Guinea Pig Diary

She is getting bigger, for sure. :-)

2013-07-15T21:38:00.001-04:00

She is very full now ! :)

2013-07-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

She usually looks sleepy around 9 pm

2013-07-07T16:58:00.002-04:00

We saw a rabbit in pet store for Zelda's food

2013-07-07T16:57:00.002-04:00

She is playing Video Game !!!

2012-01-23T21:22:00.000-05:00

:D Cute !!! Well, she is not really playing video game as you see... haha. However, whenever there is a sudden change on TV screen, she reacts to it like, dashing to her home or jumping. :D Woder what she is thinking...

She is getting heavier !

2012-01-15T19:54:00.000-05:00

We should've weighed her when we brought her home but we think she wouldn't want to go into scale bowl anyway when she sees this. :-)

Now she is slightly more than 700g. We wonder how heavy she will be next year ! :)

She is getting bigger !

2012-01-04T23:40:00.000-05:00

Now we cannot use this as her house anymore... :-)

Look how long she is !!!

2011-12-22T19:57:00.000-05:00

Wow ! We didn't know how much you can stretch yourself, Zelda !!! :D

Getting more curious of her surroundings

2011-12-19T09:09:00.000-05:00

We took out the top part of her cage to clean the inside, and now she is looking like very curious of her surroundings, or she just misses her ceiling, treats and her toys. :)

She got a new toy !

2011-12-18T17:15:00.000-05:00

Zelda the guinea pig got a new toy ! It looks like a dinosaur with wheels, she likes to chew on it. It looks funny watching her as she chews on it, it keeps moving. :D We'll try capture video when she does that next time.

Which hays should be better for my guinea pigs ? - Alfalfa vs Timothy hays

2011-12-16T17:32:00.002-05:00

When we brought Zelda home, we bought starter package for guinea pigs. It comes with a cage, a bag of timothy hays, feeding tray and a bag of so-called 'guinea pig daily diet', which is some manufactured solid food for guinea pigs. We've found that there are 2 kinds of different hays that we can give Zelda.

bag of Alfalfa Hays

bag of Timothy Hays

We are told that baby guinea pigs should eat alfalfa hays and adult ones eat timothy hays but when they become adults ..?

screen left : Alfalfa screen right : Timothy

We've found some nutrition fact over the internet.

Looks like alfalfa hays has more protein. Well, protein is much more needed for growing baby guinea pigs, so this makes sense. Zelda seems like both of them. I think I will give more alfalfa hays for now and when it runs out I will give her timothy hays onward. :)

Where is Zelda !?!

2011-12-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Where are you !?!

Well, we can tell she likes her new house, but funny thing is - she pulls out the part of small towel and blocks the entrance so that she can be completely inside without being seen. We can barely see her silhouette. :-) She almost acts like dog, I actually didn't expect this much from her. Guinea pigs are smart, after all. :D

Made her house out of IKEA Bowl

2011-12-14T11:59:00.000-05:00

We were thinking of getting her house from pet store but it looks nothing but big plastic bowl. So we've decided to make our own very simple one. We have some IKEA bowls that we've been quite long and some of them are missing lids and stuff. Very sturdy, by the way. We love IKEA stuffs. :-)

Choose the one has right size and drew pencil line for entrance

cut it out with rotary tool.
It was 39$ with lots of tips and accessories from Costsco. :)

Cutting is done

Now we need to sand out the rough edge

voila !

Well, it is not looking great but it does its' job, and Zelda seems like it, really. I think we save about 18$ today !!! :D

My Kids love guinea pig !

2011-12-12T23:06:00.000-05:00

My kids love Zelda ! They pat her everyday in the morning before they go to school. I hope Zelda won't mind this at all. :D I can tell that they understand now - they must take care of her well. I think this is one of the good reason for them to have their own pet even though taking care of her toilet is my job.... :)

iPhone Apps for Guinea Pigs

2011-12-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

We have been researching iPhone Apps for guinea pigs - there are not so many, actually.

