Care Of Guinea Pig: Nails

Guinea pigs are very easy to take care of although they do require some day to day attention.

The Nails

Your pet guinea pigs nails will need to be trimmed. If they are not they can become painful and very long.

One thing to do for your care of guinea pig is to help your pet keep its nails down naturally. You can do this by providing him with plenty of rocks, bricks, rough stones and other, similar textured surfaces. Bricks can be the cheapest and easiest solution. Just ensure they do not have holes in them for the guinea pig to get stuck in!

As do other animals guinea pigs nails have blood vessels in them. This area is usually referred to as the ‘quick’. If your guinea pig has clear nails you will be able to spot them easily. To describe it is it’s the pink area that goes from the bone to the toe. In some cases such as if your guinea pig has black nails, the quick is very difficult to see.

If your guinea pig has clear nails you just need to trim above the pink area.

However if you have black nails to trim, you may choose to trim the nails a little longer than normal. Most owners in this situation prefer to cut the nails only a little and much more frequently. You can cut the nails properly without cutting into the quick but this does take time and practice.

If by accident you do cut the quick the first thing you must do is stop the flow of blood. You can buy a product form pet shops called ‘Quick Stop’, and this will stop the bleeding altogether. If it happens and you don’t have such a product you can put some iodine on the nail as an alternative.

Your pet guinea pig is probably going to squirm a lot while this procedure is going on. It will be a lot easier if you have someone to help you while you are trimming its nails. The best way to do this is to wrap your guinea pig in a towel, arrange him so that his feet are poking out. Then you just have one person hold onto the guinea pig and the other person trims the nails.

If you do have to do this procedure while flying solo a handy hint is as follows. Place your guinea pig onto a tennis racket. Arrange them so that their nails are sticking out through the holes of the racket. Cover the guinea pig with a blanket or some bedding as this will make them feel more ’secure’.