Marc Morrone: Believe it or not, this is guinea pig and of course we all know that these are guinea pigs here too. They all come in a variety of hair lines and colors and once they'll have in common is that they make great pets.
Hi, I'm Marc Morrone and welcome to the pet shop. Now guinea pigs have been an animal I had all my life. My first guinea pig was have when I was about six years old and I think it is pinky and it looked tan white just like this one here. And I think guinea pigs continuously ever since and they fascinately, because a guinea pig is one of three mammals in South America that were domesticated, other two with the llama and the alpaca.
The first Spanish found the young kids keeping any pigs that they were a food animal over there and when they are first brought back to Europe no one thought of eating guinea pigs, but they were so cute and they were spread such as a multitude of colors and shapes and sizes that everybody loves guinea pigs.
They are in the roading class of animal's rodentia and Prunella mire agouti here is in the same family as guinea pigs. Prunella differs from guinea pigs in the fact that she can hold things in the front paws like a squirrel or cat. Where as a guinea pig cannot as you put all hold that apple there she can hold that, but one thing that they have in common with the guinea pigs is that on their back feet they have just three toes and on the front feet they have four. Instead of of five in the front and four in the back like dogs and cats and rabbits too.
Now when you see a group of guinea pigs have been wilder by the differences here. They come from bald like this hairless guinea pigs, they showed here guinea pigs like this, two curly hair guinea pigs this is called the Abyssinian guinea pigs, be quiet please we are talking here.
This guinea pig here come on Prunella is a red skinny pig also called the textile. You see this fur is rough and it stands at right angles to the body. And then we have the Peruvian guinea pigs like cousin it over here. Where her fur is really long it can turn the front from the back, because she goes every which way, but she needs a lot of grooming. And he is one of my favorite guinea pigs, this Mel one of my pet guinea pigs goes on TV all the time with me and I just love this tan and white color because my original guinea pig pinky look just like this one.
So pets as a four guinea pigs and if you want a responsive pet that will know you as an individual and recognize itself as an individual and it can't be the guinea pig.
Female Speaker: Each of my kids has a guinea pig. Can I keep them together in the same cage?
Marc Morrone: You have two kids you and you want to keep the two guinea pigs together well that's no problem. Two male guinea pigs watching female guinea pigs can live together happily. Female generally will always get along males you have to be careful, muted males get along best, but if get two baby male guinea pigs and they grow up together as siblings with no females around and those who get along together fine two. Guinea pigs are social animals they do enjoy the company of guinea pigs and two guinea pigs together are definitely happier animals that one guinea pig kept all by itself.
One nice thing about guinea pig is that they are very, very vocal they make that squeaky noise to decide what they want they want. If they want to be fed they make their squeaky noise particularly when you go to forget their fruits and vegetables that are refrigerator and I just love that. And when you come into the room, they make noise if I eat parrot to make this and they make it because they recognize you as an individual. And that's really important for children. Excuse me and the fact that guinea pigs will recognize children and acknowledge that with the vocalization is very, very important or think of children's pets kids have so many destructions that was with games, video games and what have you. That is very hard for a child who may have an interest on pet to keep up that and just. First they are so busy now and they are between soccer practice and piano lessons and dance class and everything else.
So the fact that a guinea pig is a small pet, that's a good pet for kids and also knowledge as a child as an individual vocally. That's real important giving a child's interest and caring for the guinea pig.
However what I say a good child's pet I didn't mean that a child who take care of it guinea pigs are very, very high maintenance animals. And people always say now what age should a child be to looking on the pet. I would say whatever age mom feels like taking care of an animal. Guinea pigs are very high maintenance and do need a lot of work. They are very, very active they need a large cave especially if you are going to have two guinea pigs. And on the bottom of the cage we have to be sure that if it's lye with appropriate bedding for all mammals I would like to use this care fresh type bedding. You need a heavy crockery dish for guinea pigs can knock over. We need a hay rack to hold the guinea pigs hay and to secure water bottom with the guinea pig can knock over.
Now some guinea pigs do like to climb ladders and do like to go up on shows not all of them do so. And yours may, but if the cage is big enough give them to opportunity to be able to do that.
The bedding has to be changed quiet frequently. Guinea pigs eat a lot and they drink a lot and they goof a lot. For a child to clean out cage for things is really, really hard. So it's important that mom is involved in this, because again, mom has to do it because the child can't and if you don't clean the cage the cage is going to smell and the guinea pig is going to be guilty by association.
