Chat What started your interest in guinea pigs?

[Extraterrestrial]

For me, I wanted a pet that I could manage with working full time and living aline. Dogs were ruled out quickly, cats were a no because I have a lot of hobby plants that they could chew on and get sick. I'd had various pocket pets for a while, but I didn't want to go into the cycle of hamsters/rats with short lifespans, nor did I feel I had the appropriate amount of time to dedicate to a high energy critter like a ferret.

That led me to guinea pigs! I threw myself into watching guinea pig vloggers and reading up all about them for about two months before I got all my supplies and my boys. Especially with all the pandemic pets being abandoned, I wanted to really make sure I would do right by these little guys.

What got you first interested in piggies? Was it planned, or did you suddenly have a new furry friend to take care of that turned into a passion?

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Well, mine was pretty straightforward. I got roped into it. ROFL

My youngest, who was I think 15 at the time, asked if he could have a guinea pig. Probably because I had spoken several times about the one I had when I was a kid. My answer was no, because I knew he would quickly tire of the little critter and as I was on call, I really didn't think I would have the time to dedicate to a furry creature. Besides, we had two cats.

Three days later we had a pig. He is in my avatar, the tan and grey one. He had a long since forgotten original name, but he pooped SO MUCH that my wife called him a Pooper. A Poopy Pig.

I fell in love with that little man very quickly. And he made me do a lot of research, and that's how I ended up here looking at C and C cages, and discovered that they should have a buddy. And so, Sly, the other pig in my avatar, came home.

In August, that will have been 12 years ago. Poopy passed away in October of 2016, and we got a couple of babies to fill that void named Punkin and Scooter. Even though I know that three is a taboo number for boars I tried it anyway. It worked, but only until Punkin hit puberty. Sly was separated from them by grids at that time as he was the old fella and he was the one getting hurt. Sly passed away at almost 7 years of age in August of 2018.

Punkin and Scooter both fell seriously ill just before their third birthday in 2019. We sadly lost Punkin less than 8 weeks later, and Scooter fought for another 7 months before we lost him as well. To say I was devastated is an understatement. I am not over losing any of them, but those two were especially hard because they were so young.

We now have Simon and Leo. Leo was a buddy for Scooter after we had lost Punkin. Leo was 18 months old and had never known another pig. He absolutely adored Scooter. He brought Leo out of his shell and taught him how to live like a piggy should. Sadly, Leo has not wheeked once since Scooter passed away. It's like a piece of Leo was lost with Scooter.

Of course, Simon is now Leo's buddy and the two of them are almost as good brothers and Scooter and Punkin were. That's where we are today!

 

[4boipigs]

I looked at one, decided I wanted it, and then adopted a pair from a shelter. That's it, just a spontaneous purchase.

 

[LittleSqueakers]

I originally wanted a low-maintenance pet that could accompany me as I went through vet school, and remembered how much I enjoyed the guinea pig I had when I was growing up. Well, vet school didn't pan out, and I have now learned through experience that guinea pigs are actually a lot of work. Still, I adored Tribble and Nibbler, and feel privileged to have cared for them - my first pets I had as an adult who were really mine. Tribble in particular was a very special animal, and he was with me through a period of great changes in my life. After he passed away, I had to wait a while before having more pets, as I was just finishing school and dwindling finances and the urgency to get a job did not allow me to adopt any more pets at the time. (But Blueberry the hamster was there for me. ) But a year after starting a new job and building my monies up again, and I found myself going back again and again to looking at guinea pigs. Fate then sent a message when the local animal shelter took in a mess of pigs and rabbits from a hoarding case. And thus, Casper and Poptart came into my life and started the Second Age of Pigs.

 

[TinyPiggy]

Well my story is just like every other kid who wanted a pet. Me and my brother were tired of fish and my mom said no to hamsters after our first two multiplied like crazy and becane cannibals. So I decided to get a rabbit. That was a no too because they " took up too much space". So we got guinea pigs at a pet store ( i would do it differently now that i am more educated). And those two little boys were Taffi and Cookie. And I have no plans to stop caring for piggies.

 

[Mizz P]

I had guinea pigs as a kid, back in the 1960s. I recently retired and my husband talked me in to fulfilling my dream of getting some kind of pet. Our HOA won't allow dogs, my husband is allergic to cats, so I decided to start the adoption process for a pig. I found a single boar via a private homing service run by our local animal shelter. He was about 4 y.o. when we got him and had him for almost two years before he passed away of liver cancer. We adopted another single boar and he is now living his best life. We live in a tiny house so he is almost always within eye- and ear-shot of us. Guinea pigs are my husband's first fur-bearing pet and he is totally smitten!

 

[SSLee]

Having not grown up with pets, I wanted to start slowly and work up to a dog. I'm also afraid of tails like the kind mice and rats have, so I knew I wanted a pet with no tail and guinea pigs fitted the bill. However, I wanted to wait until after my father passed as I knew I would be helping care for him.

Things took a turn when my niece, who lives in the top unit of our duplex, turned 8, and wanted guinea pigs. Her father, my brother, would not let her get them as he knew she would lose interest and he didn't want to end up caring for them. However, I buckled under pressure and offered to house the pigs and my niece would come down to my unit to help care for them. You can guess what happened next, I got the two pigs (shown on my avatar) through a Craigs List rehoming and my niece soon lost interest.

The piggies have always lived with me, even for 1.5 years when I stayed at my father's apartment to care for him. His apartment complex did not allow animals but I smuggled them in. Periodically building management would need to come in to fix things and I brought them to the office on those days. My manager is very understanding and we had empty offices I could use to set up a temporary cage for the day. Back in my father's apartment, I would flip the C&C cage on its side and pretended it was a storage bin. None of the maintenance workers who came to work in my father's apartment realized it was a pet cage.

