Popcorning Piggies

We recently acquired two new members to our family. Two new guinea pigs, to be exact.

I feel like I could start a new series of children books based entirely on the adventures we're having with these little guys. But the one that caught me most off guard happened about a week after we added them to the household. I went downstairs in the morning to feed them and found them having little spasms in their cage. They twitched and flipped and bounced all over the place.

I tried to remain calm in the presence of my two-year-old, who simply loves them. I guided her upstairs, all the while feeling my heart in my throat and wondering how I would explain my bad pet-parenting to the friend who gave them to us. What had I done? Was it bad food? Bad water?

Being a master Googler, I got online and started searching for "twitching guinea pigs." Lo and behold, I found an answer. It's called popcorning, and it's reasonably common--when the guinea pigs are happy or excited.

Either my appearance with their daily food excited them or they are just loving our family. Either way, I felt very relieved to discover we weren't doing anything wrong with them!

Maybe some other time I'll tell you about when they escaped their cage and ran rampant downstairs...