would you prefer a rabbit or a guinea pig? I have read that piggies like to be kept together, but rabbits fight so you can only keep one at a time. My SIL said that their rabbit was a pee bucket lol Any comments would be welcome!
I prefer rabbits to guinea pigs, but it takes a larger space to keep a rabbit. Rabbits can be litter trained and therefore it's easier to clean out the cage. Guinea Pigs will pee and poop everywhere, and there's not litter training them (at least I never found a way), piggies are also more skittish than rabbits (though they can be tamed). With rabbits though you need to be careful which breed of bunny you get as some are more friendly and docile than others. HTH.
I think that I would go with a guinea pig. I had rabbits as a kid....and yes they fight....my brother's murdered mine (tore the throat out). Just remember to read up a bit before hand. Guinea pigs need vitC supplementation. Oh yeah and for handling a rabbit you have to be extra careful...they can easily break their backs from kicking when improperly restrained.
I have had both. DH and I bred rabbits for awhile. Now we have five male piggies . Both are nice. I found the rabbit fur is softer and they are quieter. Our pigs wheek wheek a lot. Rabbits don't pee or poo any more then pigs. I think up keep is basically the same. Male pigs fight when a female is around and sometimes just for dominance. We currently have two pairs of males and one on his own. I think rabbits and pigs both have a lot going for them. If you do go with a rabbit. I suggest one of the mini ones. They will fit in a small child's hands better then a large one and they always maintain that sweet baby look. As to bones being broken easy in a rabbit the same is true for pigs. And so is the fighting down right nasty at times. A single one of either is good on it's own Pigs actually require more space then one may think for proper exercise. However what we have constructed is a custom cage. It's a apt really two smaller cages on top of a bottom large cage for the older men. It's made using that modular wire shelving that you put together with plastic joints. Each panel section is about a foot square. Then we got from the Home Depot Coroplast rigid plastic and cut it so it went up the sides a ways and covers the bottom. Super easy clean and make it to suit your space. Cheaper by far then buying a cage from the pet store which is usually too small for most of these animals anyway. As to the vitamin C the pig diet is supplemented with that usually. Rabbit food can be purchased cheaper from a feed store then pet store in larger quantity then guinea pig food however if that's a consideration. Have fun with whatever you decide to get.
Whatever we get we would like to allow it to run around the house some, on the vinyl of course. I like the idea of the pig because I know they like to make all kinds of sounds and I think the kids will like that. I am allergic to pigs, I don't know about rabbits but I would pass out in shock if I weren't allergic to those too. I SO wish I were not allergic to animals. I thought about putting something together using PVC pipe for a cage. Or at least an exercise pen. I seen a youtube video on a gpig jumping, and was shocked how high that critter jumped! I imagine rabbits are the same way. I'd like to fix something where it could stay outside some with supervision of course. I don't know about training a rabbit, I really do NOT want to buy litter or shavings, so I will be using newspaper which isn't really absorbent, and it just runs off in a mess. SO I'm not sure if it would matter to me that the rabbit could be trained. I did think of using cloth towels or small blankets and washing them, but that would be a lot of work too. We currently have a hamster, but I find him/her to be moody and too small really for the kids to handle, plus he is asleep all the time, I really do NOT recommend hamsters for pets. Mine doesn't seem affectionate, only cares what he will eat next lol
I got it!! Since you are allergic to pigs and maybe rabbits and your hamster is too small, I have a BIG puppy that is about 9 months old, he is very active and doesn't sleep a lot during the day. I would be happy to give him to you and he would probably come with a wonderful 18yo young man. Oh, wait, if ds goes w/puppy, you can't have him.:lol: Sorry, was trying to make a positive vent. LOL
Gerbils are one of the easiest pets to clean because they produce little 'waste' (which is why we had a couple of them at one time). To quote Wikipedia: There are several reasons for the popularity of gerbils as household pets. The animals are typically non-aggressive, and they rarely bite unprovoked or without stress. They are small and easy to handle, since they are sociable creatures that enjoy the company of humans and other gerbils. Gerbils also have adapted their kidneys to produce a minimum of waste to conserve body fluids which makes them very clean with little odor.
Well..some pigs don't like hard surfaces to run around on and will merely sit there. Further they can only run free from five to fifteen minutes before they have to pee. And they do pee by spraying sort of a whitish pee. Not something you want to have to clean up off the floor. One pet that is great is a mouse. You can pick them up by the tail carefully of course and they generally are pretty tough. You would have to clean them out once a week. But the newspaper would be a great deal of fun for a mouse. Rabbits jump more then pigs. When they are out running around the actually get quite excited and will make sideways leaps in the air which is entertaining. Our pigs don't jump very much except one I call the 'feral' pig lol. He hates being handled and leaps all over the place. And that's another point about pigs generally unless very tame the will run and run around before you can corner them to pick up. Rabbits generally have that freeze instinct. Both have claws that if not trimmed can be as unpleasant as cat claws when they scratch. Growing up we had a wide variety of pets. Hamsters, all sorts of mice and voles we caught outside and they were tamed, gerbils, rabbits, and so on. The one thing I noticed that seemed to happen though with most of the gerbils was they always ended up dying of some sort of eye ulcer. And the hamsters invariably ending up with infections in the cheek pouches. Another pet if you don't mind them I have heard is awesome and quite intelligent is the rat. Myself I can't get past the tail it seems snakelike and I don't like snakes And there are chinchillas who can be litter trained supposedly. Degus- not heard much about them though.
