Guinea Pig Re-homing Norfolk

Long haired guinea pigs are beautiful but their coats do need regular attention. Their hair can quickly become matted and knotted resulting in it pulling the skin, becoming stained by urine and dung, and in the worst case can become infested by maggots and cause serious skin conditions.

If you are thinking about owning a long haired guinea pig they will need grooming at least every other day and weekly trimming to make sure they are comfortable. We keep all our long hairs well trimmed around their bottom area to make sure they do not get urine soaked coats and and generally happy and comfortable so their amazing hair does not inhibit their usual activities.

Long haired guineas also need bathing from time to time (we wash ours every 3 months or so) as they cannot groom their own hair and keep themselves clean.

Long haired guinea pigs are man made by selective breeding and would not survive in the wild, their coat just continues to grow and can reach amazing lengths! When these guinea pigs are shown it is required that their hair is unbroken from birth and to keep the hair unbroken the guinea pigs are 'wrapped'. Essentially their hair is permanently placed in rollers (made of kitchen towel) to keep it in show condition. When kept 'in coat' they are an amazing sight -literally looking like long haired wigs when prepared for showing!

A long haired guinea pig grows one inch of hair per month so they get very long!

They are usually shown until they are upto 1 year old.

We keep our long hairs trimmed so their hair does not interfere in any way in their usual behaviour and there is no need to wrap them.

When Gandalf came to us she was severely matted and had a very smelly coat, after cutting off the worst of het matts she looked like this

After a lot of hard work she now looks a real glamour puss! This is her before her trim...

Her bottom was trimmed short but her sides had got very long!

And here she is all trimmed and ready for action...

As you can see from the top view of Arthur we keep their coats so they are just off the floor and do not get in the way whilst the guinea is moving around and keep the bottoms fairly short.

Before trim

After trim.

If you are thinking about getting a long haired guinea pig please think about all the extra grooming that is involved before you do so.