Talk:Guinea pig/Archive 2

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(it doesn't work—they still look like Guinea pigs)

Should this parenthetical aside be included, or not?

For the record, I laughed my ass off. But it just doesn't seem very encyclopedic. Are we allowed to have quirky humour in article space? Opinions? --Ashenai 12:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you re. laughing your ass off -- I wrote that parenthetical comment :-). Obviously, I think a little humor is okay in an article like this one. If it were an article about Bubonic plague or Shielded metal arc welding I'd probably feel differently, but c'mon, we're talking Guinea pigs here! KarlBunker 15:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. A little humour won't kill anyone.

I found the comment very funny, but it also struck me as being very inappropriate for an encyclopedia. I suggest it be removed. --HungryRobot 07:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please keep it. While it IS humourous, I assume this statement is also very much true? Seriously just what animal would retreat from a tooth-gnashing guinea pig? Surely, if I must accept that this list of behaviours and sounds the animals can make is justified for inclusion than the effectness and consquences should be aswell!

I say that we keep it, since it doesn't affect the informativeness of the article... the worst thing that could be said about it is that it could be argued that its not NPOV... but who cares? --Rapidconfusion 11:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Please keep. My encyclopedia from 1964 actually does contain gems very much like this and in this spirit. The article on 2020s had a similar entry:

It is predicted that optometrists will have a one year discount on all eyewear in 2020.

The occational gem like this is good, too many will not. Not also that otherwise dry scientific text can have the same humor in the form of understatements. The proof is left as an exercise for the reader means it is quite hard to show, whereas It can easily be shown... means it would have taken people like Einstein a long time to work through.

--22:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


I really don't think this is good to keep. I personally trust the whole article less with things like this left in, knowing that one informal edit tends to beget another. For the time being it's not exactly keeping the article off FA status by itself, but as the article improves it'll need to go. Chris Cunningham 09:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I actually removed it last night. While I do think it's funny, it shouldn't be part of an encyclopedia. What's more, it's not really true, it's quite scary if your another GP or something like a rabbit. --Ahc 13:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I thought I'd removed it last night with my other edits...now it's gone again. --Ahc 13:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No sure about the guinee pigs sensitivity to penicillin http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/page.asp?i_ToolbarID=5&i_PageID=1069 http://www.rds-online.org.uk/pages/faq.asp?i_ToolbarID=8&i_PageID=82#mylink19 http://www.animalrights.net/discussion/fullthread$msgnum=101

and yet

http://www.guinealynx.com/dangerous_medications.html

I'm confused - much muddying of waters

my 2 female guinea pigs r trying to mate...

heyy umm im pretty convinced that my 2 female guinea pigs r trying to mate with eachother. tstarting with this morning the one of the guinea pigs started to hump my other one and then the other one gets mad and it just starts a big fight between them. i tryed separting them and then putting them back together but it didnt work they r still fighting becuz the other one (i think) is trying to mate with the other one. its my moms theory that they r trying to mate because its spring time an she says "eevry animal has a natural instinct to mate" and i know female guinea pigs n known not to fight with eachother so what should i do???

Female guinea pigs do fight sometimes. It's called "sorting out the pecking order". Your mum is probably right about the mating thing too. As long as they're not getting hurt (beyond nipped ears anyway) I don't think that you need to do anything. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Homosexuality is (contrary to popular belief) actually quite common when aniamls are in heat as your Guineas are. The only thing I'd suddgest you do is write in full words please.
It could be homosexuality - but probably not! One of the ways that dominant guinea pigs mark their dominance is by mounting others in their colony. This procedure looks similar to an attempt at mating, but is actually very different. It is more common in males, but can be observed in females. I am Director of the Adur Guinea Pig Centre in Sussex (England) where we have very large numbers of cavies, and I observe this characteristic every day of my life. It isn't unusual. Timothy Titus 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


As a child a had a guinea pig as a pet a later minded some for others as well, I spend a bit of time researching them in the local library too. I had also noted confusion among my mother's friends who believed after their "male" animal had offspring that they must be capable of changing sexuality... simply many people must also misidentify their animals sex! The most reliable method is little known though and maybe could be included in this article: The animals have a secondary sexual characteristic in the shape of their noses that is easily distinguishable: males have oval noses while the females noses are triangular.

