He likes to eat my hair!

[WhiteSergioGuinea]

Hello everybody!
I don't know if anyone of you has ever had the same "problem",but lately I've noticed that Sergio loves to chew on my hair when I hold him or whenever he can reach it! This morning he even climbed on my back to get to my hair!
I'm worried because sometimes I don't realise it and I'm afraid that maybe ha has actually eaten some of it! I'll be more careful from now on,but do you thing that he could actually have a problem by doing that?
Thanks!

 

[Sue G]

I know that hair isn't digestable, so if he ate much of it, it might stick in his stomach and not pass through. This is why cats sometimes vomit hairballs, if they've groomed a lot of fur into themselves, but of course guinea pigs can't vomit, so it wouldn't be passed out like that. I think probably it would be best to distract him so he doesn't eat any more of it.

 

[Sabrinova]

Why can't guinea pigs vomit? ?/ I didn't know that.

Recently Milo seems to like snuggling up to my hair, but I don't think he's started chewing it

....yet

 

[Claire W]

My Eliza has became exceptionally bad for chewing my hair. So bad in fact, she will scramble up to my shoulder to get some. When she gets like this, I have to put her back down. Silly girl rolleyes

 

[Sue G]

I don't know why they can't vomit, but you may notice that if you ever have to take a piggie for a general anaesthetic you don't have to starve them beforehand, like you do with other animals.

 

[aalur]

Nacho tried to barber me when i wasn't looking, thankfully i caught him before he took too much off! now i don't let him sit behind me

 

[Wiebke]

Barbering is a normal activity amongst guinea pigs and some transfer it to the humans.

You may find this entry about barbaring interesting:
http://www.oginet.com/pgurney/barbering.htm

 

[Romily]

We have a pig who is a sneaky barber and it really freaked me out before I heard about the habit. One of our long haired pigs coat got much shorter however it hadn't got any thinner and there were not bald patches at all. Initially I thought she had done it herself but then her floppy fringe got chopped so I did some research and found out about barbering.

Two of our long haired pigs have now got new hairstyles and as sad as I am to see them with shorter hair, they don't seem bothered at all!