Cage Location
Okay, this is my first time getting guinea pigs. I am 13 and i only have 1 place to keep them, in my bedroom. I have to keep them in my room because my mom wont let me keep them in any other room in the house. Is this a good place to keep them? (note: i dont have them yet, i still have to buy the cage and supplies. i want to know beforehand so i know what im dealing with.)
The bedroom is generally not the best place to keep them. They tend to be too noisy for people to sleep near. Also in an enclosed space, some people's allergies can flare up.
Do you have somewhere to adopt your pigs from? A good place to start is petfinder.com or adoptapet.com.
Are you planning to make a C&C cage?
I do not recomend your bedroom as they eat, squeak and drink from their water bottle a lot. Atleast mine are early risers and are very noisy. Mine live in our bonus room and when friends come over and spend the night we always get woken up early. Mine also chew on their tunnel which is loud. It matters if you can sleep though sound or wake up early.
yes i am buying a C&C cage a 2X4 because i plan on getting two males. Unfortunatley, i have looked into buying pigs from a shelter but where i live the best i can do is PetCo.
I also looked into adopting the shelter nearest to me that has guinea pigs is 3 hours away. So I had to get petco ones. They have been very healthy. There a little skittish but thats it.
ok. well my bedroom is my only option to keep my guinea pigs in. though i do not have allergies, the guinea pigs at the petco nearest me don't get picked up themselves very much. so should i expect more noise han usual?
Have you tried petfinder? There might be some closer than you realize. You can also try craigslist. There are always people who need to rehome their pigs.
Please do not patronize Petco. They get their pigs from breeding mills and giving them money for a pig is directly funding the breeding mill business.
I don't understand the "There was no shelter near me so I HAD TO go to petco" statement. There's no "had to" for guinea pig ownership. There's no NEED to own a guinea pig. If there really isn't one around you, you wait until there is. It's as simple as that.
First, yes i have tried petfinder and craigslist, and no results. And i am not patronizing petco, that is just what the employee there said. I actually really like the pigs at petco. It looks like they take really good care of them. Also, it was my idea to get them in the first place, i actually want to own guinea pigs.
If you are buying from Petco, you are patronizing them. That's what patronizing means. It's great that you like the pigs at Petco but giving them money for a pig is funding the horrible conditions of the breeding mills that they buy their stock from.
Females are backbred to exhaustion and are destroyed when they are no longer useful to them.
It's great that you want to own guinea pigs but if you have the pig's best interest at heart rather than funding the abusive breeding mills, you can wait until there is one to adopt. There's no rush. Good things come to those who wait.
A 2x5 is the minimum what I would put two males in. I had my first 2 boars in a cage the size of a 1/2 by 4 1/2 and when they hit puberty they started started to fight badly, so I upgraded their cage to a 3x4 and they stopped fighting. I now have 3 boars in a 2x4 +1x1 + 2x3 c&c cage, they all get along great.Originally Posted by MEH_MEH_MEH
If a 2x4 is the biggest you can do I would suggest getting females. (:
Ditto what @RodentCuddles said. Males tend to be more territorial than females and are more likely to fight if they don't have enough space. A 2X4 isn't really large enough for two males. Two females will be a better choice if a 2X4 is all you can do.
I am COMPLETELY surprised that there are no guinea pigs on CraigsList. Are there any listings that seem good but are too far away? You could always meet them in the middle (ALWAYS IN A PUBLIC PLACE), or at a landmark, like a statue downtown. I met the guy I got (correction: saved) my piggies from in Concord, which is over an hour away. Think of it as a labor of love, but if your parents aren't too happy to drive aways, offer to pay for the gas money...
DO NOT BUY FROM PETCO. It is evil. Evilll...... Sometimes you just have to be patient. Sadly, guinea pigs are are often an "impulse" pet. People buy them, have absolutely no idea how to care for them, ad end up abandoning them or giving them to the animal shelter. I don't mean to say that's what you are going to do, but if you wait a little bit, I'm SURE a pig or 2 will come in, and you can save its life!
Are you in a remote area, and don't have a local animal shelter or rescue? If you call vets, sometimes they know if people had a litter of piggies, and the people are asking a very reasonable price! But please, PLEASE, do not buy from a breeder. Ask them if the person who has Momma pig deliberately bred her, or it was an accident.
