Fireworks

[S97]

Hello guys, I'm a relatively new owner of Guinea pigs. I got my two lads in February and naturally I love them both to bits! It's that dreaded time of the year again when bizarrely the British public decide to spend their hard earned money using explosives to scare animals (and people!) for a good few weeks. Unfortunately, I live in an area where these idiots continually let them off from the end of October right through to mid November.

As this is my first firework season as a Guinea pig dad, do you guys have any tips on how to keep them calm and feeling safe? They live indoors at all times by the way in what is always a quiet room with no TV/radio etc.

 

[Claire W]

You could close the curtains and leave the light on to drown out the flashes. Also place a blanket around their cage to help them feel more secure and consider putting on a radio to drown out the bangs.

 

[weepweeps]

My boys live in the garage. There’s not much I can do. There were some fireworks recently for Diwali and they were both ok the next day.

 

[piggieminder]

I do as Claire above, we also sit in the same room as the piggies chatting to make them aware we are around. We have fireworks anytime any day all year here so it's hard to be prepared. I have found they get used to them and don't take much notice after a while.

 

[AidaB]

Hello! We leave TV or radio on during fireworks. We also chat a lot of nonsense to our Guinea pigs to reassure them.
Over New Year’s Eve we used a trick learnt from someone else here on TGPF which was set the washing machine to spin as close to midnight as possible which worked quite well.

 

[Eriathwen]

I have a bag of forage, pellets, pea flakes and other goodies that I keep handy for when the fireworks start, you'd be surprised how much a bag rustle will distract from even the loudest bangs! Mine have learned fireworks=treats which dulls the fear for them, apart from those awful house shaking bomb like explosions that go off, which luckily are few and far between.

 

[S97]

Thanks for the replies everyone. You've eased my worries a little bit! They already have a blanket they usually sit on when I have them out the cage (which is quite a lot) but yeah I think I'll buy a thicker one before the weekend.