Critters

Before you get a small pet

• 👯Check whether the species is social or solitary before buying a cage. Getting this wrong causes either fighting or loneliness, and both are serious.
• 🍊Guinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C and need a dietary source daily — the same is true of humans and very few other mammals.
• 📦Most commercially sold cages are smaller than any welfare guideline recommends. Floor area matters more than levels for hamsters and gerbils; height matters for rats and chinchillas.
• ⏰Lifespans are short and variable: two to three years for a hamster or rat, five to seven for a guinea pig, up to twenty for a chinchilla.
• 🌙Many are nocturnal or crepuscular, which makes them a poor match for a young child's bedroom and a fine match for an adult who is up in the evening.
• 📋Check the law before you fall for one. Ferrets and pet hedgehogs are restricted or prohibited outright in some states and countries, and it is not a rule anybody in a shop is obliged to mention.
• 🪵Bedding and cage furniture are a real decision, not a colour choice. Pine and cedar shavings and fluffy cotton-wool nesting material cause respiratory problems and trapped limbs; paper-based bedding and plenty of hay do the same job without either.
• 🎡A wheel has to be the right size and solid-surfaced. Too small and the animal runs with an arched back; barred or mesh and it catches feet and tails. For a Syrian hamster that means about thirty centimetres across, which is bigger than most cages ship with.
• 🦷Every rodent and rabbit-adjacent animal here has teeth that never stop growing, and needs something abrasive to wear them on. Overgrown teeth are a vet job, not something that resolves.

General guidance, not veterinary advice. Anything about a specific animal is a question for a vet who has seen it.

Critters worth knowing about

A place to start rather than the whole list. Every name is a page.

• 🥬
  Guinea pig

  Social to the point that keeping one alone is a welfare problem, and one of very few mammals that cannot make its own vitamin C. Five to seven years, and needs floor space rather than levels.

• 🌰
  Golden hamster

  Better known as the Syrian, and strictly solitary — two adults housed together will fight until one dies. Nearly every pet Syrian in the world descends from one female collected near Aleppo in 1930.

• 🦦
  Ferret

  An obligate carnivore with the energy of a kitten that never grows out of it: several hours out of the cage daily, and a strict meat diet with no grain or fruit. Restricted or banned in some places.

• 🧠
  Rat

  The cleverest and most companionable animal on this page, and the one most unfairly dismissed. Keep two or more. Two to three years, with a high rate of respiratory disease and mammary tumours.

• 🌫️
  Chinchilla

  Fifteen to twenty years, which is the headline. Needs a dust bath rather than water, a cool room — they overheat above about twenty-five degrees — and height to climb.

• 🦔
  African pygmy hedgehog

  Not a species found in the wild but a hybrid developed for the pet trade. Solitary, nocturnal, prone to obesity and to a fatal neurological disease with no cure. Illegal in several places.

• 

  The kitchen scale that catches illness early

  Small pets hide illness until it is an emergency, and weight shows it first. What to weigh, how often, and what a drop of five per cent actually means.

• 

  How to photograph your pet

  Light, height, focus and patience — what separates a good pet photo from a blurred one, and how to handle black cats, white dogs and animals that never sit still.

• 

  Coats, and what each type actually needs

  Single, double, wire, curly and hairless coats need completely different things. Why you never shave a double coat, and why a mat has to be cut out.

• 

  Dental disease, and why bad breath is not normal

  Most dogs and cats have periodontal disease by three years old, and it is almost entirely silent. What it does, what actually prevents it, and what to avoid.

• 

  What the extra weight actually costs

  Around half of dogs and cats are overweight, and lean-fed dogs live nearly two years longer. How to body-condition score, and how to feed for it.

• 

  Leaving a pet alone

  Some breeds were made to be companions and cope badly by themselves. How long is reasonable, how to build up alone-time, and when it is a panic disorder.

All 21 critter breeds with photos

Every breed somebody has posted, A to Z.

• Abyssinian guinea pig3
• Abyssinian satin guinea pig2
• African pygmy hedgehog3
• Albino ferret3
• Albino hedgehog2
• Algerian hedgehog2
• Alpaca guinea pig2
• American guinea pig2
• American satin guinea pig2
• Astrex mouse3
• Baldwin guinea pig2
• Beige chinchilla3
• Berkshire rat3
• Black bear hamster3
• Black sable ferret3
• Black velvet chinchilla3
• Blaze ferret2
• Blazed rat2
• Ferret3
• Golden hamster3
• Guinea pig3