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LACTATION
The period of lactation is
usually five to six weeks. You will know when it is coming to an end for the
mother will begin to push away her babies. The mother comes into milk twelve to
twenty-four hours after the birth but as the babies have sufficient nourishment
to keep them going for twenty-four hours this gap is not a problem for them. I
have known some mothers to come on stream much earlier but, in the main, ten to
twelve hours is the more common time.
LANGUAGE
I think Churchill’s
dictum that ‘Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war’ is one of
the reasons that, in the main, guinea pigs get on very well together and
serious combat is relatively rare. Of course the rules of keeping boars
in pairs and sows in packs must be adhered to.
In the main, the sows tend
to communicate more than the boars but this could because it is more necessary
in a pack situation where there is more potential for friction. It is a
combination of verbal and body language between pack members that lets everyone
know their feelings and intentions and enables them to negotiate in that way
and not with their teeth!
My boars may have the
occasion’s gruff exchange but once the order of dominance is established
quite early on their partnership they don’t seem to feel it necessary to
go in for a great deal of verbalisation.
I will itemise the sounds
they make which can be used as a kind of guinea pig vocabulary.
WHEEPING
Some owners actually refer
to their guinea pigs as wheepers for this is the best
description of one of the most commonly heard sounds. It is the first sound
owners learn to identify for it is the joyous, anticipatory sound they make
very loudly when they are about to be fed.
There is a wheeping sound made with a lower kind of vibrato when they
meet a
There is a quieter,
intermittent kind of wheeping that you get with a
pack of guinea pigs, which sounds like background conversation. I think this is
just another part of the bonding of a pack.
WHINE
If you have ever heard a
child in a filthy mood who seems to be deliberately getting up everyone’s
nose, then that is what the guinea pig whine is. It is more often heard when a
guinea pig is lying down at rest and another one wants to snuggle up to it and
it is not welcome. I always think of this whine as an ‘I want to be
alone’ sound.
SHRIEKING
There is no doubting what this loud, ear piercing shriek is, it means a guinea
pig has been hurt or it is an alarm call. When this shriek is made by a guinea
pig with its head held high and to one side or head down, when it is being
harassed by another one, it is a submissive sound. The more urgent and higher
pitched the sound, the more likely it is that the harasser will cease and move
away.
PURRING AND RUMBLING
In essence the purr is the
sound of love; a similar sound that I call a rumble is the sound of war!
A guinea pig will purr
with contentment like a cat when it is comfortably settled in its owner’s
lap and being stroked. It will do the same thing when another guinea pig is
grooming it and it will sometimes make this sound when it settles down in some
cosy corner in anticipation of a nice snooze. When a sow is
in season she will purr and try and mount her sister sows, and sows and
boars courting one another will purr. At these times, sensuous swaying of the
body enhances the purring.
The purring becomes a
rumble when there is dissention in the ranks. The purr is deepened and
accompanied by a kind of slow motion pacing on the spot, followed by the
hackles of the neck being raised then, finally, rattling of the incisor teeth.
Sometimes, particularly between a pair of boars there can be a half-hearted
squaring up to one another, and a bit of a rumble. Then they will retire to
opposite corners of their quarters and sit there yawning at one another. There
is no doubt in my mind that the yawn begins as one just opening the mouth
to show the other its big sharp incisor teeth. It’s a kind of warning,
‘If you think you’re hard enough, son, these are waiting for
you!’ but a proper, fully fledged yawn develops. I have yet to see any
boar chance his luck once this display of armament is made!
LIFE EXPECTANCY
The average life
expectancy of a guinea pig is between five to seven years. I have had one reach
the grand old age of nine but this is relatively rare, like a human being
making the hundred-year mark. The only thing I can say with certainly is that
the overall health of a guinea pig during its life is no indicator that it will
live long. While many of my oldies managed to go through life with hardly any
kind of illness, an equal number seem to have suffered from every kind of
illness that guinea pig flesh is heir to.