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PiggieWigglies, you make a great point about the way they're treated and 'shipped' as if they're cargo. It's akin to the way slaves were packed in boats and treated as cargo, and developed terminal illness during the journey. They're seen as produce, replaceable, not worthy of humane treatment.
So, lets look at it this way;
Jack and Sally want two guinea pigs. Jack and Sally are browsing the web, looking for some care information, and they stumble across this thread, where they're given the impression 'Might as well buy from a pet store, if I don't, someone else will anyway', so they go to the pet store and they get two guinea pigs, that they call Pip and Squeak. The back story of those guinea pigs is as follows; born in deplorable conditions, their mother died birthing them, and they weren't fed any essential foods such as vegetables during their critical development stage at the breeding mill. They're then packed in to a crate big enough to comfortably fit 10 pigs, but 30 are in the crate. They're nipped, scratched, peed and pood on for lets say 2 hours on the way to the pet store. They arrive, are not checked over, and are then crammed in to a space not fit for 3 pigs, but 7 are in there of various sexes. Pip and Squeak are both girls, and are impregnated by the male pups they're housed with. Pip and Squeak give birth 10 weeks after Jack and Sally bought them home, but only Pip makes it.
So, let's ask ourselves; When Jack and Sally bought those pigs, what did the pet store hear? They heard 'We approve of you and your breeders practises, continue with them', instead of hearing nothing, because Jack and Sally looked on guineapigzone and adopted instead. If the message of adopt, don't shop, gets spread like this, the pet stores will get their message loud and clear, with a resounding silence of no purchases that condone their practises. It takes time to spread the message. But if you don't try, you might as well be treating pigs like that yourself, because that's what you're approving when you knowingly purchase a pet store animal.
ETA -
@Rain Shadow, if you look back toward the start of the thread, you'll note that regardless of how a pig is bred, the death rate is still 1 in 5, and it still adds to the amount of homeless pigs in shelters being PTS because someone went to a pet store instead.