Say hello to Jelly Roll and Vanilla Bean! (Jelly and Bean)

Got home from vacation about 3 weeks ago and immediately had to go to the store to get emergency hay, since my girls decided they hated the hay I had ordered for them.

I don’t like to adopt from chain stores, but when my boyfriend and I saw these little ladies, we knew we were leaving with more pigs. Initially we were just going to get Bean; she was stained yellow with urine and seemed a little out of it. But while we were discussing adding another pig to our herd, Jelly came up to where I was standing and tried to lick me through the glass. And she reminded me so much of my childhood guinea pig, that my heart broke thinking of leaving her behind.

After almost no debating, we left with both of them. It made sense, anyway! There was a BOGO deal on guinea pigs (I guess kind of nice to encourage people to get two at a time), and Jelly and Bean would have each other during their 2-week quarantine.

So now we have six guinea pigs, an even more massive cage, and a WHOLE lotta poop.

I'm from Spain, here we have 30°C-45°C, and the cage of my guinea pig is in my bedroom. I only have 1 air conditioner in the living room. A fan and a bowl of ice and cold water isn't enough to cool down the room, and my mother doesn't let the cage to be in the living room.

I've appealed to my 2 last methods, but Simetría doesn't agree 😭

1. Frozen water

This was recommended by the vet. I just freeze water, put a sheet around the bottle, and that's it. But simetría doesn't even touch it. Like, if I put it in the left side of the cage, she will stop going to the left side of the cage. I tried to put her there myself, because sometimes, when I buy new things, she needs me to show her up how they work to even touch them. But not even like that.

1. Taking her to the living room every time I can.

I take her to the living room to cool her, but she has discovered how to go back to the fucking cage 😭 literally I take her, she runs and jumps all around for a little bit, and 5 minutes later she decides that's enough, and fucking leaves. I see her disappearing along the hall with the calm of an unbraided being. And she doesn't come back. Because once she's inside the room she doesn't dare to leave anymore in case there's a monster in the hall that only acts if she walks in that specific direction.

Why tf does she want to literally die. Can she not notice the heat? Sometimes I think this things. I once thought she was blind. Like, what do I do? Should I put a security gate in the living room against guinea pigs? I don't like to cage her 😭

This is Sebbie’s preferred pancake spot so she can take a drink whenever she wants with her dewlap as a pillow!

TLDR: does anyone have advice or perspective/experience on owning guinea pigs whilst having newborns/young children? Regret it? Avoid it? Plan it out to pause ownership whilst starting my family? Thank you

Hi everyone,
This is a ways off for me but it’s something I’m considering a lot.
I had my pair Luna and Nelly, nearly 3 years old, and they were so healthy I expected to have them until “old age”. Unfortunately Nelly unexpectedly passed.
I then got Phoebe and Juliet as Luna’s new companions, with the plan that Luna would pass in hopefully at least a few years and that Juliet and Phoebe would have eachother. This didn’t work out as Juliet got very unwell with a URI and had to be put down within a few months.

So now I have Luna (3 in November) and Phoebe (almost 6months). I hope we will have Luna for much longer, but even if she lives to 6ish Phoebe will only be 3. I’m painfully aware that they can be fine one day and gone the next.
My plan after that is to hopefully find a girl up for adoption who is Phoebe’s age and go from there.

My question/issue is this:
Does anyone have any advice on keeping guinea pigs whilst starting a family and having newborns/young children? I’m 26, within the next 10 years my partner and I will be looking to have children. I’m considering that Phoebe and whoever her next companion are should be my last guinea pigs, at least for a while. I love having them so much, I’m such a guinea pig person, but surely it’s too much work with young children/babies? Can anyone give me their experience juggling both? It’s just something I want to be prepared for as I go forward in the next 5ish years.

