A guinea pig is good for someone who has time to spend with it. It needs to come out once in a while. If you are thinking about getting one, you should think about where you are going to put the cage and about the responsibilities of cleaning the cage and taking care of the guinea pig. A guinea pig's cage is about as big as a rabbit's cage so they will take up a lot of space.
Guinea pigs need a pretty
big wooden and wire cage. You should make sure the wire is
smooth or else the cavy will get cuts on its legs, and your
guinea pig will have very serious injuries!
You should
line
the cage with straw or wood
chips to give it a nice soft bed. In their cage, cavies will need a
water bottle, a heavy bowl for food, a wooden block to gnaw on, and
some type of box for a house to keep them happy. The cage should have
two parts. One part is the dark enclosed area where they will sleep.
That should be made of wood. The other part has at least one side
made of wire so your guinea pig can look around. This part is where
you should keep the food and water. The cage should be kept away from
drafty places in your house like windows and doors. Cages can be
outside in warm weather, but should be inside when it gets
cold.
Cavies don't need a lot of exercise, but it is a good idea to build a pen that has no roof so you can sit and play with them and so they can move around and explore. This is important. Be careful of guinea pig wheels. They can be dangorous. See their legs can get stuck between the bars, and then....SNAP! The cavy breaks its leg.
When you hold a guinea
pig, you should cradle it and support its hind quarters. To
pick it up, you should coax it into your arms. Put one hand
under its chest and one hand under its
hindquarters.
You should feed your guinea pig twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. The cavy needs a strict diet because they can not make vitamin C. Like people, guinea pigs must eat foods that have vitamin C. One of your guinea pig's meals each day should contain fresh green vegetables, fruit, or carrots. Cabbage, lettuce, and spinach are some good vegetables to feed to your guinea pig. The other meal should be dry food like pellets, grains, seeds, oats, and nuts. About a teaspoon of this kind of food should be enough unless your cavy eats it very fast. Some foods can cause wet tail which can lead to death. Wet tail is when any rodent gets the runs. Then it will get stuck to the fur causing the cavy to keep getting the poop in its stomach when it cleans itself. That is bad for some organs which will kill the guinea pig.
Some guinea pigs need more care than others. Guinea pigs with long hair need to be groomed much more than guinea pigs with short hair. There are special brushes with special bristles for each kind of guinea pigs. Long-haired guinea pig brushes have wire bristles. When you clean the guinea pigs cage, you should put it on the ground in your back yard and sweep it all out. You need to file a guinea pig's teeth if they get too long, and once every year brush their big, front teeth and file their nails.