Submit Anecdotes of your Guinea Pigs

 
Wheektown is in the process of a major research project. A component of this is collecting data on certain topics to paint a better picture of some aspects of guinea pig care. Everyone can help out with this by submitting stories of their own guinea pigs. Below is a list of all the information likely to be needed, so chances are you can contribute it many different ways already!

Submit an anecdote

Anecdotes needed

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• Experiences with guinea pigs in South America. This includes medicinal or religious practices, such as with a curanderos, or visiting a meat farm, eating at a restaurant, or seeing guinea pigs at a market. The city, country, and time of year must be provided, along with any other useful information. Photographs to accompany the story are preferred.
• Experiences with guinea pigs in Africa, the Philippines, or anywhere else where you come across meat guinea pigs. This includes visiting a meat farm, eating at a restaurant, or seeing guinea pigs at a market. The city, country, and time of year must be provided, along with any other useful information. Photographs to accompany the story are preferred.
• Experiences with feeding vegetables, fruits, herbs, or forages that are not normally depicted in feeding lists. Very specific information must be provided in this case, including the frequency and dose at which you feed the item, the subspecies or variety, what health conditions your guinea pigs have experienced at any point while being fed this food item, and any extra information on why or how you feed this food item.
• Experiences with weather or natural disasters that are of value to other people. For example, a storm with known wind speed causing a hutch to flip over, or precautions you have taken that successfully prevented the hutch from flipping over. Knowing the fate of the guinea pigs is preferable (e.g. did they survive unscathed, did they survive with broken bones, did they die from broken bones, etc). This incorporates any weather or disaster event, including: wind, rain, hail, snow, storm, heat wave, earthquake, avalanche, sinkhole, volcanic eruption, limnic eruption, flooding, tidal wave, tornado, cyclone, or wildfire. Photographs to accompany the story are preferred.
• Experiences with wildlife or stray animals attacking a cage. The species (and size/breed if a dog) must be known, along with the materials of the cage. For example, did a snake break through chicken wire, or a German shepherd break through 3mm-thick steel bars? Knowing the fate of the guinea pigs is preferable. Photographs to accompany the story are preferred.
• Where to buy C&C cage materials in your country, particularly outside North America and the United Kingdom.
• Experiences with aggressive guinea pigs. If you have had guinea pigs that do not get along, the following is requested: the age, breed, sex, and neuter status of all guinea pigs involved, the dimensions of the cage, the number and type of hideys provided, the nature of the fighting (e.g. biting, bullying, or full-on fighting), and how this problem was solved.
• Experiences with free-range guinea pigs. Do they get underneath or behind things? Do they prefer staying by the walls, or do they run across open spaces? Do they explore the whole house? Do they follow you around? How does this affect their interaction with other pets? How do you clean up after them (especially on carpet)? This also includes any injuries or other accidents that have occurred due to running free in the house (e.g. chewing wires, hot food dropping from the counter, getting trapped behind a cabinet, etc).
• Experiences with different bedding types. What advantages and disadvantages have you noticed while using that bedding? Does it smell, and if so, how quickly? How easy is it to sweep off poos and hay strands? How quickly does it wick urine? Do the guinea pigs chew it? How often do you clean it, and do you do spot cleaning? For reusable bedding, how well does it wash, and is special cleaning fluid needed?
• Patterns, step-by-step instructions, and photographs for building cages, cage furniture, fleece hideys, or other homemade goodies.
• Experiences relevant to what guinea pigs prefer to eat from. For example, did your guinea pigs refuse to drink from a narrow metal tube but were fine with a wide plastic tube on their water bottle?
• Experiences relevant to guinea pigs interacting with human media. For example, do your guinea pigs watch the television screen? Do they look like they listen to the radio? Do they get irritated when you have a certain type of music playing?
• Experiences with cleaning fluids and surfaces. For example, do you have a particular trick to get urine stains from the carpet? In this case the exact chemicals (e.g. vinegar) and materials (e.g. polyester carpet) must be known.
• Pest infestations and what you did to resolve them. This includes ants, cockroaches, fruit flies, spiders, rats, mice, and any other unwanted animals attracted to a guinea pig cage. The location of the cage must be provided (e.g. outside on a wooden veranda, outside on the grass, inside in the laundry, inside in a bedroom, etc).
• Problems that occurred after getting a guinea pig. This includes ‘puppy depression’ (where the owner regrets getting a pet), anxiety (for the guinea pig), or previously-undetected allergies.
