Guinea Pig Village Tour - Wild West Town - Hog Springs

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Northumberland Zoo on YouTube and welcome to Hogsprings guinea pig village. The guinea pigs have settled in really well here at the zoo. We've got our wild west themed guinea pig village here. Howdy ma'am. Our maintenance team have designed all of these unique buildings as part of a competition. You can see the other videos on our YouTube channel. And all of these buildings are set up on these little concrete pads in the actual enclosure. So they've all got like a solid base so they don't get wet and damp. We pop little bits of food out and about on the town centre kind of square thing and along the main street so that the guinea pigs can kind of venture out and have a bit of nibble. These are all rescue guinea pigs so they are a little bit shy. It's taken them a little bit of time to kind of get used to their environment. There's a lot of noises, a lot of kids. But they are getting braver as we go on and every day we're kind of encouraging them to kind of move to the next building. But it's in their own time of course. There's quite a bit of thick grass if you come along that we've left kind of close to the pig in where they like to hide in. And obviously there's been quite a few comments about the fact that this enclosure is an open top enclosure and yes a lot of worries about predators. Obviously in the UK we don't really have any major predators. We do have foxes and buzzards and things like that. But we do lock the guinea pigs in at night time and there's so many keepers and visitors, members of the public on site at all times that predators aren't a risk at all. So yes it is open top. We have got quite a few open top enclosures here at the zoo but that's not an issue. So anyways yes these are rescue guinea pigs from a local guinea pig rescue place called Gertie's Guinea Pig Rescue. It is a non-breeding group. So we've got one castrated male in there and a whole bunch of females. And yeah they're doing really really well. The inside of the pig in has been custom designed. It's got three different levels so actually the guinea pigs can come in and go out on multiple different levels and hang out on the banister as well. I think that they need a little bit more time to get used to this place. Because you see it all the time with videos online about them living in people's yards and having a little shed they can come to at night. They've gotten used to the house now so they are really comfortable in there. But hopefully as time goes on they'll come outside they'll be really happy. This morning actually we did have them outside and we actually saw them running in between the houses getting a lot braver which is really exciting for us. And then when they felt like it they decided that oh it's time to go home and they dotted themselves back inside. So I know we've got Calamity Jane and she seems to be the best so far at going out on her own and things like that. So I think if we could have a couple more like her then it would hopefully rub off on the others. And then the more they come out and realise nothing awful is going to happen the more they're going to stay out. Yeah so if anybody wants to buy our guinea pigs a little present to encourage them out even more, some little treats then you can check out our Amazon wishlist and it's got lots of things for them to eat and to roll about and play with. Grass has sort of parted. Yeah. You can see. There's another sort of little brown one don't there. So they get a combination of things. They are a bit of grazers so they do graze on the grass so that's really really good for them. And then we also give them a guinea pig feed which is a dry feed and it's just got all of the things they need supplement wise, vitamin wise for them. And we also give them a little bit of veg as well so it'll be a mixture of like leafy greens and then sometimes starchy veg. Not too much of the starchy stuff though. So the whole aim of this enclosure is to really promote the right way to keep these guys. You know if you are going to keep them as a pet we really really want to acknowledge the fact that these guys do need quite a bit of room and they do as I say like to graze so they should be out grazing and have a lot of space and be kept in the sun as well. Having being exposed to the different kind of temperatures and stuff obviously not too cold but yeah the sun is really nice for them too. Guinea pigs they are actually social animals and they generally shouldn't they shouldn't be kept on their own. They do have social requirements and needs they should be kept in either small groups or you can keep them in larger groups as well. That is what we're doing with Hog Springs really really trying to promote the right care for these guys and how to keep them. It looks amazing. Next time you're up at the zoo definitely come and see it and if you like this enclosure and you like what we've done with the guinea pigs then do give us a like and subscribe to our channel to see more as it develops.