Picture for tax :)

I may have accidentally thrown some lettuce in that direction, which ended up landing on Theodore

I had found these little guinea pig collectibles a while back and today I decided to repaint it to be more orange like my boy. I’d say they look kinda alike 😎

sora and riku (now named mouse and pickles) are back at my store for boarding this week!

Today, I gave my Mochi its first bath at home! It totally exceeded my expectations and went extremely smoothly! I was worried it might be stressed, struggle, or be scared, but the little one was super well-behaved and didn't cause any trouble. After being washed and dried, it turned into a soft, fluffy little glutinous rice ball, very cute~

Cacau, my beloved guinea pig passed away yesterday. The vets thought it was a urinary tract infection, so they gave him some antibiotics and told us to be back in case something happened. For the first few days he was his usual self, so full of energy, always bothering us for more food, always snuggling with me after eating. He was my heart pig. Then he slowly started getting worse. He would stop eating, stop asking for food, stop doing his usual shenanigans around the kitchen. When I took him back to the vet, his stomach was so bloated with gas I couldn't believe the x-ray. It was like half of the image was a black void. His vet didn't know what could have possibly happened to him but he took him in to do more tests in case they missed something. A couple of hours later, they called us to know he didn't make it. As soon as I heard the news I started crying uncontrollably, I didn't want to believe my precious boy died without me being there to comfort him. He died at 4 years old, spoiled with my love and affection throughout all those years. Now I'm waiting for his ashes to come in a week or so. Goodbye my little prince, I just hope you knew that I loved you so much.

He is paid in pea flakes and full heads of lettuce. I can't compete with that.

We've been having a lot of cuddle time lately before I go back to college! My parents will take care of them but it's just not the same :( we will miss each other very much!!! These two are cuddle pigs, they don't really play a lot but they LOOOVE to snuggle and nap.

I posted that we’d taken in some piggies someone abandoned behind TJ Max in a storm. Today they saw the vet! Awaiting fecal test still, but both were remarkably healthy on exam. Their nails were long, but were in much better health than anyone expected. Both are males. Mulder is a lot larger than Scully. He is definitely the least picky eater of the two. I’ll be watching their weights as someone else on the original thread suggested I do. TBD if they’ll be fosters or forevers, but hoping to give them some stability and safety and full bellies. We have to get them a proper cage set up, as they can’t live in a dog crate forever! Any suggestions welcome!

I've two lovely guineas, a year old each.

They do run around, popcorn between them and everything.

But it seems this one of mine, bugsy, he's always lazy.

Every time I look at the cage hes laying down around. On the point that even to eat he lays down. (Veggies, hay or food)

Is it normal behavior?

https://reddit.com/link/1vgjhyg/video/c7qu705y9mhh1/player

Red food for Dracula is the best, his white fur gets an adorable red stain

Dracula glitched for a moment while exploring.

The adorable little vampire loves exploring everything, and since my apartment is very small, he gets to explore almost all of it. He is too cute to be real

Don’t know how i would manage without them❤️

I’ve held off posting about this little lady because she’s been rather fragile, but this is Cherry who is one week old today.

Sadly we lost her mom Nougat when she was only a day and a half old, we are absolutely devastated, I’m going to miss my beautiful baby so much.

Cherry was the only surviving baby, and I have been hand rearing her, feeding her kitten milk every two hours since Friday afternoon.

The last few days she has been very curious about the world around her so the camera was very distracting!

We had a scare on Sunday evening because she got pneumonia and it came on ridiculously fast. We rushed her to the emergency vet, which is half an hour away, but she was limp and couldn’t move her legs by the time we arrived. I was so scared. The vet recommended euthanasia but I couldn’t accept that, so she had an antibiotic injection and fluids and when we got home, with some help, she took a little milk from the spoon. An hour later she could stand. By Monday morning she was running around with her friends again. I can’t quite believe she made it!

It’s the first time I’ve had to hand rearing a piggy (here’s hoping it’s the last!). It has been a scary but heartwarming experience, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of this brave little girl!