Ideal Home Life - online book

A valuable and well-organized system for home education(homeschooling) 3 to 12 years.

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	242                          IDEAL HOME LIFE brown, or glossy black, but it seems impossible to produce a pure strain of self-colored stock, except the white. The ma­jority of domestic cavies are spotted, the common colors being fawn, light gray, red brown, dark brown, and cream, inter­spersed with white or black or both white and black. The pigment of the hair extends also to the skin, which is white only under white or cream areas of fur. Hutches and Pens Two general methods of managing guinea pigs have been advocated—courts and hutches. In court management the animals are kept in open or covered courts in which they have considerable room to exercise. The courts are divided into smaller runs, each of which has its own hutches or sleeping shelters. The size of the runs is governed by the numbers of animals to be kept in them. A run 6 by 10 feet would accommodate 3.0 to 50 guinea pigs. In a warm climate this method has certain advantages. It entails less labor in feed­ing and cleaning than is required under hutch management. However, for most parts of the United States indoor hutch management is the only plan that can be recommended. In cold weather artificial heat should be supplied. In fact guinea pigs do best when the temperature is not allowed to fall much below 65° F. It is true that they are often kept in outdoor hutches in winter, and that huddled together in warm nests and well fed, they survive the low temperature; but such management cannot be recommended. The animals do not thrive well under it, and there is great danger of serious losses of the young through pneumonia. They should not be subjected to sudden changes of temperature nor to dampness. Guinea pigs require about the same kind of accommoda­tions as rabbits. The same hutches would answer, but they may be smaller for guinea pigs. Hutches made of packing boxes laid on the.side and fitted with a door in front would answer every requirement. A shelf about four inches high is recommended for the back part of each hutch. The space under the shelf is a convenient