Hello everyone
I have noticed the backs of the piggies rear legs getting red. There is no scaling, flaking or broken skin and it might be because the piggies are as not active as they used to be and are sitting around in their wee? Even after they hav
what can I put on their skin to help soothe it?
I have had a clear out and found the rest of the fleeces I had forgotten about so now there are extra fleece pads under the hidies and boxes. These will be washed mid week. Will this help?
Gorgeous Guineas seem to be out of stock of the lotions I wanted.
I have two piggies with tumours and one waiting an exotic vet consultation tomorrow with Zoom for a potential eye poke or cataract. I feel like I’m not doing enough and I have let them all down
Hi!
Guinea pigs have red feet when they feel hot. Please do not feel tempted to overtreat with creams as that can soften the skin too much and make it easier to rip and cause infections. This is what I got told when I asked one of the most piggy savvy vets about the same problem.
Here are tips on how you treat urine scald and feet in guinea pigs that sit in their pee a lot; including bedding tips:
Looking after guinea pigs with limited or no mobility
If your guinea pigs are on fleece, please consider how much detergent you use and whether you might like to run an extra rinse cycle when washing any surface bedding and making sure that you never use any detergent. But otherwise, best leave be; if my own piggies are anything to go by, it is not going to cause any longer term foot problems - mine never have.
You are not a bad owner! Please try not to fall into the trap of expecting from yourself to be perfect with a zero tolerance towards making mistakes. All you achieve is to set yourself up for a fall and deprive yourself of much of the joy of your pets. Like parenthood and life as a whole, pet ownership is not about being perfect; it is a life long learning curve.
It is about giving yourself the tolerance to make mistakes and learn from them. Life is never about not putting a foot wrong; it is all about how you get back up on your feet after a stumble or fall; what you take from it and not repeating the same mistake again. You only really gain a real concept of how things fit together when you end up with the occasional mess and have to sort it out with all the attendant headaches and heartaches.
Life is about growing and gaining a deeper understanding. The hardest lessons may be the painful and leave you with an eternal regret in some cases, but they are also the greattest spur to do better and do more good in the end than if you had never put your foot wrong and followed a very narrow, safe path.
If you ever allow yourself to only skim the surface of life, you don't allow yourself to grow and to become a more mature personality. Inevitably some of life's lessons will be harder - but going through them, facing the abyss and coming out on the other side will make you much stonger and will ultimately a much more understanding and empathetic person.
Most of my own lessons have come the hard way. There are of course things that I will always rue; but they have also given me the determination to learn more, think deeper and have given me an understanding of how things work that I would have never achieved otherwise. It is never so much about the mistake itself but what you do with it constructively, especially as life has this nasty habit of throwing you curve balls.
As long as you give your piggies love and a happy life (which does NOT mean a perfect life!), you aren't doing wrong. The rest is down to life long lessons and continuing to become a better owner because perfection is something you'll chase all your life. I am still nowhere near it after nearly 50 years and am still learning new things and making new mistakes all the time. Experience is not so much the result of getting it right all the time but of learning what and why you have got something wrong and applying that new knowledge constructively.
