Hamster or Guinea Pigs?

[LondonSuperTrooper]

Just that really. We would like to get our 7years old DS his first pet. If you had the choice, which would you get? I've heard that hamsters bite and this worries me. I am aware that if I get guinea pigs, it'll have to be two.

Would we have to get pet insurance for either? From what I've seen, hamsters are much cheaper to buy & maintain - am I correct?

Thanks.

70 thanks for all of your wonderful advice! This really has been an educational thread for me. I went to the library last night and got some books on caring for GP. I might take it with me on holiday next week :)

Suburban - Thanks you so much for your generosity, I've PM'ed you :)

Thanks to everyone else, you've all been fab

Does anyone know why all the rescue centres (I've looked at 4 centres) seem to have boars and not sows?

I have 2 sows and they are the best thing ever :)

We got our two girl piggies a year ago so it's another vote for GPs here.

Having said that we have ended up with a bitey one - not often or hard (apart from the time she mistook DD's finger for the carrot she was feeding her at the time) but enough to make you jump - imagine a small scratch a bit like a cat would give. She is fine sat in a lap being gently stroked but not a fan of being picked up or carried about.

Our other piggie is daft as a brush - she will sit up, let us walk around with her on her shoulder, blow raspberries on her tummy and licks us as a sign of affection .

London the past couple of times we've been to P@H (DD likes it) they've had no pigs or boars only.

The rescue where we got our two sows had a lot of baby boars.
I think alot of boars end up in rescue because people get to the Terrible Teens and whap their little piglets suddenly turn overnight into little raging balls of hormones (our GP3 did at 3 months. Our older boar was and very tolerant. GP3 tried to bonk him but GP1 walked away. There was minimal snappiness. On Bank Holiday in May they got niggly so we bathed them. Cue sulks )

GP5 was a bit toothy tonight because I wouldn't let her leap off my lap 3' onto the floor. Erm, because you'll hurt yourself and be judgey, silly piggie.

Our boars are nearly a year old and they are fine together

They are fine if they have a good established 'pecking order' and enough space and "get out of my face" space.

Our two brothers were lovely, snuggly love sponges (DD wanted a boar so we got these two at a year old)
GP3 was 6 weeks old when we got him, GP1 was middleaged 3 yo when GP3 came to us.

Boars have so much piganality - and unlike many rodenty types (yes male mice, I mean you) , the males don't smell.

Piggies. Very cute and friendly. No biting. Yes to a lot of pooing but their cages are easy to keep once you get a routine going it takes no time at all.

We have two boars. They belong to DD (5) and DS (3). As the DC are so young they are mostly my piggies.

DD who turned 5 last month is capable of partially cleaning their cage with a little help from me (water bottle is too fiddly for her to do and I don't like her using the animal disinfectant spray so I do it).

DS is too small for anything but carefully supervised cuddles.

Your DS will be able to do it all, more or less once you've shown him the ropes.

I enjoy them. They are not only sweet but also fairly undemanding (compared to cat and dogs when I grew up).

Hamsters are cute too but less cuddly. A lot less cuddly and hard to catch if they give you the slip.

Rats! Like hamsters, just less bitey, more friendly, very intelligent and much cuter! They're like little dogs, you can teach them tricks and everything

You need a whopping big cage for rats though.

Aw Pixie I saw some rats in a Petshop yesterday ( we went for a look, not to buy even though there were 2 female guineas who said ^take us home and put us in your Pighouse 70 )

There was a tangle of rat feet and tails poking out of a tunnel.
Are you sure they do all the tricks - these ones looked like they'd hook their tails round the food and drag it towards them, lazy blighters

OK, I concede, your photo of Zhaan, your Rex looks quite lively, but all the others are showing that they have a First Class Degree in Hammock Surfing

(Our piggie is a Rex boar. He has curly whiskers too, coarse fur and a curly tummy. Does your Rex rat have huge feet? Rex guineas do )

Oh gawd, yes, GP over hamsters

Awake during the day, a better size to handle and not squoosh, funny little creatures and live a bit longer.

Get rescue piggies - there is lots of young'uns and babies to be had. Boars are good fun and mine have been no trouble at all (there are more boys than girls in rescues).

IMO all petshop cages are far too small - mine are in a 60x240cm indoor C+C cage and they don't fight, it's easier to clean and they get their running around like mad exercise even if I don't manage to get them in the outside run.

70 apparently they do tricks, I've heard this rumour but my lazy boys refuse to be taught
We haven't actually tried for a long time, though both boys remember the clicking noise and Howl will stand on command if there is a bribe involved! We stopped training them around the time that Howl lost his eye, so a long time ago embarrassingly! I know it was then as we tried to continue to teach him to spin, but as we'd been teaching him to spin anticlockwise he was getting really confused because he couldn't see the food any more

Hammock surfing is their best skill I may upload some images and videos to imgr later and post them, I used my allowance yesterday and it hasn't reset yet! :(
At the moment Zhaan's feet are slightly bigger than Aeryn's, but I don't know if that is a feature of rex rats or not, I'll let you know in a few more months :) I'm going to google rex GPs now, I didn't know that they existed!