Guinea pigs don't smell they are very, very clean animals but the cage will if you don't keep it clean enough. Guinea pigs do like the hide so I would like to have a hiding place if you watches when I lifted up look how many guinea pigs around here, hoops! Three guinea pigs, so I love this little straw houses because I don't want to get the guinea pig go inside and hide and feel secured, but also the guinea pigs do like to chew on the straw now they're going to destroy it after a while, but it gets the guinea pigs pleasure and it such a small animal that has to so little in life by chewing out the straw hut is a pleasure and by all means let it do so.
Now as far as a diet goes, guinea pigs are unique in many, many ways I told you one of the few animals domesticated in South America. They have three toes in the front and four in the back and they are also unique, because they share something with humans. The humans actually pry mates and guinea pigs cannot synthesize their own vitamin C they need to have a vitamin C added in, added to the diet everyday.
Now pellets made specifically for guinea pigs do have vitamin C added to them, but most cases it is not enough or the vitamin C dissipates over a period of time, so we have to give our guinea pig extra vitamin C and pet shop do sell vitamin C pills made specifically guinea pigs and you grab pellets it guinea pig would take about half one of these pills everyday and that give the guinea pig the vitamin C. If they don't get vitamin C they get scurvy just like the human sale as you use to do on long ocean voyages.
The second part of the guinea pigs diet is hay. Guinea pigs need to have hay because it need a lot of fiber in the diet and we give them timothy hay, because that has the most fiber all grass hays have a lot of fiber in it and we see we put the timothy hay inside the hay rack the guinea pigs eat when they are in the cage, that ways guinea pigs on walking this phenomenon is so big that I'm regular guinea pigs quite in the hay here with the wooden inches on eth bottom of the cage, because the hay is going to get soiled there. The other aspects of guinea pig is that you give fresh proteins those are vegetables and we see we have leaf lettuces there carrots, apples, celery all sorts of fresh proteins and this is very, very important for guinea pig to have.
Not only this is the fresh proteins, because the guinea pigs natural vitamin C, but again it's the part of the diet and make sure that you use the eating different types of fruits that fall on the bottom of the forest for a goody in particular will receive in forest floor of the rain forest by moving fruits around and eating fruits and spreading the seeds around particularly the seeds of the brazil nut tree. People could not artificially grow the Brazil nut tree because they didn't no that they may be a goody in order to do it
Female Speaker: Hey Marc, should my guinea pig get a bath once in a while?
Marc Morrone: Should the guinea pig be bath once in a while, well not really guinea pigs are very, very clean animal they let themselves all over and groom themselves all day and as they kept in the clean cage it's very rather they will get dirty they do shed constantly so what is the good idea to brush your guinea pig everyday, but as far as bad skull you know a healthy guinea pig kept in a clean cage should very rarely need bath.
So we have got everything here we have got the cage we have got the food we have got the guinea pig we have everything we need. Now what do we have to do as far as maintenance on guinea pigs. Well those little nails that I showed you three in front and two in the back, need to be trimmed periodically. Guinea pig nails are fairly easy to trim, because the quick is very clearly defined we got the little red part there and what we cut is the little clear part that's past it, so hear you can trim them yourself at home with the sharping of cat nails trimmers or bring it to a veterinarian to have the nails trim.
And when I say bring to a veterinarian people like why should I bring a guinea pig to a veterinarian, but guinea pigs do need to see veterinarian's from time to time. Some guinea pigs either have a teeth trim it's always good for a guinea pig that to trim the animal's nails and guinea pigs are prone to different types of diseases they can cold, they can get tumors, they can get all sorts of problems there is number one problem guinea pig get is scaly mite, which are hidden microscopic mites that are given to the guinea pig skin and cause further fall out and by bringing the guinea pig to the vet once a year to examine by a vet he can pick up these things and you can be proactive rather than reacting.
We could stop these things before they get really bad rather than reacting to them when they got really bad, because the guinea pigs is a long little pet. I had got some guinea pigs as long as 6 to 8 years and I heard of guinea pigs living even longer then that although it is not common.
So they do deserve the same respect and attention and care that we would give to a dog and a cat and as a result is the clever beautiful easy to care for and responsive pet that will make your life a better place for the next 6 to 8 years. I'm Marc Morrone and to learn more about your pet check out the pet shop and remember always look at the world from your pets point of view.
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