This nose-shape theory is a nice one, but simply untrue. I could show you 50 cavies here at the AGPC today that fail to comply with your nose theory! Timothy Titus 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"Guinea pigs are strict herbivores."

Regarding the sentence "Guinea pigs are strict herbivores", I have to say that it isn't true. While Guinea pigs might be herbivores per se, they may be de facto omnivores. As an example, my Guinea pig eats small amounts of ham and sausages with pleasure. He's 5 years old, and has never had any observable problems with his diet. He also shows no signs of aging. As an aside, the bulk of his diet consists of vegetables, and a wide variety at that. I've also practically never fed him commercial Guinea pig food, simply because he prefers fresh vegetables. As for rubbing off his teeth, I give him dry bread/buns. 84.161.73.76 16:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The definition of a herbivore is "a heterotrophy that obtains energy by feeding on primary producers, most usually green plants" as stated in the Oxford Dictionary of Zoology (2nd edition reprint, 2003). As guineas forage exclusively upon plants then they are by every definition herbivores, of course ingesting animal matter by proxy is inevitable but this does not qualify them as omnivores. Your Guinea pig will develop health isues as it ages, I'd reference BSC as an example of what happens when you feed herbivores animal matter on a regular basis.
Examine the length of any carnivore or omnivore's intestinal tract. Then, examine the length of any herbivore's; I'm sure the guinea pig's must have been measured at some time. You'll find that herbivores have longer, and more complex, digestive systems. The reason cavies are not meant to eat animal matter is simple: it remains in the gut longer than it would in a carnivore (or omnivore), and may present dangers to the animal. Google it!

Guinea Pigs are rodents, and therefore omnivorous. 81.86.142.211 11:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Prescriptive information

