it to diseases.

Why don't you make a poster board on proper care and include lots of pictures on how to properly house guinea pigs. Also information on the dangers of breeding guinea pigs and the risk involved. Include information on bedding options, what's dangerous and what's safe. Maybe give some information about their diet and that it's more extensive than the average person thinks.

[Paula]

Originally Posted by cavy_cuddler

I won't show my pigs to support breeding, rather I will show them to raise awareness of the bad information in the 4-H manual. This is my chance to support a change for the better, and I'm going to take it.

It doesn't much matter what your personal reasons might be for doing it. The only reason to have a show is to judge an animal, and judging an animal creates a reason to breed more to get ever closer to the ultimate goal: perfection. For every animal that's deemed "showable" there are sometimes entire litters, little lives, created just for that one to be deemed fit for showing. And what happens to those pigs that can't be used for shows? Good question.

There's not any possible way to justify that.

Check out this recent thread.

Perhaps you have hopes of changing someone's mind, or educating them about the horrors of what they're doing. It's not likely to happen, and it isn't worth jeopardizing your pig's health and well being on the off chance you might.

[Jennicat]

cavy_cuddler, as a young person it's great to see that you're willing to stand up to what you believe in, and want to change things, but you should be aware that doing so can harm your own animal. YOU know that you take good care of your pigs, but what about all the other small animals there? Many species can pass infection, disease, and parasites onto guinea pigs. Someone petting a rabbit with bordetella and then coming to your pig's cage could give them a fatal case of bordetella. They could get mites and lice, or any number of airborne diseases.

On another messageboard I frequent, someone's guinea pig died of heat stroke during one of the 4H shows. She was indignant when I said it was ridiculous to have a guinea pig show outside in such a hot climate, and then told me that nothing bad had ever happened before, and no plans were made to move the shows inside. Why should even 1 pig die for something so frivolous? Often, "nothing bad has happened" right up until there's a terrible accident.