New guinea pigs - activity levels

[Piggiefan]

We've had our lovely two girl piggies for three weeks. They are getting much more used to us and tolerate being cuddled and stroked. I think they might even be starting to enjoy being petted (how do I tell??). At least they are no longer freezing in terror in case we eat them, which is progress! They are also starting to be a little bit vocal, although I'm not sure whether they are making happy or cross noises - I've looked and listened online but the noises sound very similar to me.

When they are out in their run on the grass they don't seem to do a lot. They explore for maybe a minute, and then sit in their cardboard box and eat and eat. Or eat, snooze, then eat. Occasionally they have a very brief wander in search of better grass. Is this ok? I've read that they need exercise, but they seem very sedentary. They've been in the run for 2-4 hours a day, hopefully I'll be able to increase this now that the weather's better.

That all sounds normal to me. My boys only exercise when they are walking to food. Apart from that they just snooze. Smoothpig is rather hefty but the only way I have to get him to move his large behind is to keep moving his tunnel from one of the run to the other - he just keeps running to hide in it

when we got our piglet, he raced round the cage, did 3 laps before we caught him, Popcorned, wheeked, raced up to our older boy, who was at his stepsons antic.

Fast forward to him being 11 months old.....and he's a very lazy laid back individual
They do move around in the run, then they'll rest in a housie.
They don't sleep much so the energy they expend is for quite a few hours a day.

Piggiefan the noises can vary but you can tell alot by the body language if they;re angry.
If they put their heads up (especially if they do it face-to-face , going higher and higher) and a tooth grinding 'chatter' - that's angry.
Usually they'll walk round each other. My boars will sometime barge each other out the way "Shift" type.

You might get some popcorning in summer in the run. Or some Rumblestrutting (stiff body, weaving snakelike, purring) that means "I'm in command"
Or they might just lard about .

They have been very active this afternoon, I'm not sure whether that's because they like the new fiddlesticks tunnel/hidey I got them, or because they are being tormented by lice . I discovered they had lice this afternoon, I was able to go straight to the pet shop and get a spot-on treatment with Ivomectin, but there is conflicting information online. Some says it will treat lice, other sites say Ivomectin only works on mites. So I've ordered some Lice 'n Easy Shampoo as well, from Gorgeous Guineas, and will use that when it arrives. I hope the Ivomectin does something though as they were doing a lot of scratching and washing this afternoon so must be very itchy. I think they might have two types of lice - running lice, which I can see moving around on their neck, and hay lice (static lice?) causing black specks on the hair around their rumps. Bleugh.

Oh, IIRC lice aren't blood suckers (eat the skin flakes) so a treatment like Ivormectin won;t work.
I use Xeno 450 as a topical treatment and the Lice'n'Easy as a shampoo a couple of weeks after (difficult sometimes to get a warm enough day to bathe them )
But.......some guinea-owners don't like Xeno 450 because of the risk of reactions. You need to make sure they don't ingest it from grooming each other. (My GP3 washes GP1 ears. )

Xeno 450 treats internal parasites (worms) too.
But not ringworm.