Guinea Pigs My Pet and Me

-Hi, I'm Ferne.

-And I'm Rory. And we love animals!

Some animals can make brilliant pets, and pets are great.

-We really like meeting you and your pets.

-That reminds me,

I'm off to meet some new friends today but I'll be back later

-to tell you all about it. Come with me!

-See you!

-Come on!

# My pet, my pet and me

# My pet, my pet and me

# Down every street are pets to meet

# Some big, some small Some scaly, some furry

# Some keep very still Some are always in a hurry

# Some have four paws

-# Some have sharp claws

-GIGGLES

-# Some quack...

-Some bark

-Some purr...

-Some moo

-# Some grunt...

-Some squawk

-Some cock-a-doodle-doo!

# My pet, my pet and me

# My pet, my pet and me

# My pet, my pet and me

# Have you met my pet and me? #

SHE GIGGLES

DOG BARKS, SNAKE HISSES

Today, we're in South London to meet some new friends and their pets.

Shall we go find them?

These furry little animals are the class pets at a nursery

and the children who come to the nursery all help to look after them.

Hello!

Hello, Ferne!

Hi! What are all of your names?

Jasmine.

Malachi.

Hi, Malachi.

-Mia!

-Hi, Mia!

Janina.

Hello, Janina, nice to meet all of you.

-And who are these?

-Buzz and Woody.

What are Buzz and Woody?

Guinea pigs!

The one that is white, that's Buzz.

This is Buzz, and...

-The one with no stripes is Woody.

-And they're boys.

Boy guinea pigs can be called boars and girls are called sows,

just like big pigs. Do you think they look like pigs?

-No!

-They don't have these noses,

-do they?

-No!

-THEY MAKE PIG GRUNTS

-And they don't make that noise.

-No, what noise do guinea pigs make?

THEY SQUEAK

I love guinea pigs.

They're such chatterboxes and all of their noises mean different things.

Their eyes are on the very sides of their head, aren't they?

-Yeah, like this.

-If they see something scary, what can they do?

-Run away.

-They scurry away really quickly!

Scurry, scurry, scurry!

Guinea pigs are prey animals, which means lots of other animals

want to eat them and so it's very important to have good hearing and

good eyesight to keep themselves safe. Rory, can you tell us

some more furry facts about our guinea pig friends?

Of course, Ferne.

Guinea pigs aren't pigs at all.

They're actually rodents like mice and rats.

Guinea pigs often take lots of short naps throughout the day

and night instead of sleeping for a long time like we do.

Guinea pigs like to live with at least one other guinea pig.

Guinea pig babies are called pups.

CHILDREN: Care time!

Guinea pigs need lots of care,

so what do we have to do to look after Buzz and Woody?

We have to clean the cage out and look after them properly.

And clean all the dirty stuff that is in their cage.

-That sounds good, so what do we do first?

-We clean all the hay out.

-OK, and shall we take out their food bowl?

-Yes.

Good job.

-And it's important to empty out the food every day.

-Yes.

It can make them a bit ill if they eat mouldy food and stale food.

-Shall we get clearing?

-Yeah, let's do it!

-This is fun!

-FERNE LAUGHS

How many times do you clean out the guinea pigs every week?

-One.

-So you clean them out completely about once a week.

But then, every day, you give them some fresh food and water

and that keeps guinea pigs happy and healthy.

-How about Malachi sweeps the wood shavings?

-Yeah.

Good job.

-I'm helping Malachi.

-The two of you are doing so well.

-There's lots of wood shavings, isn't there?

-Yeah!

We have to clean it all up.

Definitely. That is perfect.

Guinea pigs do like a nice, clean hutch,

so as well as the weekly clean,

you should scoop out their poo every day so it doesn't make a mess.

-We can't have that, can we?

-No, we can't have mess or smell.

-Ugh!

-Ew!

-Are we all done?

-Yeah!

-Brilliant, pass me those.

-I'll put them away.

-Now we'll put the clean stuff in.

Would you like to pass me some newspaper? I'll do this side.

Thank you very much.

-Malachi, do you want to do the last bit?

-Yeah.

Great job. All done.

Now we have to put the sawdust in.

Nice big handfuls.

You have to make sure that you have the right wood shavings

for your guinea pigs so there's not too much dust or anything.

We have to make sure everything is covered.

-Shall we put the hay in their bedroom?

-Yeah.

-OK.

I can't exactly reach it.

It's all right, if you'd like to pass me some hay,

I'll put it in here.

-This is very fun.

-I think we're forgetting something!

-Food!

That's right!

Shall we put a little bit of this hay on the other side

so they can eat it? It's very good for their teeth.

Guinea pig pellets like this are very good for them.

Because it's full of vitamins.

And I think they deserve some fresh treats! Some carrot and kale.

Guinea pigs need fresh water every day, don't they?

Lots of fresh water for them.

-Are we all done?

-Yes.

Look, they're chomping away at their yummy food. Chomp, chomp, chomp.

And I think we've got two very happy guinea pigs.

DOG BARKS

Guinea pigs are very social animals and they

just love to play with other guinea pigs and humans.

-Is it cuddle time now?

-Yeah.