I'm 13 too, actually, and I am sadly forced to keep them in my bedroom, as our new kitten is very curious... They don't wake me up, but then again, if a tank rolled into the house I could keep on snoozing!A huge drawback is that the room smells like a barn. But once you live with it for about a week or two, you son't even notice it anymore. I actually WISH I had waited a couple months, because just in the past few weeks, the most gorgeous piggies came in, and my limit is 2 piggies. I'm at the limit... :*(
Hope you find some piggies of your very own!
Did you try searching the "pet" section in Craig's list under the community tab? that is where pets are usually and you may have better luck there.
Edit: I had GPs in my room when I was a child and had no problems but I was a very heavy sleeper.
I would get females if the biggest you can do is a 2x4. I have my males in a 3x4 and they still get very territorial.
What is your zip code. We are not trying to find you, we want to help you adopt guinea pigs. Search on petfinder and CL.
I have my guinea pigs in my bedroom now. I wake up everyday at 5:00 am for swim practice, the pigs got used to it and now I can count on them for my alarm clock.
If you do end up using your bedroom, don;t use bedding! It gets everywhere! Close, closets, shoes, beds! Fleece is a good option.
If you're saying that petco is really your only option, then if I were you I wouldn't get pigs. Reason being is that by getting pigs from a place like that you are giving them money to fund more of all the bad things they do, so it would be better to just not get pigs at all. However I very much doubt there are no pigs anywhere in your area to adopt. I live in the middle of no where and have found pigs. You can also arrange to meet half way with some rescues and such. In fact just a few days ago I drove three hours to meet an adopter half way, which wasn't a big deal for me because I know the pig was getting a good home.
I can relate to the " Petstore is my only option" because I had originally planned on going to a pet store for the same reason. What I did was show my mom and explain to her how awful pet stores are. I told her about Mufasa and how pigs are normally sick. Then I showed her the guinea pig rescue and we emailed together. We drove an hour and a half away to get my pigs but it was worth every second.
Would you be able to make a bigger cage for them? I had to rearrange my room 3 or 4 times to fit in a 2x7 with a 2x3 loft (that overhangs 1x2) I also had to hit in a 6 foot long desk, book shelf, dresser, and of course my bed. I made it work decently.
i have checked for pigs on Guinea Pig Cages, Care, Shelters, Veterinarians - Guinea Pig Zone (not the only site, as i have checked petfinder and craigslist, but now i have checked in the pet section.) and the nearest guinea pigs are about 45 minutes away, the post on craigslist was on June 1st, so i dont know if he still has them. as for making the cage bigger, the biggest i might be able to go is a 3X4.
It may take some patience to find some guinea pig in your area, but believe me there most likely will be some, you just have to keep looking. I waited months to adopt 2 of my girls, because I couldn't find any pigs except males. We ended up driving over an hour to the shelter in rush hour traffic, my mother drove me and she hates rodents so I guess she must love me.
As far as being in bedrooms, yes guinea pigs can flare up allergies, even allergies you didn't know you had. I never knew I was allergic to some grasses until I started buying bales of hay for my pigs. And odor can be a problem too, but only if you don't keep your cage clean. The only reason my cage ever smells is if I don't spot clean the fleece or change it enough. I changed it usually twice a week with 3 females in a 2x4 with a 2x3 loft. Odors and Allergies can be helped with a cheap air filter from somewhere like walmart. I run mine 24/7 and my allergies have been better and I never smell the cage even if I wait too long between changed.
I have always had the pigs in my room, for the past 9 years. It is the safest option, as my mother smokes, and I can easily monitor their health as I am in my room a lot. Sometimes the pigs can be loud but very rarely does it keep me up or wake me up and I am not a heavy sleeper. Sad story, but if my pigs had not been in my room I would not have known that my pig was having seizures and would have not gotten a chance to say goodbye to her (I had to go to school).
My room is a very strange design, and basically I have only 2 usable walls. Instead of getting a desk or dresser, I put my guinea pig cage along the wall, I have a fish tank and tv, and have the smallest stand I could find for them. My cage is a 2x4 with a 2x3 loft which sits over the tv. I made do with the space I have. Believe me there is no other way to rearrange my room, unless someone buys me a flat screen tv, which I don't see happening anytime soon
Ok. Thank you for the help.
Maybe you could even ask your parents to email the poster, they might still have the piggy.
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