15 Year Old Guinea Pig Advice.

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Beans&Toast

Beans&Toast

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I was rummaging through old bags in the loft and found this book.

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I got this 15 years ago when I had my first 3 piggies. I've just had a flick through it and I'm horrified :P

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Apparently the best place to get a piggy is a pet shop or breeder.


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And it's a good idea to have them live with either another pig or a baby rabbit...

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Again, it's a good idea to have your piggy live with a rabbit.

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Apparently sisters will always get on but brothers never will.


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Straw and sawdust were considered safe bedding. And it only needs to be cleaned out once a month...

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And nuts/seeds/honey and dog biscuits were a good treat to give pigs...

I had a good laugh at this, but it's quite worrying that this was good advice 15 years ago. Oh how times have changed... :doh:
 
Beans&Toast said:
I was rummaging through old bags in the loft and found this book.

View attachment 46459

I got this 15 years ago when I had my first 3 piggies. I've just had a flick through it and I'm horrified :P

View attachment 46460
Apparently the best place to get a piggy is a pet shop or breeder.


View attachment 46461
And it's a good idea to have them live with either another pig or a baby rabbit...

View attachment 46462

Again, it's a good idea to have your piggy live with a rabbit.

View attachment 46463
Apparently sisters will always get on but brothers never will.


View attachment 46464

View attachment 46465
Straw and sawdust were considered safe bedding. And it only needs to be cleaned out once a month...

View attachment 46466

View attachment 46467
And nuts/seeds/honey and dog biscuits were a good treat to give pigs...

I had a good laugh at this, but it's quite worrying that this was good advice 15 years ago. Oh how times have changed... :doh:
Click to expand...

Times have changed a lot indeed, especially in the last 5-10 years!

You don't want to know how guinea pigs were kept 40 years ago - and yet, even those guinea pigs of my childhood were still much loved and as well cared for as we knew, and they still had very happy times, popcorns and zoomies. A 6 year old piggy in those days was considered middle-aged by us and they hardly ever needed a vet (which was probably not a bad thing, to be honest)!

Sadly, far too many people owning piggies and even some vets have still not caught up.
 
Wiebke said:
Times have changed a lot indeed, especially in the last 5-10 years!

You don't want to know how guinea pigs were kept 40 years ago - and yet, even those guinea pigs of my childhood were still much loved and as well cared for as we knew, and they still had very happy times, popcorns and zoomies. A 6 year old piggy in those days was considered middle-aged by us and they hardly ever needed a vet (which was probably not a bad thing, to be honest)!

Sadly, far too many people owning piggies and even some vets have still not caught up.
Click to expand...
Complete agree. Although I may not have been keeping my pigs in the best of environments and with the best diet 15 years ago, I did what was best for them at the time and Ioved them greatly.

Makes me wonder what the advice and knowledge of piggies will be like in another 10-15 years!
 
There were also less guinea pigs and much less rescues around, nor did many general rescues take in piggies; they were often just an accidental sideline. You simply only had shops (who usually got theirs from local breeders) or breeders themselves to get guinea pigs from - but as you can see from the advice, it was very much a buyers beware field then as it is today. (In that respect, sadly not much advance...)

Times have changed indeed! I wonder, too what people think about us in 10-15 years. All you can do is your best at the time. It is a constant personal and collective learning curve. The one single constant is the love and the striving for a good standard of care. Thanks to the internet and the rise of social media, home care has made massive advances, as has medical care in the last few years.

I sincerely hope that there is a lincensing/control system in place for shops, breeders and rescues alike to prevent the current overbreeding/indiscriminate mass breeding.
 
l suppose things wernt that bad when l srarted in the 1950s there just wasent the junk avalable , at least we only had to worry about was if the bran and oats were stored
in dry conditiones , as it was prown to getting damp and fusty, and sometimes litterd with mouse poops ,
 
When I got my first pigs 10 years ago, we were told by multiple 'experts' that boys could absolutely never EVER live together... It was only after joining this forum last year that I discovered this absolutely wasn't true - and I now have a few happy pairs of boys! I feel sad for the boys I separated in the past, thinking that was best for them - but I guess we can only do what we know...
 
gizzy said:
l suppose things wernt that bad when l srarted in the 1950s there just wasent the junk avalable , at least we only had to worry about was if the bran and oats were stored
in dry conditiones , as it was prown to getting damp and fusty, and sometimes litterd with mouse poops ,
Click to expand...

I agree - there was a lot less junk food around although the only dry mix available (pellets were anot available) did contain seeds (which were generally ignored). The piggy diet was a lot more restricted. Ours got lots of grass and young dandelion during the growing season and had unlimited hay.

Although I am a couple of decades behind you, @gizzy ! But still pre-Peter Gurney and in another country.
 
Looks like the pigs didn't like the book either in pic 7 top left corner lol they were trying to dispose of it by eating it :)
 
The crazy part is I STILL hear some of this advice (i.e. guinea pigs can live with rabbits.)

Had to chuckle at the dog biscuit comment. "Here, small herbivore... chew on this tasty snack made as junk food for larger carnivores! I'm sure it's good for you!"

I actually feel bad when I look back at my childhood guinea pig- she was on pine shavings, got pellets and veggies, no hay, and lived alone her whole life. To be fair, I had very little imput into a lot of that- she was a classroom pet for years and I only had her part-time, but we just didn't know any better twenty-odd years ago.
 
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