Daycare Pets

[Crystal]

California. No regs in my handbook say I cannot have them, and my licensor knows, so.....

[AfterSchoolMom]

I have to give my opinion on guinea pigs - don't do it! They are very sweet animals, but they are a LOT of work, they need very large cages, and they are extremely messy!!! Our GP was dearly loved, but he kicked bedding and worse out in about a seven foot arc on the floor around the cage. You have to be very careful about what and how much you feed them, you have to clip their toenails, and you have to clean their cages out almost daily. Guinea pigs take a serious commitment and a lot of attention.

[momofsix]

I have to give my opinion on guinea pigs - don't do it! They are very sweet animals, but they are a LOT of work, they need very large cages, and they are extremely messy!!! Our GP was dearly loved, but he kicked bedding and worse out in about a seven foot arc on the floor around the cage. You have to be very careful about what and how much you feed them, you have to clip their toenails, and you have to clean their cages out almost daily. Guinea pigs take a serious commitment and a lot of attention.

Also, Guinea pigs are the highest animal on the "allergy scale" -a LOT of children have reactions to them.

[Lianne]

I was thinking about adding a pet to our group too!

Next week our theme is pets and I think they would go nuts if we had a little guinea pig when they got here on Monday.

I'm definitely considering it .

When we did Pets as a theme we took a field trip to the pet store and bought a fish, bowl, food, etc. The kids had so much fun picking everything out and they got to look at all the other animals. When one of the staff realized why we were there he took several of the birds, lizards, a snake, a bunny and a chinchilla out for them to see. It was a fun experience even though our fish (named Meow) only lived for 3mos, .