Car Journey & Pigs?

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jrogers

jrogers

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Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has had experience and will be able to provide me tips on car travel and piggys?

I will be moving 100 miles, so roughly 1hr 40 mins in a car in over just a months time and want to make sure Peggy is as comfortable as possible!

Thank you x
 
jrogers said:
Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has had experience and will be able to provide me tips on car travel and piggys?

I will be moving 100 miles, so roughly 1hr 40 mins in a car in over just a months time and want to make sure Peggy is as comfortable as possible!

Thank you x
Click to expand...

I've done similar length journeys. I keep my piggies in their pet carriers in a snuggly and with hay and cucumber. Not much room to move around/get hurt. They do move around a bit. After about an hour I stop to check and offer some food/water and they have always been fine. Just make sure to strap in the carrier, and keep them cool. No locked cars in hot weather (sorry to preach!). Good luck.
 
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Brilliant thanks for the adivce - touchwood all goes well!
 
VickiA pretty much said it, but I hope you don't mind me adding to make sure only little handfuls of hay are put in the carrier at a time if it's hot as hay works as a sort of warmer (can't think of a better word) from what I remember. Some piggies do mind the the lights of a tunnel, so it might be worth putting a light blanket on top of the carrier when you go through one. If you don't know already, I would try finding an estimation of what the weather will be like. :)

Also would keep a large eye on Peggy as some guinea pigs can get random problems at times during transport.
 
Brilliant thank you very much! Will make sure I write all this down! X
 
I'm sure Peggy will be fine, just make sure to monitor the temperature of the vehicle well because piggies are very sensitive to temperature changes. I travel with my guinea pigs frequently on the train and in the car on longer journeys than what you are doing and they are always fine, they just eat and sleep and after a couple of journeys they got used to it and run straight into the carrier when I put it in their cage as they feel safe and cosy in it. One of my pigs is very confident and peeps right out the carrier at people on the train and sniffs haha.

Would recommend taking some chopped up bits of watery veg to give them in the middle of the journey (or throughout) to make sure they are well hydrated, cucumber is especially good, but lettuce or whatever works well too.
 
The carrier needs to be of adequate size for a journey of that length of time - the very small carriers would not be suitable. Kitten or cat size would suffice. It also needs to be adequately ventilated.
A;llght/white cotton sheet draped loosely over the top of the carrier will help prevent it getting overheated by reflecting any sun coming in through the window (chance would be a fine thing!)
Something to absorb urine shoudl be placed in the bottom - such as a towel or puppy pads and include a small amount of hay purely to eat (i.e. not sit on or hide in) otherwise overheating can occur (both hay and woodshavings are good insulators!)

Good luck with your move
x
 
I find my pigs do travel well in the cat carriers they have, much better than the smaller pet carriers but not too big as to cause harm.
 
All the above advice is excellent - the one thing I might add is to be sure they aren't in the direct air stream of any air conditioning. I recently adopted two new piggies, and they were brought down to me by car, a journey of 200 miles. They were absolutely fine when they arrived here.
 
We travel about 2 hours by car and to and from the cottage all summer and have always found the pigs do well. We are often able to just move the entire cage in the back of our van... they mostly just hide in the pigloo for the journey, although our more adventurous pigs would venture out and conduct business as usual! Make sure to take the water bottle off the side or you will have very wet shavings! I've also moved them in the carrier several times with them being none the worse for wear afterwards.
 
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