Guinea Pigs - Great Homeschool Pets
|
Adding guinea pigs to our homeschool has enriched our homeschool experience with opportunities to practice responsibility, creativity, care-giving, gardening, and reading. They also take up little space, require a few minutes of daily care, 30 minutes of weekly care, and their monthly supplies cost about $40. They are interactive, but very happy to be left alone as long as they have a cage mate and are housed in a big enough cage. They are gentle creatures, easy to carry, yet big enough to be handled by small children with supervision. This page is dedicated to keeping track of all things guinea pig for our family, so I can easily rotate through successfully implemented ideas.
|
|
Guinea pigs Make Great "Study Buddies."
My daughter Zippy doesn't like to do anything alone, and I do mean anything. This creates challenges when I need her to demonstrate mastery, practice individually, or occupy herself while I work with my son. Thank God for Britney and Sparkles, our two guinea pigs. They love sitting in their cuddle sacs. In fact, Sparkles just makes herself at home and stretches out for a little nap. Meanwhile, Zippy is more than happy to teach them her facts, practice reading aloud to them, or just playing with them in their play pen. Shiloh also enjoys reading to them. Keeping Zippy company while she is learning or just playing has earned the guinea pigs a permanent place in our homeschool.
In summary, the guinea pigs make great study buddies for the following tasks.
In summary, the guinea pigs make great study buddies for the following tasks.
- reading out loud
- role playing the "teacher" to demonstrate mastery
- keeping a child company while they do their work
Guinea Pigs Inspire Creative Play.
On days when you can't go outside or just need to add some "fun" into the day, playing creatively with guinea pigs engages the mind, promotes gentleness and kindness, and keeps the hands busy!
Design-a-Tunnel
Dress-Up
Build Houses
Cage Decorating
DIY Chew Toys
Design-a-Tunnel
|
4 inch diameter PVC tube connectors provide many ways to create tunnels. Guinea pigs are naturally curious and eager to hide, so it takes no enticement to get them to start exploring your project. The tubes are also easy to clean.
|
|
Dress-Up
|
It's fun to dress up guinea pigs. It's even more fun to make them clothes to wear. Fleece is my personal favorite material to work with because it does not have bare threads when you cut it (i.e. perfect for no-sew projects), it stretches, and it's just plain soft.
|
|
Build Houses
It's a lot of fun cutting doorways in cardboard boxes to create houses and buildings for guinea pigs. Since guinea pigs love hiding, they will certainly enjoy exploring whatever designs you make. To keep them moving, we open up the tops a little bit, so they continue to explore the entire play area. Otherwise, shy piggies will just hide away. Don't forget to remove all tape because guinea pigs are notorious for chewing on cardboard.
Cage Decorating
Themed cages are easy to create if you use fleece as a bedding or shade. Fleece comes in all kinds of fun patterns and colors.
DIY Chew Toys
Gardening with Guinea Pigs
Our Adventist homeschool cannot be complete without a garden, a child's "first school." Guinea pigs make great garden helpers. Their poop is like rabbit poop - perfect instant fertilizer (no need to age it or compost it). Their soiled bedding and leftover hay are great compost accelerators. And you can grow food just for them. We have grown wheat grass for our guinea pigs to eat, a fun indoor project.
Our Low Maintenance Guinea Pig Cage Set-Up
- Fleece over horse stall pellets with separate kitchen area (where hay is freely available)
- Kitchen area has a bottom layer of shavings (pine or aspen).
- Water bottle in kitchen area with a saucer underneath to catch drip
|
One-time Purchases to Set-up:
|
Note: We save tons of money buying from Tractor Supply and Petco. At Petco, you can claim online prices in store, as long as you show them (on your phone) at checkout.
|
* Why we no longer use the C&C cage set-up --- In summer of 2018, our basement flooded. The cage was too wide and too weak to carry out of the basement, being held together just by corner clips and zip ties. During the restoration process, my guinea pigs stayed in a kiddie pool, but eventually I decided the best thing was to keep them in a cage that could be easily lifted and transported in case of emergency. So, I settled on the X-large Midwest Homes Deluxe Rabbit Cage. We recently moved to a new home, and we easily transported and set-up the guinea pig cage twice. I am not going back.