Rodents & Rabbits
Find and offer rodents and rabbits in Guatemala.
A guinea pig eats hay from morning to night, and much of the kit around guinea pigs and rabbits exists to keep that hay clean and off the floor. Cages, pens and their fittings are listed here new and pre-owned, from a hamster’s first wire cage to the folding pen a house rabbit runs in. Families who stop raising rabbits in the backyard often pass on galvanised rabbit hutches and the sheet-metal feeders that came with them, which outlast plastic. Now and then a hamster or a pair of guinea pigs goes along with its set-up to a new home, never with a price on the animal.
Hamster cages, tube systems and glass tanks:
each one suits a different owner. A wire cage on a deep plastic base is the familiar starter and the easiest to clean, provided the base holds a thick layer of bedding, because hamsters dig. Modular cages joined by coloured tubes delight children, but the tubes are awkward to clean and the connectors are the first parts to go missing. Glass works well too: an aquarium that no longer holds water still makes a good hamster home once it has a ventilated mesh lid, and a terrarium retired from reptiles and amphibians works too with the heat mat taken out. The wheel needs a solid running surface rather than rungs, and it should be big enough that the hamster runs with its back straight.
Guinea pig pens, rat cages and the house rabbit’s exercise pen:
split along one line, which is who climbs. Guinea pigs hardly climb at all, so ramps and upper decks are wasted on them and the money is better spent on floor. Many keepers build a pen from grid storage panels and a corrugated plastic base, extend it panel by panel, and line it with washable fleece or a bed of wood shavings. Rats are the opposite: climbers that want a tall cage with several levels, hammocks and ropes. A house rabbit usually ends up in a folding metal exercise pen, set up in a room or on a covered corridor, with a litter tray in one corner.
Hay, and the rack that keeps it off the floor:
decide how clean a guinea pig’s or a rabbit’s space stays, because hay is most of what these animals eat and the one supply bought every week. In Guatemala bagged timothy hay is mostly imported, and many families stretch it with alfalfa or fresh-cut grass. A hay rack hangs it up so it is not trampled into the bedding, and a heavy ceramic bowl for the pellets cannot be tipped over or chewed. In backyard rabbit raising the feeders are galvanised sheet-metal hoppers, and they come up second-hand when a family gives up its rabbit hutches. A rabbit wrecks plastic but cannot hurt them, so they are worth keeping even for a single pet.
Wheels, bottles and clips on a used set-up:
show how it was looked after. Spin the wheel by hand: a wobble or a squeak only gets louder, and a hamster runs at night. Press the ball in the bottle spout, since one that drips soaks the bedding and one that sticks leaves the animal without water. On a plastic base, check that the clips holding the wire top still snap shut, because a cracked clip is how hamsters get out. Count the connectors on a tube system and the joining clips on a panel pen before you take it away. Fleece liners that have gone thin, or still smell after washing, are near the end. When hay or pellets come with a cage, the bag should be sealed or recently opened, dry, and smell of grass rather than dust or must.
Listing a folding pen or a tube cage:
say which animal it was used for, since a pen that held guinea pigs may be too low for a rabbit that jumps, and say what goes with it, from the wheel and bottle to the hides and the rack. Wash and dry everything before the photos, and lay the parts of a modular cage or a pen out on the floor so a buyer can count them. Folding pens and panel kits travel flat, which matters to someone coming from Amatitlán or San Marcos by bus rather than by car. When a hamster or a pair of guinea pigs goes with the cage, give its species, its age and the food it knows. Anyone coming from Jocotenango for a pair of guinea pigs should bring one carrier lined with wood shavings for both, because they travel calmer together.