1y ago

In Switzerland, it’s illegal to own just one guinea pig. This is because guinea pigs are social animals and they are considered victims of abuse if they are alone

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/loo-flushing-explosives-gold_fact-check-lonely-guinea-pigs-and-other-quirky-swiss-rumours/45067078

10 comments

It’s true. There’s a woman who runs a guinea pig rental service for people one of whose guinea pigs died who don’t want to adopt a new one for life.
- Thanks that answers the burning question this title left in my head. Unless they take a cue from The Notebook one will always be alone.
  Also an ex gf from years ago had a single guinea pig that stopped eating and died, that makes sense now :(
As a gerbil owner this is a constant dilemma for me aswell. One tends to always die much sooner than the another and it breaks my heart seeing the other be left alone. If I then get another one then the same thing is just going to happen again due to their age difference and if I get two there's like 50% chance they don't get along and now I have two terrariums with one gerbil in one and two in the another.
If anyone else is considering getting gerbils my advice would be to either get 3 males or go with a hamster instead since they live alone. I currently have 3 females but I almost had to separate them earlier due to fighting. This is less likely to happen with males.
- Just like people
  
  Just like lemmings.
- Cute
In Denmark too. Also horses are not to be kept alone
We adopted our hound after finding out that our staffy really liked having another dog in the house. She has a therapy dog / sibling.
I'm interested in how this works in terms of pairing.
I have a lone guinea pig. I had two rescue pigs that were rescued from a bad situation, and one sadly died after 6 months. We've had two separate partners, but despite a lot of work in trying to partner them up he's never been able to not fight a potential cage partner.
I want him to have a partner, but the stress for both of being constantly in fight or flight is concerning. We even considered rehoming at a rescue centre and giving a huge donation, but it would just pass the problem on.
This is true, I checked the second to last time I saw this factoid posted, on reddit back then.
Here are my screenshots from the ordinance from that time: https://imgur.com/a/ZkTyEYq
The rule is defined in the Animal Protection Ordinance (AniPO) link at the bottom of this page: https://www.blv.admin.ch/blv/en/home/tiere/tierschutz.html

10 comments