Are we Part of their Herd?......And Strange Response to Noise I made....

[Storm1974]

Just wondering if our beloved Guinea Pigs see us humans as 'part of their herd'?

Also (and sort of related), earlier, I made a kind of kissing noise with my lips, a few times to Bramble, while he was eating his hay, and while I was doing this, he suddenly started moving his head quickly from side to side while staring straight at me, and making little squeaking sounds, like he was very worried/agitated! Then he ran and jumped onto his shelf, as if he was scared of the strange new noises I was making and wanted to get away! The two other pigs, who we haven't had that long 6 months (whereas we've had Bramble since he was a baby, for around a year and a half) didn't seem that bothered by Brambles' behaviour, although Rusty did come to see what was wrong with Bramble, after a few seconds of him 'freaking out'!

I left the room just after that episode to let my husband know what had happened, and when I came back in, Bramble was back in his hay as if nothing had happened!

Has anybody else had this experience before?

 

[sport_billy]

Piggies are funny little creatures sounds like he got a little spooked, but not that spooked that their food obsession didn’t resume! They are so lovely

 

[piggieminder]

If I make kissy noises at mine they rumble at me, they are not amused at my attempts to be affectionate. Humans are there to be tolerated because they housekeep their cages and feed them!

 

[Freela]

Our younger pig, Dahlia, spooks at a LOT of things (movements, noises, etc.) but she's literally only upset for a moment and then comes back to the food. She's on high alert, but if she hasn't died within ten seconds of something scary, she comes right back like nothing ever scared her. LOL!

I'm not sure if they see us as herd members... I have read that the loud 'I hear food human, give me food now!' wheek is pretty much ONLY used for humans and not with each other. I've always kind of fantasized that they are shouting at us because they think we are too dumb to understand the subtleties of their normal communication. They don't think we are guinea pigs, they think we are dumb servants who need to be yelled at!

I have had some pigs who are better at communicating with people than others. One of my current pigs, Misa, doesn't wheek loudly, but if she needs something she will tweet/chatter at us as soon as she sees us to get our attention. It's usually because she's out of water, and she will hover around the water bottle bottle until someone appears and then twitter at us to get our attention. I can always tell what she wants because she's in the immediate vicinity of the thing that needs fixing (usually either she needs water or has flipped over a bowl/pigloo) and it's a different kind of noise than she makes if she's excited or upset. She is just drawing our attention to the problem so we can fix it for her. It's pretty charming. She's one of our smarter pigs generally.