6 Health
- Guinea Pig Life expectancy: 4 - 8 years
- Body temperature: ~37°C to ~39°C (99°F - 103°F)
- Ideal Environmental temperature: 19°C - 22°C (68°F - 72°F)*
*NOTE: more tolerant to lower than higher temperatures
- Acceptable Environmental temperature: 15°C - 18°C (59°F - 64°F)
- Heart rate: 240 - 350 beats per minute
- Respiratory rate: 40 - 150 breaths per minute
- Adult body weight: 700g - 1200g
- Birth weight: 60g - 110g
- Breeding age/weight for sows: 6 months, >750g
- Pregnancy: 59 - 72 days
- Birth: 10 - 30 minutes, usually over night
- Litter size: 1 - 6
- Lactation period: 2 weeks; should commence immediately after birth
- Weaning: 1-3 weeks (animal must be at least 6 ounces, or 170g)
- Teeth: 20 teeth, open-rooted (continuously growing throughout life)
- Food preferences: strict herbivores (vegetarian)
- Hearing abilities: better than human (especially at higher frequencies), range of 125Hz - 33kHz (suspected even to 50kHz), Human range: 20Hz - 20kHz
- Visual perception: color vision, 340 degree range of vision, poor depth perception, 33 images per second (humans see 22)
- Smelling abilities: highly developed, somewhere between that of a human and that of a dog
- Tasting abilities: among the animals (like rabbits) with the greatest amounts of taste buds: about 17000 (humans have about 9000, cats 473)
- Muzzles sensors: six rows of irregularly aligned vibrissae (whiskers) for navigation in the dark, width measurings, etc