With all the skinny pigs available in pet stores, a person might be wondering why one should take the extra time and effort get a breeder skinny pig. While you might be lucky enough to find one that is both friendly and healthy, do you really want to take that risk?
Our Skinny pigs are well socialized and used to people. While we can’t guarantee the personality of any individual skinny pig, we do guarantee that you will get a skinny pig that is typically much friendlier then what you might find at a pet store. Health, temperament and conformation are our highest priority. We work with other breeders to make sure our lines healthy and cross breed our lines back out to haired guinea pigs to keep our genetics fresh. Pups are handled from an early age to ensure they are friendly and used to people.
Our skinny pigs are weaned when the mothers decide it is time to ween them. They are kept in our nursery for an additional week to be sure that the skinny pig pups are eating the pellets and hay well. We want to see them happily eating their fresh vegetables and and drinking from a water bottle. This ensures that your baby has received adequate nutrition from his/her mother and makes for a much healthier pet in the long run. Many of the pups one finds in pet stores are taken from their mom before weening so they will still be small and cute when they are sent to the pet stores.
After all, the pet stores want to get them in as young as possible because people think they are cute when they are tiny. Due to lack of nutrition and stunted development, many of these babies get sick and end up at the veterinarian’s office before they are 8 weeks old. Unfortunately the damage done by weaning a baby too early combined with poor early nutrition is difficult to undo and can lead to long term problems.
Our skinny pigs are kept in clean cages and in good conditions. Many pet stores keep their skinny pigs in overcrowded cages withsubstandard conditions. These skinny pigs are either poked and yelled at all day by excited visitors, or completely ignored because store employees do not realize that they need socialization too.. The Skinny pigs are typically not given a hideout so that they will be visible to potential buyers.
In a truly bad situation, they may live on dirty shavings, eat dirty food, or drink from water bottles sprouting mold. They learn to fear the loud voices and screaming children who poke at them, and even with proper care, they may never become trusting and friendly Skinny pigs.
Our babies are kept in large cages so that they have room to roam and play. We make sure that they have play time out of their cages every day. They have tubes and toys to play with and a hideout to retreat to when they need to rest. The food and water is changed on a regular basis to keep the cage free of poop, mildew, mold, and germs. Our babies learn that people are friendly, and they will seek out human interaction usually with much excited wheeing.
We carefully plan our breedings Unfortunately, we’ve heard horror stories about some skinny pig mills who will put any male and female together. This can potentially lead to multiple generations of inbreeding, as well as long term health problems.
Our breedings are planned very carefully and we often consult with fellow breeders when matching our pairs. We keep detailed pedigrees on site, and most parents are available for prospective parents to meet.
We offer pre-sale support. Skinny pig are not hard to care for but do have some specialized needs and we encourage people to learn as much as possible about them before deciding to add one to there family.
We offer post-sale support to help you and your skinny pig while she/he adjusts to his/her new home. You will receive a packet of food and an information packet on skinny pig care. Small breeders are not breeding for a profit the way large mills do, we got involved out of love of the animals and to better the breed. When you are doing right food cost and vet bills quickly eat up any possible money.