Piggies!!

I'm not much on rodents, other than snake food (and those are conveniently frozen and don't make any trouble). I've done my time, where my kids when they were little asked for a pet rodent and Mom ended up totally taking care of it so I swore off rodents.

But I saw a pair of 'Teddy' guinea pigs and they were so cute and appealling. They are home with me now and are just as cute as can be.
I'll post pics in a day or two when they settle in.

I'm reading everything I can on guinea pig care. I remember that the most objectionable part, to me, of having a rodent was the cage smell, so I bought some of this horribly expensive bedding called 'Carefresh Ultra' which advertised absorbency and so on, we shall see.

Also, the lady I bought them from said the female was preggers, so maybe I'll have some adorable piglets soon.

Congrats on the new pigs, Lucille. Teddies were always my favorite. Anyway, I wouldn't waste the $ on the Carefresh bedding. After keeping dozens of guinea pigs for years, we preferred to just use aspen shavings (not the LM brand - the sticks get caught in the teddies' fur) but we also put about a 1/2" of unscented clay cat litter in the bottom of the cage. It will help with the urine smell a LOT. Oh, and I don't know what kind of cage you have for them, but Super Pet brand cages work great for pigs. The bottom is a thick, heavy plastic tray that does a good job of containing the mess, and won't corrode like metal pans. The wire top part is powder-coated, and the finish lasts very well.

((ps, don't feed them apples - they're too acidic, and make the urine smell worse. Oranges are good though, since guinea pigs, like humans, do not store Vitamin C.))

I switched back to aspen when I made my grid cage because the Carefresh was just unreasonably expensive.
I have a nice commercial cage for them, but set it inside my grid enclosure: a while back someone thought to make a guinea pig cage out of grids that snap together and are made to organize closets. The grid caging is then set down into a base of Coroplast and that way the piggies can have more room that they would have in a smaller cage.
Here's a pic of what they look like:http://www.guineapigcages.com/buycc.htm
Some people have made quite elaborate pig cages this way.

I had not thought about using cat litter that way, they don't ingest it?

No, they won't ingest it. Since the cat litter is heavier, it will stay under whatever bedding you have in there.

Those cages look cool. I've never seen them before.

I've got LOTS of small furry critters now: the piggies are happy and Ms. Piggy, in the family way, should be welcoming her new family soon; in the meantime my older son was called to an offshore job and as of today I have his ferrets and they are pretty cool as well....

lucille, I did not know you raised snake food, my tegus would like them too!! LOL

Originally Posted by varnyard

lucille, I did not know you raised snake food, my tegus would like them too!! LOL

Awww Bobby these little fuzzies aren't going to be served up to snakes, they got personality plus!!

I know, just picking at ya!! I had one when I was very young, they make awesome pets.

I've been keeping an eye out for the classifieds to see if their would be any piggy related accessories, hay racks and the like. Yesterday I saw an ad for pigs up for adoption so curious, I went over to look.
It turned out to be a lovely hard working young mother who had bought piggies for her daughter who kept on letting the male and female socialize. The mom had him neutered him but by then the population had already exploded and also the young daughter forgot to feed and water them sometimes. The mom was thinking of what was best for the piggies and decided to try to find them a good home. What could I do?

I came home with 6 more piggies: a neutered male, 2 boars and three females, they are cute. And they are separated.
At least I won't have to worry about storing greens, the passel o' pigs I got now will eat a whole green leafy head of greens easily in a day.

Originally Posted by varnyard

I know, just picking at ya!! I had one when I was very young, they make awesome pets.

The 2 ferrets are indeed awesome, they play, roll around, get into stuff, and are just plain fun. I've already bought toys for them which they play with, they push a tennis ball around too.
And I found someone who makes matched handmade ferret accessories to they are going to get cute little hammocks and sleep coves.