Wikipedia is not an owner's care manual: this article is too long already, contains little information on the animal's conditions in the wild relative to in the home, and doesn't fit with the style of the rest of wikipedia at all. All information is "potentially useful", but that doesn't make it suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikibooks is a much better place for prescriptive information. Chris Cunningham 11:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps... but a) "too long" is a matter of opinion, b) personally I find arguments in the nature of "that's the rule" to be unconvincing, and c) a lot of the information you removed could have been rewritten in a less "how-to guide" style. --KarlBunker 11:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I've tried not to remove anything which is particularly interesting. Plenty of animals have a tendency to gnaw electrical cables and have allergies towards certain medications. As for "too long" being subjective, no it's not. If I get a "too long" warning above my edit box, it's too long. Chris Cunningham 11:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
If every article were trimmed to avoid the "too long" warning above the edit box, the size (and value) of Wikipedia would be reduced by about half. That warning is a silly anachronism that should have been trashed long ago. (And in any case, note that the wording is "This may be longer than is preferable".)
The warning serves as a very useful guide to length IMO, regardless of whether it is now anachronistic from a technical perspective. I haven't found many articles (on any subject, and I do try to vary what I'm editing) that really needed a longer article than "preferred". Chris Cunningham 13:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
So, as we have neatly demonstrated, this is a matter of opinion, which is what I started out saying, 5 indents ago.--KarlBunker 16:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you've made some good edits, and I like the new "Domestic varieties" article, but I think you've removed too much information from the diet section in particular. This information may be unavoidably "prescriptive," but it's important to pet owners and some of it needs to be replaced, IMO. --KarlBunker 11:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Why would pet owners be going to an encyclopedia to investigate what their pets eat? Wikipedia is not an instruction manual. This isn't an appropriate reason to include such information. Chris Cunningham 13:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, arguing by "that's the rule" doesn't impress me. People do come to WP to find such information. In a perfect world they would go to ostensibly more reliable sources, but this is the real world. Snubbing those readers (and those guinea pigs) because of a general policy regarding style is questionable.
I am by no means in complete disagreement with you on this issue. I recently did a lot of editing to the Fancy rat article to remove "you should..." and "be sure your rat..." language from it. I just think you take your respect for the ideal of "encyclopedic style" to the point of removing information that real-world readers should have.--KarlBunker 16:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
And furthermore... As a demonstration that some prescriptive information isn't necessarily anathema to an encyclopedia, here's a sentence I just got from Encyclopedia Britannica's GP article: "Guinea pigs eat vegetation and do not require water to drink if supplied with sufficiently moist food, but they must have water if fed dry commercial food." --KarlBunker 12:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to the odd prescriptive phrase when it clarifies an issue. I am opposed to HOWTOs masquerading as encyclopedia entries. The Britannica text clarifies whether guinea pigs drink water without being a guide to raising guinea pigs. I wouldn't have a problem with that specific information being introduced to the article after being rewritten in a less prescriptive manner. Chris Cunningham 13:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
The Britannica sentence is plainly a bit of "how to care for your guinea pig" advice. And considering that the Britannica article is very short, that sentence is a notable percentage of it. In terms of ratio of prescriptive advice to article length, the WP article was pretty much in line with Britannica. It was just a heck of a lot more complete.--KarlBunker 16:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
As a general rule I agree with Chris Cunningham about how the article was at the start. When I've done similar edits (mostly to the Domestic Rabbit article, which is due again) I found it a helpful thing to do to copy the large sections of removed content into the discussion page to make it easier for people to discuss the removed content. I was personally thinking of taking the time to do a similar copy edit on the whole article to remove information that reads like an owner's manual. If people think this community is able to give good complete and helpful advice about how to care for domestic guinea pigs, then start a WikiBook. Don't argue for maintaining overly long articles when a short book would better serve the topic anyway. --Ahc 20:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Once again, the pesky real world pokes it's unkempt head in: Wikipedia is known and used by (nearly) everyone. WikiBooks are known to few, seen by fewer, read by fewer still, and edited by still yet fewer. Information that is needed should be placed where it will be seen. --KarlBunker 00:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I've rewritten your readditions in a more neutral manner, but I'm doing so for the sake of your earlier argument about completeness rather because I agree with you on this point. wp:not and wikibooks are there for a reason, and this is policy violation. I've combined the pet care parts with the more descriptive anthropology parts just now to make the article flow better; these are perhaps a bit long now, and the most obvious thing to go in future would be the prescriptive parts. Chris Cunningham 12:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
The lack of a reputation for WikiBooks is hardly a strong argument in my mind for weakening a wikipedia article. There's a nice template to encourage interested readers to look at WikiBooks related the article. I will probably give this article the same treatment I've given the Domestic rabbit article on two occasions to remove perscriptive advice (which is inherently non-NPOV) sometime in the future. That takes a fair amount of time, so it'll probably be a while before I devote that much energy to this article. Chris thanks for trying to work of the POV issues in the mean time. --Ahc 03:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems a heck of a stretch to call prescriptive information "POV." I suppose "caring for guinea pigs well is better than caring for them badly" is a "point of view" in some sense, but c'mon... --KarlBunker 10:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
...And there's no place for a line like "caring for guinea pigs well is better than caring for them badly" in the article either.
Which isn't at all what I was suggesting. I was pointing out that that's the only way in which prescriptive information is inherently POV. --KarlBunker 14:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Prescriptive information can impose a viewpoint on an article quite easily. But it's not the POV I'm worried about, it's the style of the article. The prescriptive info stands out as being unencyclopedic, and unless it can be beaten into an encyclopedic form then it should be removed. I'm trying to compromise for the time being. Chris Cunningham 11:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I think we've pretty much talked this issue to death; I understand your opinion and I appreciate your willingness to compromise. --KarlBunker 14:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Gentlemen, if you're worried about prescriptive information, you can deal with it quite easily by applying the Neutral Point of View. This will change it from prescriptive information to descriptive information. So far example rather than saying "You should feed GP's steak and chips", you should say "The American Butcher's Association says that you should feed GP's steak and chips" and accompany it with a reference. This turns a matter of prescriptive opinion into a matter of descriptive fact without any requirement for "beating" and is far better than a compromise over which "facts" will be removed and which will not. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That fixes the POV but it doesn't fix the style problem. As I said before, there are an almost infinite number of facts, sources and recommendations which could be included in an article. The trick is to get the right combination to make the article informative and comprehensive and yet still readable and interesting. Prescriptive information is still prescriptive information when presented from a third-person perspective, and while this is a good short-term compromise it can't fix an article by itself. Anyway, this is the route we're taking just now. Chris Cunningham 08:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sub-articles

The information on the different varieties of guinea pigs is best left to its own article, where it can continue to grow. It's qwelll-written, has nice pictures and is encyclopedic, but keeping it here bloats the article. I've moved most of it to Domestic varieties of guinea pigs. Chris Cunningham 11:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Edits August 28th

