Why would I want a guinea pig?

Aside from the fact that guinea pigs are incredibly cute :-), there are a variety of reasons why they make good pets. In particular, the common guinea pig is a low-cost, low-maintenance animal; you will need to change their bedding once or twice a week, supply fresh water every day or two and provide them with food and hay on a daily basis, and occasionally give them a snack or two. A good cage will cost you around $30 to $40 if bought from a pet store, and $15-30 worth of bedding can last up to a month or more, depending on what you choose. Pellets are also inexpensive, running anywhere from $6 to $9 a bag, and hay is extremely cheap if purchased from a feed and garden store in bulk. Fresh vegetables can be obtained from the grocery store or grown in your own back yard.

For children, the guinea pig is an ideal pet. They are extremely docile, rarely bite and are very sociable. They love to be petted, and will gurgle and grunt happily and nonstop when given this kind of attention. They are slower and larger than most other popular small mammals, such as mice, pet rat's, gerbils and hamsters making them easy to handle (and catch, should they happen to get away). Although they aren't as intelligent as rats, the guinea pig is trainable and far more lively than the stereotypes may suggest.

One guinea pig, or more?

For most people, including young children, owning one guinea pig is probably enough. The cavy will quickly adjust to being around humans, and will make an excellent playmate. Most commercially available guinea pig cages are designed to hold one cavy comfortably; people wishing to keep more than one guinea pig together are often times forced to custom-build a cage. And, of course, it is less expensive to care for one cavy than it is for two.

There are, however, several advantages to owning more than one guinea pig. Unlike some rodents, guinea pigs get along very well if housed together (with some exceptions, listed below), and if you aren't going to be spending a lot of time at home with your pet, it is advisable that you do get it a companion. Otherwise, your cavy will become very lonely and its health will suffer.

If you do opt for caging two or more guinea pigs together, you should be careful about their sex. Two females will get along very well together in a cage, though they may "bicker" over food and other treats. Two males may end up fighting, unless you give them considerable room- enough so that they can stake out their own territory. If you ever introduce a female into a cage with two males, however, you are asking for trouble; they will fight mercilessly over the right to mate with her, and the weaker of the two will eventually be starved to death by the dominant male, being driven from both food and water. If you neuter one of the males, it may prevent this kind of fighting, as the neutered male will no longer be a rival to the other, but there are no guarantees.

Without a doubt, a male and a female make the best company. The female will defer to the male, who is dominant, and the male will general act peacefully towards the female. If you do opt to keep an opposite-sex pair of cavies together, you will end up having to have one of them fixed, or your female will constantly be manufacturing little baby guinea pigs. With an estrus cycle of 18 days, and a gestation cycle of only two months, it is quite possible for one pair of guinea pigs to produce dozens of offspring in a year.

Choosing a sex

Although each guinea pig is different, as a general rule, males are more active than females, and are slightly larger when fully grown. Males also give off a rather strong scent when they are sexually aroused; if the male is neutered, however, this odor becomes less prevalent. Females tend to be smaller and more docile, but they do present some unique problems. First of all, it is more expensive to spay a female than it is to neuter a male (this is true for animals of any type). Second, your female may already be pregnant if you bring her home from a pet shop or a friend's home, especially if no care was taken to separate her from her siblings shortly after weaning. And last, if a female does not have a litter before she is about 9 months old, you will need to spay her if there is ever any chance, no matter how remote, that she will become pregnant later. The hip bones of childless sows can start to fuse between 9 and 12 months of age, and future pregnancies can become life-threatening.

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