Guinea Pigs

This one is free App but it doesn't tell you which sounds mean which, but you can let your guinea pigs hear this sounds and I'm pretty sure your guinea pigs will react to this. :-)

Piggies

This one is 0.99 $ and you can actually choose which sounds to play. It sounds like lots of people say good thing about this app. :)

There were other apps where you can learn about guinea pigs' diet and other useful information but I can't find it somehow. I will update this post as soon as I find it again. If you know any other apps to recommend, please leave us some comment, thanks !

She likes Fresh Veggies !

2011-12-10T17:33:00.000-05:00

Although lots of people suggest that we should give fresh veggies every 2 days, we give her a little bit of veggies everyday because she really likes it. Maybe she is not so used to her snacks and hays yet since we brought her home when she was like 6 weeks old. We'll keep an eye on how we set up her diet continuously.

Flippin' Food Container while eatin'

2011-12-09T18:42:00.001-05:00

Whoa, Food !!!

Huh..?!?

We gave her extra small food container on her downstairs - she seems to be afraid of going upstairs and eating her hays. We put this one with chunks of veggies and some hays. Well, I can tell she like it very much, only the problem is she flips it accidentally whenever she tries eating stuffs inside. It was so quick - that was why all pictures are blurry here. :)

Zelda is getting bigger every day !!!

2011-12-08T12:42:00.000-05:00

Feels like she is getting bigger everyday, we hope it is a good sign that she likes to stay with us and enjoying what she is eating. She is used to stay very calm whenever our kids try to cuddle her but she starts to act like she is very curious about what surrounds her.

Eating on floor

2011-12-07T13:38:00.001-05:00

Yay ! Dandylion !!!

Now she starts eating veggies on our floor. I guess she lets her guard down a bit, because she was like frozen most of times when she comes out of her cage, doing nothing but shaking. She like dandy lion leaves a lot ! All of us were thinking when she will eat and playing with us on our hands. :-)

She likes Towel...

2011-12-06T11:09:00.000-05:00

As soon as I point camera...

Ha, I can still see you ! :D

Zelda likes all kinds of towels... very much ! In fact, I think she just likes to hide for now. As soon as I point camera to her, she just hides... thinking she is hidden completely ! :)

Had First Bath !

2011-12-05T09:40:00.000-05:00

First Bath, yay ! :)

Zelda had her first bath in her new home. :) We made sure the water temperature is warm enough. We also researched a bit - we should make sure she is not getting any water around her ear. It is her first bath so we decided not to wash her around face and ear.

Is is warm enough, Zelda ?

She really tried to escape but the tub was slippery enough to keep her inside. After we washed off soap bubbles, she seemed to give up escaping. :)

Ewww ! No ! :o

She start pooping in the water so we had to quickly wash her and get her out of it. :D

Finally, the bath is done and she is in my daughter's hands with warm cloth. She seems didn't bother too much of the sound of dryer, or maybe she was too scared to move, who knows. We wondered what she had been thinking when she was given bath. :)

Start eating on upstairs

2011-12-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

I think she is looking at the camera :)

She finally start eating her timothy hay on second? floor a few days after she joined our family. She still very shy and alert, she usually runs back to dark corner in her cage whenever she sees us moving around her cage. We've been reading about guinea pigs making sound like little puppies but we haven't heard anything from her yet.

First Day with Zelda

2011-12-03T19:31:00.001-05:00

Her name is Zelda. :)

We have been telling to our kids that they can have their dog once we move into our new house. However, they begged for having a guinea pig right after they've met their teacher's small pet, which is a hamster. :)

So on a very fine Saturday, we went to look for a guinea pig in local pet store near our place. We couldn't find what we want. All they have are male guinea pigs - which are totally fine, but my kids just couldn't find what they want. All of them were having pink eyes and very furry, too. We've talked to one of the clerk - she said they have their sister store on the other side of the city, and they all have female guinea pigs over there. They don't want some accidental over-population of guinea pigs, so they've decided to keep this way. So we went to that store and found this pretty guinea pig. My kids named her zelda because their favorite DS game now is the legend of zelda series. :)

She was 6 weeks old when we brought her home and this picture was taken in a few days later. She is very shy so far, and we've never had a guinea pig before as a pet so this will be our great journey with this new family member. We'd like to share with everyone what we are doing, learning, and finding out as we're getting a long with her. :)