h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We first got guinea pigs when daughter El was 7. They're a good pet because they don't take a lot of looking after and they look cute, without you having to actually do very much with them. El is now heading towards 25 and we've had a stream of guinea pigs over the years, so many that I don't always remember all their names. Guinea pigs are sociable animals so we always had at least two at any time and sometimes three. We look after them well, providing them with a hutch in the shed, a hutch on the lawn where they can eat grass, and a semi-enclosed space in the corner of the kitchen where they can sit, munch hay and listen to the conversation. Guinea pigs like to chat to each other and listen to us chatting.

The current batch of three are sisters from the same litter. They're now heading for five years old which is a good age for a guinea pig. In January, we noticed that one of the three, named Poncho, had a large swelling on one side of her face. Our local vet sorted it out and soon Poncho looked normal again. But she started to lose weight dramatically. The local vet didn't understand the cause so we were recommended to a specialist vet. The specialist vet has tried a number of things, done various operations and recommended lots of different treatments. At this stage we know that Poncho's jaw muscles were damaged by the original infection and she can't move her jaw properly. This prevents her from chewing properly. Her front teeth don't line up so she can't cut up the vegetables we give her, and her back teeth don't grind against each other properly, so they keep growing longer. She can't eat proper guinea pig food.

So since April I've been feeding her a sort of porridge twice a day by hand using a syringe for re-filling ink cartridges. She gets 10-15ml of this porridge twice a day. The vet also trims her teeth about every six weeks so that she can still eat the "nuggets" which are a made-up complete food.

None of this is cheap - I've paid about €1,000 on this guinea pig's vet bills. But I believe that once you volunteer to look after a pet, you have to do it for as long as it takes. I'm aware that none of our guinea pigs have ever lived longer than 5 years, so Poncho probably won't last a lot longer, but I'll keep looking after her until the end.

My daughter tried a guinea pig (or was it a hamster?) as a child, but was horribly dejected when it died in a few weeks or months. Cats and dogs since then.

I absolutely love Guinea Pigs. They are extremely sociable and very very cute. But I'm deathly allergic so I can't even go in a house if a guinea pig has been in there recently.

I did have one once, though (before I knew about my allergy). I rescued him from one of my officer's kids who wasn't looking after him and his mum got fed up of doing it all.

He lived in a hutch in the garden, with a huge run that could be moved around so he ate all the grass. But he also ate through the hutch, and since he always went in his hutch at night he was allowed to roam free. Which was his undoing in the end because an Owl ate him after we'd had him for about two years - he was around 4.5 years old then so he'd had a pretty good run.

Back then I used to have a cup of tea before work and because I got MacKenzie in spring, I used to go outside and take him a treat or too, eventually he started coming to the kitchen door whistling for me if I didn't show up. He did it in the evenings too - a really sociable little chap, got on well with Squonk the rabbit and Frodo the cat too. He used to sit there eating his snack, huffing and puffing away, with the occasional squeak.

I miss him.

One of our females had a similar lump, which was under her chin, and it trailed on the ground and must have been painful because all the hair was rubbed off it. We didn't take her to the vet for that, and eventually it went away on its own, with no side-effects.

People in the Andes tend to view Guinea pigs as....food. Maybe not gourmet food, but a lot of them can't be choosy.

I've had a puppy, a cat, a mouse, and a lot of goldfish. Strangely enough, the goldfish were the longest-lived of these, owing to a hazardous road in front of our house [the puppy] and an ailment of unknown nature [the cat]. Not that I took great care of the fish [I didn't], but they were tough.

How's your pig today, Gno?

I'm allergic to guinea pigs too, but luckily not very badly, so I had to stay away from my friend's guinea pig room in the house but I was able to see them in their run in the garden, and they were very cute.

One of them was black with a red stripe, and it caught a mite that ate into the red stripe, which was a bit unfortunate as my friend didn't realise that the redness wasn't just the fur at first, but luckily some cream from the vet sorted it out quickly so it was soon running round again happily like the others.

All the best to Poncho

She had her teeth done today and is now recovering from the general anaesthetic. I'll collect her from the vet tomorrow.

She's been refusing food and has lost about 10% of her body weight since the last operation. She's due another checkup next Wednesday.

Poncho the guinea pig finally died. She was grand on Tuesday night, but in a coma on Wednesday morning. I took her to the vet who confirmed that she would not recover. I asked her to put her down.

Poncho would have died last January if we hadn't had her treated. By hand-feeding her twice a day with the food syringe since April, we were able to keep her alive for an extra 8 months. She was happy in this time, although disappointed that she couldn't eat the types of food she really liked, such as dandelions and grass.

We've had guinea pigs for the last 18 years, since El was aged 7. I won't be getting any more, I think. When the other two, who are now elderly, finally go, I think that will be enough.

I'm sorry for your loss, Gnomon. They really get under your skin, the piggies.

Such kindness you display to the living world. May it repay you in serenity and bliss.

Thank you R. There's satisfaction in knowing you've done the right thing.

Another guinea pig died last week, so we are down to just one left now.

I think they prefer company. How old is the remaining one - do you think he/she will live much longer or die of loneliness?

She's five and a half, which is old for a guinea pig. Some people say they can live to eight, but we've never had one live beyond five. I think she will survive on her own for the rest of the summer, but won't survive once the weather gets cold.

' reminds me of a moment, once upon a time, walking past a pet store, late at night, getting a clear look in passing of an escaped guinea pig inside the store through the front window, as she stepped behind a row of cages and disappeared.

Reminds me of an incident in England back in the mid 20th Century when a large number of golden hamsters escaped from a pet shop. I can't find any record of it now, but the number was something in the thousands, or possibly tens of thousands.