Rehoming Purchasing Pups...is 5 weeks old too soon?

[bibbster]

In trying to avoid the pet store for our first cavies, I found someone locally that unfortunately ended up with a pregnant cavy. The pups are five weeks old, is that too young to take them from their mother?

Is the care for cavies this young more demanding than a year old cavy?

And can I easily identify the sex at this young age? I don't want to end up in the same situation as the current owner.

 

[Catahoula]

Guinea pigs can leave there mothers at 3 weeks old, so 5 is just fine. As long as they can eat pellets and hay, and drink water on their own then they are good to go.

Until your babies are 6 months old you'll need to feed an alfalfa based pellet, rather then a timothy based on. You'll also have to baby-proof your cage to ensure they can't get stuck trying to squeeze through the grids/wire and be sure they can't squeeze all the way through and escape.

As far as sexing at a young age, I'm unsure. However, if the owner didn't seperate the boys from the girls at 3 weeks then the mom and possibly the sisters are pregnant. Little boys can inpregnate a female that young.

 

[bibbster]

Thank you for the information Catahoula. I've been reading a lot here as well as reference books but couldn't recall the age. I'll check with the owner to see what they are currently being fed and their drinking abilities.

I will keep the 'baby-proofing' in mind if we end up getting these pups. We were only going to get two, but there are three of them and it just seems wrong to leave one behind. Adding on to the new cage isn't an issue so we can make room for one more.

Oh dear...potent at 3 weeks! I had no idea!

 

[bpatters]

Five weeks is fine to separate them (actually, three is also fine), but if the original owner hasn't done so already, she's likely to find that the sow is pregnant again. Hopefully any girl babies are still too young to get pregnant, but not by much.

You should be able to sex them accurately at that age -- usually after a couple of weeks or so, things have sorted themselves out. If you haven't already done so, read (broken link removed).

 

[bibbster]

bpatters, thanks for that info as well. I'm planning on seeing them this weekend so we'll see how it goes. Hope to have the new C&C finished up tonight.

 

[Catahoula]

We were only going to get two, but there are three of them and it just seems wrong to leave one behind. Adding on to the new cage isn't an issue so we can make room for one more.

Oh dear...potent at 3 weeks! I had no idea!

I know you think leaving one behind would seem wrong, but if they aren't all boys or all girls then you shouldn't take them all.

Hopefully there will be 2 boys and 1 girl. Then the boys could go as a pair and the daughter could stay with mommy.

 

[bibbster]

True. Point taken.