-OK, I'll go get them.

You have to be very careful when you pick up guinea pigs.

You should be very, very calm and quiet

and don't approach them from above

or they might think that you're a predator.

So, instead...

you scoop them up very gently

and hold them just under their bottoms and just under their arms.

And you bring them in close so they feel nice and secure.

And then you can move with them.

Here comes Buzz!

Do you want to stroke Buzz, Janina?

Here's Woody! Yeah!

Mia, do you want to let him lie down so he can be comfortable? Exactly.

It's important that you hold your guinea pigs gently,

not too tight, or they might get a fright.

They're very soft, aren't they? And they're warm.

Yes, they're really soft.

-Do you like their noses?

-Yeah, they're very tickly.

Tickle, tickle, tickle.

I've got a lovely bowl of guinea pig goodies here.

So how about I hide these in there and you cover their eyes

so they can't see? OK? No peeking, guinea pigs!

-Don't look!

-Don't look, don't look!

-You can't have cheating guinea pigs!

These vegetable buttons can be a nice guinea pig treat

as part of a balanced diet.

-I think that's enough, do you?

-Yeah.

Come on, Woody. Go find your treats!

Go on!

Come on, Buzz! Get set...

go!

-Who do you think will be the best at finding all the treaties?

-Woody!

-I think it's Buzz.

-I think it's Woody. Yeah!

-Buzz got it.

-They found one!

-That was great fun!

-I think they really liked it, do you?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-What we have to do after we hold the guinea pigs?

-Wash our hands!

-Shall we go wash our hands?

-Yeah.

-Come on.

-Buzz and Woody love being outside in their run, don't they, Mia?

-Yeah.

Why do they like being outside?

Because they get lots of exercise and some food and they get to play.

That's right.

If Buzz and Woody could go on any outdoor adventure,

what do you think they would do?

Hmm.

If Buzz and Woody could do anything, they would grow butterfly wings.

Their wings would be blue, purple, and pink.

They would fly to the park and meet their friends -

the bee, and the ladybirds, and the caterpillars.

Then they would dance in the flowers and have a big bug party.

We've come to the local pet shop to get the guinea pigs' claws trimmed.

They need to come here every couple of months.

There are also lots of other pets waiting for new homes.

This is Ken.

He owns the pet shop and is going to cut Buzz and Woody's claws.

-Hi, Ken.

-Hi. Morning, girls.

It's nice to see Buzz and Woody again.

Anything we can do to help?

Look after that little guinea pig

-and I'll trim the nails on this one.

-Will it hurt them?

Not at all. It's like clipping your nails.

There's no harm done to the guinea pigs.

Let's have a little go at this one, shall we?

Oh! There's one. And we'll look for this one. And...

Another one. Very, very gently.

There it goes.

Guinea pigs have funny feet.

They have different numbers of toes.

How many toes are on the front foot?

-On the front foot, as you can see, there are four.

-Four toes!

And if we turn him around, we can see his back toes.

-The back toes. And how many have we got there?

-Three.

-One, two, three.

So four toes on the front and three toes on the back.

-All done. There we go. Well done, Buzz. Didn't he do well?

-Yeah.

-Stroke him, that's it. He likes that.

-Good job. Your turn, Woody.

Good luck!

There we go. We'll take a little bit off this curly one here.

By clipping the guinea pigs' nails,

-it makes it easier for them to move and walk around.

-Absolutely.

They feel better once we've had their nails clipped.

And the last one...

-There we go.

-All done! Good job, Ken.

-Excellent.

And the guinea pigs have been well-behaved.

-They deserve a treat.

-Absolutely.

And I've got the thing for you two here,

which you can take back to nursery for them.

Here we go, take that back.

That's to help their teeth. It's a mineral block.

And that, they love playing in these.

They run in and out of them and hide in them.

You can take those back to nursery for Buzz and Woody.

-They'll love that.

-Thank you very much, Ken. They're brilliant!

I'm so glad that they like their presents. They really deserve it.

Thank you for introducing me to your guinea pigs, Buzz and Woody.

It has been amazing.

-Hi, Rory!

-Hello! How are you doing? How was your day?

Oh, it was so much fun. Let me tell you all about it.

Today, I went to a nursery to meet some children

and their class guinea pigs, Buzz and Woody.

We cleaned out their hutch and held them really gently.

We played hide and seek with their food and took them to the

pet shop to get their claws trimmed.

They were so good that they were given some treats.

That sounds amazing! And you made some great new friends.

I did but it's really important to remember

before you pet any animals, ask the owner's permission.

One pet you definitely can play with though, is ours.

Go to the CBeebies website and play the My Pet And Me game.

It is so much fun and we just love meeting you and your pets.

I've had such a wonderful day.

# Today we met a lovely pet

# We see how much you care for them

# Thank you so much for sharing them

# Time for us to just remind you

# After you've played with your pet

# Wash your hands, don't forget!

# It doesn't matter what pet you've got

# You might have one, you might not

# It's still fun finding out

# What having a pet is all about

# My pet, my pet and me

# My pet, my pet and me

# My pet, my pet and me

# Come back and see my pet and me. #

BOTH: Bye!