Guinea pig

Question

dear jana, im asking about my guinea pig keiko,he is new to our family as we have had him for around five weeks.when we got him his les seemed to be slightly bent,also my guinea pig keeps sneezing and today he actually had snot look a like stuff in his nose and i could tell he wanted it come out of his nose. i live in australia and am 11 years old so i dont know what to do should i go to the local vet?im am very worried please help!!!i feed him dried fruits and sometimes fresh fruits i also give him water i change the hay and give him food every morning. i also want to know why my guinea pig keeps running off it is soo annoyin trying to catch him again.i only have 1 and where going to get another one soon!!he barley eats the food and eats half of the hay.hes hutch is two storey so he climbs down a slid to get down stairs.on top is the sleeping area but underneath its just a wire netting to put ontop of grass.but he keeps digging underneath and runs off into somewhere in our garden.its scary because we have a cat next door and he comes into our garden .we bought some pellets to keep cats and dogs away but im not sure if it works. please reply as soon as possible there are quite a few guestions in that and i hope you can answer them all.

from harini

Answer

Well Harini, You are right, there are a lot of questions in there!First of all, I don't know what you mean, what was bent? You said his les, did you mean his leg? As far as his nose is concerned, guinea pigs do get cold-like symptoms and he could be getting a respiratory illness, so keep an eye on him. Make sure he isn't getting cold at night. You really need to get his cage off the ground and get better wiring under it or one of these days you might not find him in the garden. Pellets aren't going to keep a cat away if one wants to hunt him down. He will have less illnesses if he is off the ground also. He should be in a rabbit hutch or something like that with small gage wire. Make sure he is getting a balanced guinea pig diet, not just a hodge-podge of fruits and vegetables. He needs more than fruits, he needs the hay you feed him and vegetables too. Guinea pigs need vitamin C in their food so make sure the food you get him has it in it. If his cold seems worse you should get him into the vets for some treatments so he doesn't get pneumonia. They run off because they can. They are animals and just because you are his owner doesn't mean he wants to be owned! Any animal will run off like that if they escape from their cage. So keep Keiko warm enough so he doesn't get worse with his snotty nose. He could be getting stuff in his nose when he is digging out and that is what he is trying to sneeze out. I hope this answered some of your questions. Make sure you handle him gently every day and have fun with him! Let me know how he does ok?