I've gone through tonight and given the article what I see as a long overdue editing from start to finish. There are a couple of things of note. First, I scattered around several Citation needed notes, as there are lots of places we need to find sources to backup the statements. I've also removed some blocks of text which I included here. I know we discussed some of these before, but I'd like to suggest that we look that these in particular before returning them to the page. They are either unneeded in my option, or inherently non-NPOV. Before they are returned they need sources that back them in some way at the very least:

Domestic guinea pigs do best in cages as large as possible; 0.7 square metres (7.5 square feet), or 75 by 90 cm (30 by 36 inches) for one guinea pig and 2 square feet per additional guinea pig is considered a minimum.
...
These phenols have been suggested to cause and/or exacerbate upper respiratory infections (a serious and life-threatening problem in cavies). Part of red cedar and pine's historical popularity was likely due to their cheap price and the fact that the same phenols which may harm some animals are known to repel certain insects. Red cedar shavings are known to cause liver problems in rabbits.
Guinea pig pups can walk soon after birth and run within a few hours
Guinea pig pups can walk soon after birth and run within a few hours

I cut this image for two reasons. In my option it is not a high enough quality image to keep. Second, this page has too many images already. People that use browsers at smaller widths have layout problems because of this. I removed it once before without explaining myself, and I wanted to correct that mistake now.

Addintionally I reshuffled nearly the whole of the breeding section. The content basically the same, just minor touchups to the grammer, but I wanted to get the basic information in before the listing of problems that can occur. I beleive nearly that entire section should get citations as much of it is very specific. If someone has a basic text is should be hard to come with one reference that covers most of the information.

1-year old male guinea pig
1-year old male guinea pig

The second image I removed because while I find it very cute, I don't think it explains anything about breeding. It's hard to tell the size of the animal given how it was taken, and nothing in the breeding section talks about how big the GP's should be after 1 year. He is cute though.

From the Diet section:

Because vitamin C does not have a long shelf life, commercial pellets may not be a reliable source of this vitamin. Vitamin C supplements added to water are not recommended by experts as vitamin C is unstable in sunlight and in the presence of oxygen and warm temperatures.
...
Guinea pigs are probably the smallest grass-eating mammals.

In working on the Scientific Research section I seem to have caused problems with the references, if anyone can figure out what I'm missing here, please fix.

That's it. --Ahc 03:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Future direction

We're really getting somewhere now. Remaining issues:

  • Still some prescriptive hangovers.
  • Rather arbitrary mixing of "guinea pig" and "cavy", occasionally even in the same sentence.
  • Still far too many extlinks. Wikipedia:External links contains guidelines.
  • Loads of redlinks in the top half of the article.

Chris Cunningham 09:42, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

One of the biggest problem with this article is that it merges Cavia and Cavia porcellus into a single article. As for the red links, the solution to red links isn't just to not link the pending articles, it's to create pages for the other species of Cavia. --Aranae 12:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think everyone is well aware of that. It's still contrary to the Manual of Style, which doesn't recommend adding redlinks uness one is willing to do the work onesself. Ergo, redlinks where nobody is volunteering should be removed. However, more below. Chris Cunningham 14:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
From a subpage of the MOS:
"An existing red link can indicate one of three things:
  1. A new article is needed. When a Wikipedian writes an article, it is common practice to linkify key topics pertinent to an understanding of the subject, even if those topics don't have an article on Wikipedia yet. This has two applications:
    1. From within an article, such a link prepares the article to be fully supported. At any time, a Wikipedian may independently write an article on the linked-to subject, and when this happens, there's already a link ready and waiting for it. The red link also gives readers the opportunity to click on it to create the needed article on the spot.
    2. In topic lists, it is useful to include every topic on the subject you can possible find or think of. When they are turned into links, the list immediately shows where the gaps in Wikipedia's coverage for that subject are, since all of the topics missing articles will show up in red. Such lists are useful tools in developing subject areas on Wikipedia, as they show where work is needed most. (Note: This can be a controversial step for lists which are within articles. See [[WP:CONTEXT]] for more.)"
Other species of Cavia qualify as important, verifiable topics that can have a page at any time. The red links show that more work is needed on the topic and may be switched to blue by another editor at any time. It's fairly standard TOL formatting to link to subpages within higher level pages. The Cavia page needs to link to pages for Cavia species. --Aranae 16:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
There are also WP standards about whether a topic is significant enough to warrant an article, but they're vague. (Wikipedia:Notability is an "essay" on the subject.) Personally, I don't see as there's likely to be much to say about the Montane Guinea pig, and less still that much of anyone would be interested in, but personally I wouldn't know a Montane Guinea pig if I tripped over it and it chattered its teeth at me. KarlBunker 16:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I just went through all the footnotes and changed them to spiffy "cite web" format, with authors (when available) and publishers (when available) listed and all that stuff. The result is that the footnotes now look totally screwed up, with the first footnote pointing to "10", the bounce-back links not working, etc. I've seen screwy behavior like this magically fix itself in the past; something to do with Wikipedia's cache, or maybe it's happening because Pluto isn't a planet any more. Anyway, I'm going to leave it alone for now rather than try to make sense of it. If it doesn't fix itself it can always be reverted. KarlBunker 19:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
The footnotes look fine to me, but I've had that same problem on other articles. I will trust that it will work itself out. ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 19:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The "future direction" that this article is being taken in can be characterized as follows: In order to be "professional," an article must be devoid of humor, structured to fit a rigid set of rules rather than tailored to the real-world uses that readers will put it to, and generally devoid of any trace of human personality. I think that's sad. KarlBunker 11:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

