I am often asked at the rescue for 'tame' baby guinea pigs to be children's pets, and I wanted to write about it here as it really is a huge issue for guinea pigs and pet owners.
On our Surrender form, when somebody is signing over their guinea pig to us, one of the questions asked is 'reason for surrender'. The most common reply to this is 'the children lost interest'. Looking at the age of the guinea pigs they are usually only 6-9 months, rarely over a year!
I want to say here and now that I grew up with guinea pigs as pets from the age of 10, and have rarely been without them since. My daughter and son are 8 and 5 and have never known NOT having guinea pigs. They have never dropped one, trodden on one or otherwise harmed one. Both have guinea pigs that are 'theirs', and my daughter has a herd of 10 who are her responsibility, which she takes very seriously. My son helps with the general pigs as well as his own. Do I expect them to? Well, yes! The rescue pigs are my own 'fault' so I will take responsibility for their day to day care but as a family we deal with the daily household stuff that needs doing and our pets are an important part of this.
Coming back to the beginning, 'tame' baby guinea pigs are hard to find (!) so my answer to this is usually that all guinea pigs need regular and gentle handling to get used to people, and that is very much up to the new owners although we can help them to choose suitable guinea pigs they are probably not going to be babies. Around 50% of the time these enquiries do not become adoptions. Yes, they've probably gone to a pet shop and bought some entirely un-handled pigs who were born in a rodent mill...
At the other end of the scale we also have very lovely families with children who have adopted piggies from us, and we are more than happy to let our pigs go to. These are the families that have done their research, saved up their pocket money, often waiting a good few months or more to be ready and to find the right pigs for them. These pigs are family members and treated as such.
As far as pets go, I would much rather that guinea pigs were a lot less popular as children's 'starter' pets and much more hard to come by, to eliminate the impulse buys that happy daily at well-known pet supermarkets, bolsted by the attractive array of guinea pig paraphenalia that is now available and makes them even more appealing. I wonder if you did an exit survey, how many of those went into the store with the intention to buy a pet? How many just gave in to the impulse buy? Sadly I know where a lot of them end up, and it's at the bottom of the garden and neglected, or in rescue with us.
If you have children and as a family you are considering guinea pigs as a pet, great! But please think about the following (and include your children in the thinking). Far too many children are being brought up to see pets as 'disposable'.
1. Guinea pigs rely on their humans for everything - food, water, shelter, the lot. They have to live in whatever accommodation you've chosen for them, usually 24 hours a day with some play time if they are lucky (many get none). It is therefore your job to make sure their lives are as good as they can be in terms of diet, exercise, foraging, company of their own kind and medical attention if required.
2. Lifespan. Given that a guinea pig can easily live for 8 or more years, do the maths! If your children are already 10, they'll be off to university and the guinea pig might still be going strong. Which is fine if you as adults love having guinea pigs. It's a lot less fine if it's only the child wanting them and you are left caring for them.
3. Guinea pigs are prey animals. They are always wary, even the friendliest ones. I can feed my herd and sit down to watch them, and if my phone goes or I move they scatter! They are by nature timid. Us picking them up must feel like a predator getting them! I have one or two out of the 70 odd here that will sit entirely still while I pick them up, but they are definitely the exception. Most will run.
4. Safety first. A lot of children don't like the scrabbly nature of guinea pigs and their claws, which is understandable. The guinea pigs should never be left unsupervised with children, and the adult should initially do the catching. We use fleece snuggle sacks for cuddle time as it helps the guinea pig to feel safe and the child to be more confident holding them if they wriggle. But it takes time and effort (daily) to get both the child and the guinea pig used to this routine. Do you have time for that? Every day? Unfortunately guinea pigs are fragile and one fall is enough to disable or even kill a piggy. Accidents happen, even with good measures in place, but the danger to the pigs is very real.
5. Practical considerations. Guinea pigs are poop machines. They poop more than any animal I know. They are poop factories. They exist to poop. They poop everywhere they go, and they can not easily be litter trained. So cleaning is a necessity, often a daily one. If your children do not want to have to deal with the poop, perhaps reconsider. In pet shops the pens are kept spotlessly clean. If they let you see what it looked like after a day, 2 days, a week... nobody would want guinea pigs!
6. Financial aspect. Guinea pigs are not cheap pets. Although the initial outlay isn't massive, the ongoing costs and any vet bills cannot be ignored. A vet trip for a relatively simple URI can cost over £100, we had one who needed an eye removed, £300... They are as deserving of veterinary treatment as any other pet and your responsibility to them is to not allow them to suffer.
If after all of this, you are still considering adopting a guinea pig, good for you! Like most things children ask for, it still pays to wait a while and see if they move on to wanting something else before you go ahead. If they really really want a guinea pig they'll prove it to you. And what a rewarding journey they'll have!
