my most recent piggies are have long, soft hair, whereas before I have only had short haired and an aby with medium hair and lots of rosettes, which I could take care of pretty easily. These latest 2 are only 15/16 weeks, and I'm looking for advice on how old they need to be before I try bathing them. They are settling in tonight, and I plan to hair-brush tomorrow. Is that too soon?
@Sasra
Hello
Really no need to bath piggies at all, only for medical reasons. It stresses them out way too much, they will scrabble and to be honest there flight mecahnsim kicks in and this can lead to injury.
Long haired piggies do need a little extra care, Agreeing with posts above about keeping bum fur trimmed short. It won't look pretty
but the most important thing is keeping it short so no matts happen through wee and poo... When you trim always keep your fingers between piggy skin and blade as piggies are wrigglers as you know. I would also do it as a two person job, one holds and distracts with food while other trims.
As for settling, piggies are prey animals and their prey reflexes are really strong and evident. Especially when young.... We are currently trying to tame our 6 month old still... we are getting there but with some piggies as humans some are more timid than others.
Start getting your piggies used to the sound of your voice by talking to them when you are around the cage. The first thing to try after this is hand feeding in the cage, pop a little veg in your hand and offer it to them while they are in their hidey - let them take this off you (hopefully)
After a day or two try and get them to venture their head out and take then slowly getting them to come out further and take food from your hand, hopefully you can get them coming over to the bars and take food off your that way.
Food is the best way to bribe and the way to a piggies heart is through their tummy! Use food when you get round to lap times also. Start lap time for a short amount of time at first and build up. We started off we laptimes for 1 minute with new piggies then pop them back, slowly increasing the time. They will soon associate you with food and good things but at first it takes a while to gain their trust. I can also recommend getting something like a cavy cosy for laptime this will help the piggies feel more secure too
We use this method to catch the piggies who aren't used to getting picked up or get stressed when doing so, it takes the stress out for them and you still use this to this day as a less stressed piggy at laptime is a more relaxed pig
Hope that helps
Lee