I agree with Northernmamma, Ratties make great pets!!! We have two of them and my boys love them, they are very smart and when they go to the cage they open it up and call the ratties by name and they come out and climb right up their hand to their shoulder and they cuddle there. Ratties are fairly clean animals, but you would have to put bedding in there for them, I would think newspaper could work but you'd have to clean it often (daily or every other day) to keep away the smell. We use Aspen bedding and only clean once a week with no smelly side effects.
Emma has two rats and they are great pets. I had rabbits growing up and even the "tame" rabbits can give very nasty scratches or even cuts when they feel threatened. Rabbits have powerful kickers, tame or not! LOL Rats are very intelligent and are used by some people who have seizures. They nibble on the persons ear or neck when they sense a seizure coming on. They can be trained to follow certain commands and if their cage is maintained, they do not smell. Right now we use this stuff that expands when it is wet. It works great but we are going to switch to the aspen.
We've had rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, etc. Our guinea pigs lived to average 7 years old, which might be something to consider (will your children "grow out of them"?). My kids have always had to be responsible for their own pets and they by far prefer the hamster. Easy to take care of and loves attention, treats and running around on the floor in his ball. Of the two options you give (rabbit vs. guinea pig), our preference was guinea pig. We had a large cage--get as large a cage as you possibly can. We fed Mazuri brand feed and didn't need to supplement any extra vitamins, although we gave treats anyway along with some fresh veggies. We had a leash and took ours outside often. We even made costumes for a pet costume contest and they did very well with the costumes and the crowd. I have found that males are more curious and affectionate than females, but that might not be the case each time. Also, they are prone to lice (not the kind on people), so make sure that the ones you handle at the pet store don't have any hair loss on their backs. Ask to see the parents since the babies may not be showing signs yet.
well I think she is wanting a girl pig so she can dress it up. The other thing is she wants a long hair one so she can 'put it's hair up'. But I can't find any around here
All our guinea pigs had long hair. They will require regular bathing (make sure they are warm while air drying) and hair trims. You don't have to cut all their hair, but you will need to cut the hair that drags on the ground as it collects bedding if you don't. They also need nail trims at every bath. Have you asked if the babies you are looking at are from long haired parents? They might just not have grown out much yet.
we had rats too and we absolutely loved them! They can be trained to come on command and do tricks. ours ran around in a baby pool filled with shavings. we didn't want them running loose on the floor because they will chew electrical cords and such. They are very affectionate and tolerant of children's "attention". I wouldn't recommend dressing up ANY animal because I don't think they should be seen as toys to play with.JMO
Honestly-now don't throw tomatoes at me-I think they both make horrible pets for kids. No personal experience with the piggies but never known anyone to be happy with them for a kids pet (how old is your DD?) And hubby breeds rabbits, so I know they don't make good kid pets. Just my personal opinion.
We had rabbits for our kids and after several months of stress with them we gave them to family for 4-H. They peed and pooped everywhere and 1 in particular would get severly stressed when anyone would pick him up and he would immedietly pee and poop and wouldn't stop until you put him back in his cage. They were cute, but I don't recommend them for kids. Like it was said before, they have a powerful kick and can scare easy causing painful cuts and scrapes. As for other small animals...not a fan of anything smaller than a cat. My SIL had a hedgehog and her place smelled so bad and she kept her house VERY clean and cleaned out it's cage 3 times a week. Not what I want my house to smell like.
well our trouble is multi sided lol I have a toy poodle, and he is 13. We tried 3 different dogs over the winter, puppies, but none of them worked out for us. I am terribly allergic to dogs other than poodles, and to cats. cats are out because of that. I am alleragic to piggies, but I can put them in a cage, they are not all over my furniture, and I can walk away from them for a whole day or a weekend if needed. I can't do that w a dog. I don't think I want another dog anyway. My little old guy just can't handle it anyway. The hamster we found to be too little to actually handle, and he sometimes bites and sleeps all day. So we thought we'd try a rabbit or a piggie. The thing is w the piggies I can handle them, and then put them away, not get them all over me so much and wash my hands. So they are not too bad. If I get them on my face I swell up and itch terribly and sneeze alot. Do the long haired ones shed? Just wondered about that, some long haired dogs don't shed much. I know the short hair pigs shed lots.
It's not actually the hair you are allergic to, it's typically the dander. If you are allergic to guinea pigs and there is any chance you will be the one cleaning the cage, I'd advise you not to get one. As soon as you stir up the bedding, all the dander gets stirred up. My Dh had fits with it when he would clean the cages....one more reason the kids had to be responsible for their own pets. We cleaned out their cages ever 2-3 days and we never had an issue with odor.
Wow as to dogs try going to a breeder of bichon frise as they are hypo allergenic (supposedly) to see if they are. And if not what about other pets like a bird, or a dust free option like fish, hermit crab, crayfish (FYI they can climb out of tanks so lid them). Tortoises are also pretty nice pets although they can live a long time. They don't shed and they can clean bugs up from the floor should you have any I would get one but we have a dog who likes to chase things and kill them So I have to even watch the piggies to make sure she isn't overly interested in them.