Birdie, the one on the left, passed away at 2.5 years of age. I have since adopted two more piggies from local animal shelters and now have a trio of three girls (Lily, Felicia, and Rumi). Their cage and storage bins take up almost one living room wall as it is a small room. They are a lot of work but my place would be too quiet and lonely without the guinea pigs.

 

[Maisie&Hazel]

Sorry for the long typed passage-
(I do talk about pet death, so if you aren't comfortable with that, you have been warned.)
In 3rd grade, my STEM teacher had a very old, single female pig in a pet store cage. I remember seeing her once and she looked thoroughly depressed. My mom (both of us know differently now) impulse got her over winter break for me. I immediately devoted as much time as possible to researching and giving the old pig (they named her Guinea, how creative) as much attention as possible.

In September of 2021, she passed away due to a tumor that I noticed but didn't report. I was too naive and I could've prevented her death. I grieved for forever, still researching guinea pigs, until my mother's friend gave wanted to give us a pair. I hald told my mom about guinea pig loneliness, but she thought I just trying to get her to get a another one.

She ended up getting the pigs, but she split them up (without my knowing) so that we only had 1 pig. This is how we got our 2yr old Maisie. After a few months, after multiple websites being pulled up about piggy loneliness, she caved in and we filled out an inquiry and adoption application for a 6month old female pig at Oakhurst Guinea Pig Rescue (decatur, GA). Our inquiry was accepted, and we drove 2 hours (round trip) for the pig. I would've happily gone more.

They did the introduction with Goober (her original name) and we figured out that Goober had an extra toe on her back legs, making her have 16 toes instead of 14.

We took Goober home and renamed her Hazel, because she has a feisty personality and is quite sassy, especially when Maisie comes into her tunnel (lol, we have so many tunnels and hidies, they only want one). After Guinea died, I just couldn't let go. I watched videos of guinea pigs, finally realizing that the guilt was worsening. I realized that the only way to fix my mistakes with Guinea was to show her, up on the Rainbow bridge, that I could improve. It breaks my heart to think about her, because it was all my fault she didn't make it. I loved her to death and I would beg and live off noodles if it means guinea pigs could be happy.

I absolutely refuse to surrender Maisie and Hazel, and I will go to any lengths to make sure they are happy. I take care of the pigs, (as in feeding, cleaning, weighing, overall maintenance), but sometimes my mother (however allergic she is to hay) will help. She thinks they are cute little gold diggers, (and they are) so she will help sometimes with them. My parents help with the vet bills, and I have commited to guinea pigs.

They are my life, love, and soul.

 

[LostPeopleOfEarth158]

I had two guinea pigs when I was really really little back in the early 2000s. They were supposedly a male and female but I never got babies so they were probably the same gender. I named the one I thought was a girl Prince and the one I thought was a boy Princess. It was an accident but I got the names backwards and never changed them. I don't remember what happened to Prince but Princess died eventually. I had to have been 6 at the time and didn't know any better and my parents kept them in horrible conditions. Princess either died of illness or cold given my father made me keep the outside because he said they smelled. A grievance I will probably never forgive at this point.

Then when I moved out I started gazing longingly at the gwees in the pet store every time we went to get snake food. Probably between the longing gazes and showering my husband in stories about Prince and Princess he got me my first guinea pig in over 10 years on the day of the presidential election. I named her Plushie and to this day she's my pride and joy. Over the last 6 years I've learned a lot more about guinea pigs and am learning new things all the time. I've also had nine pigs in total over that time and still have six of them, tragically losing three of them over the last couple years.

 

[Mousewife]

I remember having a pair of guinea pigs when I was very young… like kindergarten.

They were on a shelf higher than I could reach, but being in kindergarten, it probably wasn’t actually that high, lol.

Later, after I got married, I had pet mice. We had mice for years!
I adopted a hamster for my daughter when she was in preschool. She adored him. He would sit on a plate (not her plate, his own) on the table and eat berries with her. He was already pretty old when we got him. Nearly 1.5 years. They’d gotten him around 6 months old from the pet store and had him for almost a year.
We had him another 1.5 years. He died very painfully of kidney failure.
She was DEVASTATED!!

Between that and watching her crumble every time a pet mouse died, we needed something with a slightly longer lifespan.
So we got guinea pigs.

My husband is allergic to dogs, cats, ….everything with fur and dander, including the guinea pigs… but the mess is contained with the pigs.

My daughter absolutely adores them! The whole experience has been enhanced by teaching them to “talk” with buttons and she spends a lot of time teaching them tricks. They are very intelligent, surprisingly interactive little animals.

 

[cruella-de-vil]

Our neighbors got two babies from
a pet store without doing much research for their highschool daughters, who quickly lost interest. I babysitted them a couple times, and ended up doing a deep dive in research. Eventually, one of their daughters was going off to college and it was getting busy. They needed someone to take them, and offered them to me. I got them a new, adequately sized cage and they are much happier now!

 

[ItsaZoo]

In the 1980s my husband and I got guinea pigs. I don’t remember why. My first job at 15 was in a pet store so I had just about everything for a pet.

Then in 2017 we had to say goodbye to a sweet lovable dog. She was my Velcro dog - she stuck to me wherever I was. I was just devastated. I was looking at available rescues but there weren’t any smaller house dogs. I decided to walk through the small animal room, and Snow White the guinea pig stood up in her cage to greet me. She was friendly and adorable. I kept thinking about her. When my husband came home from work that evening I told him I wanted to adopt her. One of the best things I ever did. I changed her name to Lacey. She was a sweetheart.

Then I did research and realized guinea pigs need a lot of care. I ended up building a larger cage, changing to fleece bedding, and learning about proper care and exercise.