• Experiences with travelling with a guinea pig - both successes and failures. This includes step-by-step recounts of how you and your guinea pig fared with air travel, how carriers fared after a car accident (the type of carrier, the severity of the car crash, and the fate of the guinea pig must be known), experiences on public transport, experiences with pet-friendly (or pet-unfriendly) hotels, or problems that occurred when petsitting or boarding.
• Disaster plans that include your guinea pig, especially if you have had to carry out that plan and can recount what went right and what went wrong during it. This includes ‘ultra fast’ plans such as the house being on fire, or plans that allow limited preparation, such as wildfire or storm warnings. Also what happened after the immediate danger, such as where you kept your guinea pigs after losing the house and how the guinea pigs fared physically and mentally with the drama. If you have/had an emergency kit, also what you keep/kept in it and what you found was useful, a waste of space, and what you wish you’d had.
• Guinea pigs interacting with any other pet species. This includes the behaviour of the guinea pig (e.g. were they scared or were they apathetic?) and whether any harm came to either the guinea pig or the other animal, including physical harm, mental harm, or the transference of disease. These interactions do not necessarily have to be direct, and can include something as simple as a guinea pig developing anxiety from a dog regularly barking or the smell of a nearby ferret.
• Successfully detecting a problem through regular health checks. For example, did your guinea pig have zero symptoms for a deadly disease but you were still able to detect it due to weighing the animal or palpating them every week? Did a urine sample or fecal float pick up a disease that would have otherwise gone undetected and killed the guinea pig? Would their malocclusion have gone unhindered if you did not observe their feeding behaviour at every meal time?
• The maintenance and recovery of sick guinea pigs. For example, how long did it take your guinea pig to recover after surgery (type of surgery must be stated); did they have any adverse problems during recovery and did they need to be force fed? Did you need to prepare food in a special way, and if so how and why? Did your guinea pig need physical therapy - if so, provide as much detail as possible, including a description of the procedure, how often it occurs, and how your guinea pig responds (both short-term and long-term) to it. Did you keep your guinea pig alone or with friends?
• Experiences with any medication. This primarily includes any side effects that occurred due to a medication - the exact dose and administration method must be known. This also includes whether or not a certain medication was successful. For example, did enrofloxacin do nothing for a UTI but trimethoprim cured it? Off-label medication attempts also wanted: for example, is there no known treatment for your guinea pig’s condition and you and your vet are currently trying a drug successful in other species?
• Experiences with choking and anaphylaxis. This includes: what the guinea pig was choking on/reacting to, what you did as a first response, whether you went to the vet (and if so, how long did it take to get to the vet and what did the vet do), and whether the guinea pig survived or not.
• Experiences with CPR. This includes: details on what you did, whether you went to the vet (and if so, how long did it take to get to the vet and what did the vet do), whether the guinea pig survived or not, and (if known) what caused the guinea pig to stop breathing.
• Experiences with poisoning. This includes: what your guinea pig ate and how much,what symptoms you saw that warned of poisoning, what you did as a first response, whether you went to the vet (and if so, how long did it take to get to the vet and what did the vet do), and whether the guinea pig survived or not.
• Experiences with any other emergency. This includes shock, heatstroke, hypothermia, dehydration, burns, seizures, and physical injury.
• Experiences with special needs guinea pigs, such as those with lethal syndrome, blindness, deafness, anosmia (inability to smell), edentulism (no teeth), amputation, neurological trauma, paraplegia, or quadriplegia. This includes what caused the special need (if not born with it), what you do to accommodate the guinea pig’s difference, and how the guinea pig fares with both the disability and the accommodations you make.
• Experiences with grieving guinea pigs, particularly in the difference between guinea pigs that were present for the death, those that were not present but were allowed to sniff the body, and those who are not aware the cagemate died (e.g. euthanasia at the vet).
• Experiences with fostering or hand-rearing orphaned pups.
• Experiences with disease. This includes what symptoms alerted you to the problem, the diagnostic process, the treatment, whether or not the guinea pig recovered, and the time frame each stage occurred in. In particular the results of diagnostic testing is wanted, such as blood test results. Photographs of symptoms, medical imaging (including x-rays, ultrasounds, CTs, and MRIs), and treatment procedures (including endoscopies and surgeries) preferred.