How To Raise A Healthy Baby Guinea Pig ...

Just like the human baby being passed around after birth, they have been listening to your voices, movies, music for however many months they have been in your home in their mother's womb. So they are no strangers to you, your family or your pets. It has been my experience that handling baby guinea pigs from early on makes them very calm and easygoing with people.

Early Days:
During the first few days of life, nursing is important to establish a newborn guinea pig’s health. Without this benefit, young pigs face an uphill battle in early development. If the mother is not available, mash pellets or a recovery food with canned pumpkin. If you have adult pigs, add a fecal pellet or two to the mix to provide some of the bacteria necessary for digestive health. Hand-feeding this mix every few hours for the first few days can help newborn guinea pigs survive the critical first week of life.

Solid Food:
While guinea pigs will nurse for two weeks or more under normal circumstances, baby guinea pigs enter the world with fully formed teeth and are capable of eating solid food almost immediately. Choose alfalfa hay and pellets to provide extra calcium for growing bones, and provide plenty of both to satisfy growing pig appetites. Newborn pigs may not understand fruits and vegetables at first without an older guinea pig to observe, but they will eventually come around to the tasty treats. Hand-feeding to baby pigs is a good way to establish a bond and familiarize them with human contact from a young age.

Baby-Proofing:
When dealing with extremely young guinea pigs, give the cage an once-over to spot potentially dangerous conditions. Many cage designs focus on adult pigs rather than on youngsters, so water-bottle placement may not be ideal for smaller animals. In addition, cage bars that are too far apart may pose a threat to newborn guinea pigs, possibly allowing them to injure themselves. Before adding any new furnishings to the cage for young pigs, consider the potential danger for undersized animals.

Maturity:
Since guinea pigs have relatively few defenses against predators in the wild, one adaptation they have developed is an extremely fast breeding and growth cycle. Newborn pigs enter the world with eyes open, able to eat solid food and run from danger. They also mature extremely quickly. Pairing a solitary guinea pig pup with an older cage mate of the same sex is a good way to initiate social development, or you can leave same-sex siblings together and take advantage of their familiarity with one another to promote harmony in the cage.

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