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Questions about different habits of New Guinea pigs compared to old.

LucyandEthel

Member
Cavy Gazer
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Posts
3
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
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Hi all,
Thank you for the welcome. We sadly recently lost our 4 month old guinea pig due to presumed infection- she died at the vets office during an emergency visit. She seemed to go down hill in a matter of 12 hours from running around happily to a rapid decline. We don’t know what happened and that definitely makes me worry and feel guilty like I could of prevented it. We decided we still wanted to own a pet, so after thorough washing and sanitizing of cage we set up the habitat again for our new adopted pair of girls (11 months old). (Our first was from pet store). So far these 2 are VERY social and doing well. I have two big issues and as we had the first tragedy I’m extremely cautious now about making any changes....
1) the poop looks different - we’ve had them for 1 day but one of the girls has rounder poops that seem to flatten. I don’t know their habits yet or who it belongs to so I don’t know what she ate in foster care. Any ideas or thoughts?
2) the cage stinks after 1 day! We have fleece bedding. Our young babe used to go up against a corner so it was easy to just change out the litter box, but these two go EVERYWHERE - can I litter train 1 year olds?! I think they had pine bedding in foster care, but that makes me uneasy.
Thank you for help/guidance/reassurance!
 

bpatters

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Cavy Slave
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Sep 23, 2009
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Joined
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Welcome!

Don't worry about the poop yet. It's highly dependent on what the pig has eaten, and you need to observe for several days to see what's normal. Just keep an eye on them since the output of the two looks slightly different. If it gets mushy, then it's time to cut out veggies and maybe see a vet.

What's under your fleece as the absorbent layer? Fleece itself generally doesn't smell, but newspaper does, and so do towels after a day or so. Other absorbent materials have less odor.

You can't potty train guinea pigs at all. If you happen to have cooperative pigs who like to go in one place, you can catch most of the output. If not, well, join the crowd of poop-scoopers. That said, they do like privacy, so if you drape a piece of fleece across one corner of the cage, that might encourage them to use that spot. And they tend to poop the most where they sleep and eat, so you can put down smaller pads in those areas that can be easily changed out.
 

LucyandEthel

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Cavy Gazer
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
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Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
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Thanks for the feedback!
 
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