Saturday, May 12, 2012

What To Use As Bedding Material For Your Guinea Pigs

By Tommie Bakr


Taking care of rodents like guinea pigs involves providing them with bedding. Guinea pigs scuttle all over the place, while being alert for any presence of snakes, cats and other animals that can devour them. Guinea pigs feel safe and happy with their favorite bedding made from among the three: paper, shavings, or straw.

Shredded paper is the cheapest way to create a soft place for your guinea pigs to roll around. It's not only inexpensive but it soaks up urine fast thus keeping the cage dryer and cleaner for your pets. Take note though, don't use paper that has ink such as news paper. The ink can be poisonous and cause death to your guinea pig. Also, don't forget to change the paper regularly.

Another source of bedding is shavings from a soft type of wood. This seems to be the most popular option among guinea pig owners as they come in different forms. There are larger shavings or even pellet-sized shavings.

As we all know, shavings come from wood. Since wood carries a smell with it so does its shavings. Pine tree's shaving is an example of good smell and affordable materials. The only concern is that they can make dust.

Since the wood has odor, it would help if you let the materials dry outdoors to let the wood release its odor naturally. This is important because guinea pigs are known to have allergy from the odor of the shavings. Therefore, use shavings when you have a cage that has more air circulation, not an aquarium where most of the air is trapped.

Other pet owners also like to use straw or hay as bedding. There is an added treat for the guinea pigs as they like to eat straw.

Keep the straw dry and clear of molds. When the straw gets wet, they get easily damaged.

Avoid using sawdust as it can cause pulmonary problems with the guinea pig when they inhale the small particles of dust. Neither should you use materials that are hard because it can pierce through the eyes of the guinea pig.




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Monday, April 9, 2012

Do cavy's need additional vitamin C?

By Allan Bakier


Guinea pigs can't provide their own C-vitamin, so you've to ensure that your pets gets adequate vitamin C in their daily feed.

How come cavies need vitamin C?

You may be having vitamin and mineral pills to be sure to consume enough vitamins, but you should also make confident that your guinea pig receives adequate vitamins. Distinct from most other mammals, guinea pigs are unable to form ascorbic acid in their body system.

The ways to give your guinea pig vitamin c

The good news is, you can effortlessly give your guinea pig vitamin c and you can attempt this number of ways:

When you give food to your guinea pig with fresh greens, choose produce with extra high content of C- vitamin. Use for example, parsley (that guinea pigs love) which includes approximately. 40 times as much ascorbic acid as carrots. Also sweet peppers, broccoli, rose hips and orange contains a lot of C- vitamins but you should only give the orange along with other citrus fruits once per week, because the level of acidity that they consist of may affect your guinea pig teeth's if the get it too much.

Try to find feed pellets made especially for guinea pigs - they usually are supplied vitamin C

Ascorbic Acid droplets can be put into drinking water.

Sadly vitamin C rapidly stop working in water, so it's not the ultimate way to do it, and you can risk that your guinea pigs do not like to drink water mainly because it tastes wrong

If your guinea pig is expecting, it should have double the amount vitamin c usually!

Shit Vitamins

if you realize that your guinea pig consumes some of his own feces, do not be concerned, there is nothing amiss with your guinea pig, when it eats its own feces it reuse some minerals, vitamins and bacteria that it needs to be healthy. If you look hard if you notice, that it only consumes some waste that looks somewhat different, they are smaller and appear softer.

Indications of vitamin c deficiency

Already after 2 weeks without vitamin c, your cavy well-being is influenced.

Be on the lookout for the signals because they may be a sign of that your guinea pig doesn't get sufficient C-vitamin: diarrhea, losing weight or eating less than usual. Also a neglected coat is usually a sign of ascorbic acid insufficiency.

When you eat your own everyday vitamin think that also your cavy needs vitamins and healthy food.


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Saturday, April 7, 2012

Guinea Pigs - Cavies and Kids - Are They a Good Mix?

By Bob Matthews


If kids are older and moderately responsible, they can (and should) take on a role in the custody of your family's guinea pigs. With the words: O.K, we'll get a guinea pig - but you must take care of it, many parents are almost tempted to completely abdicate their pig care responsibilities and assign them all to the child. This is almost never a smart idea. While caring for any living being is a great learning opportunity (and the parent may even tell the kid that they are fully in control of the animal's health, safety and welfare); ultimately , the final responsibility must always remain with the responsible adult.



While full accountability for your pig's welfare should never be given to a very small child, it is actually a good learning experience to allot specific tasks to the youngsters in the family. If the jobs are a life-critical - such as those concerning food, water or supplements - the responsible parent must monitor the situation to be certain these obligations have not been neglected. Your pigs' lives rely on it! The parent should give occasional praise and positive reinforcements when the job is well done and they should give reminders and negative consequences when the job is neglected, forgotten or done poorly. Owning a pet is an excellent learning opportunity for your youngsters - but those lessons shouldn't come at the expense of your pet's health, safety or well-being.

If the task is less life-critical - like cage-cleaning or giving the guinea pig daily attention and exercise - then monitoring does not need to be as rigoruous. Nonetheless this does not mean that you can simply delegate the task and walk away. Remember that in the end the accountability for your pigs ' safety and well-being falls on you - the responsible adult. Also remember the monitoring of tasks is for two absolutely different and important reasons: 1) to insure the care, comfort and safety of your pet (s) and 2) to teach your youngsters to be responsible, caring and respectful pet-owners. So whether or not the task isn't important to your pigs ' health or safety, it is still an important part of your children's transformation into a responsible adult and community member.

It does not need to be said that tasks assigned to kids should be age-appropriate. That is, life-critical jobs should be assigned to older and more responsible children. Less critical tasks can be allotted to younger and less able children. In either case, be sure to stretch your child by letting them do everything that they're capable of and by intermittently adding new and harder jobs, but also be sure to give parental aid, coaching and guidance with any portions of the job that your child cannot perform correctly.

It's a great learning experience for children to be involved in the raising of a pet. Nevertheless all tasks assigned should be based on your children's age and ability. And at no point should you as a parent relinquish full responsibility in the situation. Ultimately , the accountability for your guinea pigs ' health, safety and welfare rests on your shoulders.




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