And I think that openly breaking policy simply because the site has a high profile (while making nebulous claims about "real-world users") is making a mockery of the hard work people are putting into making Wikipedia such a unique resource. Informal commentary makes the whole article less trustworthy. Prescriptive information necessarily affects the way the reader perceives the subject matter. But whatever; I'm disinclined to explain this any more, and I'll simply be quoting policy on edit summaries in future cases. Chris Cunningham 11:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't got a clue about what the comment "because the site has a high profile" means, but as for policy, isn't there one about WP:Don't be a pompous dick? KarlBunker 15:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Quoth KarlBunker from past discussion: "Wikipedia is known and used by (nearly) everyone. WikiBooks are known to few, seen by fewer, read by fewer still, and edited by still yet fewer. Information that is needed should be placed where it will be seen." As for being pompous, it's easy to be pompous when one is right. Chris Cunningham 19:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Repurpose this article to the common guinea pig

Proposing shifting the information about the Cavia genus to its own (stub) article and repurposing this one. There's scant information for other species on this article just now and it's probably going to have to happen eventually anyway. It'd help in removing redlinks and it would allow the intro to be more specific. Chris Cunningham 14:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree. This sounds sensible to me. --Ahc 03:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. Chris Cunningham 09:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"They are generally easy to care for "

This is an extremly misleading statement. Guinea pigs require very large cages that, if properly sized, can take an hour to clean each week. Due to tons of misinformation on the internet and in books, it is very hard to find the right diet to feed them, and once found requires tracking down a source of fresh hay, quality pellets and learning the nutriet content of and spending extra money on fresh vegetables every week. They are social animals that if left neglected will become sad and may stop eating well. It is important to take them to the vet when they are sick, but exotic vets that can treat them are difficult to find and freqently charge a lot of money for a visit. Some guinea pigs may also have health problems that require a lot of dedication. For example, an impacted boar requires messy daily anal sac cleanings. Guinea pigs require a lot more care than a mouse or hampster, but are frequently lumped in the same category as them, leading people to 1) spend much more time and money on their care than expected or 2) not properly care for the guinea pig. This statement should really be taken down so that people don't get the wrong idea about their care. evilnumberlady 12:02, 28 September 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.242.78 (talk • contribs) (there are no contributions from evilnumberlady, hence the unsigned nature. This does not detract from the comments. Fiddle Faddle 16:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC))

The evolution thing

I'm hesitant to resurrect this but I felt the need to point something out. As a biologist, I hate creationists with a passion. However the edit made IMHO was extremely wise. Other then avoiding silly edit wars, it's also the best language. A biologist won't say in "in the natural environment in which they evolved" they will just say "in their natural environment". There is no need to mention the in which they evolved bit simply because this is implied/automatically accepted. Generally, you will only talk about something having evolved when it evolved from something. Nil Einne 20:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a very sensible view. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)