Help!

[Luvx]

I let my little brother (10) hold my guinea pig, and he dropped him! he fell onto his back because he was jumping from his hand, and jumped on his back onto his cage, he ran around and hes eating right now, i just want to know if hes okay please

 

[WobblyPiggy]

Hi,

If you're worried about him best thing to do is just to do a just incase vet appointment...ive had a few of mine jump from my hands before and they have thankfully been fine...please don't feel too bad it happens to the most experienced of piggy owners...one of my piggies recently escaped the grasp of a vet and ran away to safety...thankfully she trusts who took her to the vets so he was able to pick her up quickly before she jumped...the only other thing is to make young children sit down while holding piggies until they're more comfortable with it and will lessen the occurance of them jumping...

 

[Piggies&buns]

Amy fall requires a hands on vet check. Piggies can hide their pain and any injuries aren’t always immediately obvious. Please do have him seen by a vet

 

[Free Ranger]

I'm really sorry this has happened to you. Please don't pass up this chance to have him seen by a vet. If you wait a few days any small injury which might be treated has the chance to become more serious. The vet will be able to check whether legs have been fractured or if any teeth have been chipped or broken (this is not necessarily a disaster as the teeth do keep growing all the time!). They will also check for tender spots from bruising or internal injuries.

People post quite frequently about this sort of thing and all I can tell you is that whether piggy escapes unhurt or whether he suffers fatal injury is pure luck. Cats and dogs leap out of people's arms all the time and I suppose we're used to that but most piggies aren't anywhere near that agile and they don't bounce. They are ground-dwelling prey animals and are basically made to nose around on the floor eating hay. His youth is on his side as the babies are far more energetic than the old ones. He sounds like he can run and eat so you might have been lucky this time.

I'm a mom and I've seen piggies trying to escape kids attentions before so like @WobblyPiggy said getting them to sit on the floor with piggy is a really good precaution as they can't fall far. The other thing is to remind lil' bro' not to hold him too hard as lads are tempted to 'clutch' the piggy to make sure they don't escape which can actually cause injury in itself and which can also make piggy very frightened of being held at all! A soft touch and a gentle approach (and some veggie bribes) and soon piggy will trust you enough to run over to you for their cucumber chunk