Adopting How did guys get into Guinea pigs? :)

[Fizzlepop40]

I've always loved rodents and a few years ago my sister and I decided to get a hamster. I had been thinking about guinea pigs as well and was researching them along with hamsters. My sister and I did end up getting a hamster but I was learning more and more about guinea pigs. I had mentioned to my sister before we got our hamster that maybe we should get two guinea pigs instead. She refused. Almost a year later, I learned that my neighbors had two guinea pigs. I was able to meet them and, of course, that just increased my love for guinea pigs. I asked my mom if I could get a pair of piggies. She said she would have to think about it. I ended up getting my first guinea pig, Marble, about two weeks later, and my second pig, Twix, came to live with us a month after I had gotten Marble. This coming September and Octobr will mark two years I've had my piggies. I don't think I'll ever be without guinea pigs anymore, they're such awesome little animals with great personalities.

 

[BrowniesMemory]

Warning, long somewhat sad story ahead.

I was technically 7 or 8 when I first fell for guinea pigs, it was one of those 'my brother got his own pet, I want one too' things. My dad took me to the pet store, originally to look at hamsters, but I fell in love with the guinea pigs. In the end we came home with a brown and tan Abyssinian who ended up with the name Brownie. Not long after, I tell my parents that "There was something in the cage with Brownie." Like many pet-store pigs she came pregnant, and we ended up with Fluffy(white/tan) and Blackie (black/tan). This was back in the 90's before there was even internet for the "common man" so we could only do the best we could as far as sexing went. Apparently we didn't do a good enough job because months later I come out to the living room (before we moved the cage out there) and told my parents that "they multiplied again." Because the two babies looked exactly like their parents we knew that the daddy was either Blackie or Fluffy; turned out to be Fluffy.

After that we hit some hard times financially and ended up selling Fluffy, after all we were pretty sure that Pumpkin and Dumpling were girls. It wasn't before we went to the store and they were out of guinea pig food but we happened to see a giant bag of rabbit food; it looked the same as guinea pig food. Remember this was before internet and sites like this even existed and to people who were trying to do the best they could with limited funds a large bag of pellets looked pretty good. It wasn't long after that we noticed that they guinea pigs weren't quite themselves, particularly the babies. We took them to the vet but I don't think there was anything that could be done except switch back to guinea pig food and try and get more vitamin c in them. We ended up loosing all of them, but it was Brownie that touched my heart the most. She died in the evening after I got home from school and was loving on her; like she had been hanging on to say goodbye in her own way.

For the longest time after that I didn't get another guinea pig, mostly due to "not being in our own home", but in 2008 I stumbled upon this site and remembered how much I loved Brownie. After a lot of research and convincing, in 2011 I adopted Sherlock and Holmes. Now I have seven guinea pigs and find myself needing to re-home the three girls; ironically due to financial difficulties. That's another somewhat long story though, but it's kind of funny how some parts of history can repeat themselves. I still get teary-eyed when I think about Brownies last night, but in honor of her memory I vowed to give my guinea pigs the best care I could.