Bonding Skittish piggy...cant pick him up to clean his cage! help me please!

[Jessie Bates]

Hi everyone! So me and my younger brother just bought a male guinea pig at the pet store the other day! He was doing pretty well, the first couple of days..he would come up the cage and Wheek and popcorn because he wanted food and he seemed to be really happy. Well, on the 4th day his cage was a mess, alot of poop and pee and we thought it would be best to take him out for cuddles and floor time and clean his cage. Well needless to say it went terribly..he is so skittish that we cant even pet him never mind trying to pick him up. We opened the cage door and he came up and out his paws up on the bars and we fed him some lettuce for a little bit and then tried to pet him but he always got frightened and ran away. Then we tried to pick him up, we took everything out of the cage and literally tried for almost an hour to pick him up but he kept freaking out and running so fast and i didnt want to hurt him. He was crying and i knew he was scared so we eventually gave up and put everything back in his cage and didnt end up cleaning it. Now he is just in his house and looks sad and all worked up. I feel so bad and i dont know what to do..i feel like we traumatized him and we wont be able to pick him up like we hoped to. Please if any of you have any tips on getting him to be less skittish and or ways to help me pick him up easily please let me know. I know having 2 piggies is better than 1 but our parents are only allowing us to have 1 at the moment..i just hope we didnt traumatize him and he isnt going to ever let us pick him up. I really hope he is going to be alright..

 

[Capricex]

If you google how to pick up a pig there's a helpful video where some pigs walk into something that you pick them up in to transport them to another location. They are prey animals so they will always think your going A wall and wanting to eat them from above. I would let him calm down and then figure out what to use as a regular thing that he will walk into so that he knows that's what it's for and give him a treat after he does it. It's ok for the time being that he's a loner as you work on your parents, but you need to clean the cage like once a day if that to make sure he doesn't get sick from filth. If you could do all this and get him to continue to do what he was doing that would be great. Then introduce floor time. Lone pigs normally get very attached to their cage as a safe space, so he'll look to go back often. Make sure he's in a room a lot of time with you guys so he sees you.

 

[scoottie]

Try getting a shoe box and shoo him into there

 

[PeanutnCookie]

Almost all guinea pigs will run when you try to pick them up. They are prey animals and if they aren't used to being picked up, they will get scared. It might help if you pet him when he's in the cage. If he doesn't run, just scoop him up from underneath. if he does, just try again, but be patient and try not to make a lot of jerky, sudden movements. It will probably take a while for him to get used to being picked up, but eventually he shouldn't mind as much.

You don't need to clean the cage every day, but once it starts getting really messy or smelly, I would clean it. Another tip: the bigger the cage, the happier your guinea pig will be, and it won't start smelling as fast.

 

[Jessie Bates]

Thanks so much everyone! Can i try picking him up with a towel does that work? and he is so friendly when we walk in, he wheeks and popcorns and does really fast laps around the cage and does bite on the wires of the cage (good or bad?) i think he thinks we have a treat..when we were feeding him lettuce tonight i was able to pet his head and sides and he was fine but once he stopped eating he wouldnt let me touch him..how do i use a shoe box? and i want to get him out of the cage to clean it but i also want to be able to cuddle with him and not just transport him right to the floor :/