Don't play with your food.

Yesterday morning my host sister came over much earlier than usual and brought with her a small cardboard box (which I assumed had food in it) only to find a small, practically lifeless cuy (guinea pig). I guess I was half-right about the food part.

My host sister has been trying to raise her own cuy these last few months. Her last two “starter” cuys died within a week. This is, I believe, her second go around with two pregnant mother cuys. She said she went out in the morning to check on the cuys and there was a newborn cuy all by itself between the two mothers. No other babies, just one, and no one was claiming it.

Funny thing is, newborn cuy don’t look newborn. They have all their hair, their eyes are open, and they’re the size of a hamster. She brought it over to the house fully expecting it to die but wanting some help from her mom. My host mom wasn’t around, and I knew by helping her revive the poor small thing I would only be contributing to a meal further down the road, but I couldn’t let it suffer. 

I touched the little cuy and the first thing I noticed was it was cold. Very cold. So remembering a trick my friend Jess had learned from her veterinarian boyfriend to warm up a stray kitten, I filled two empty bottles with warm water, put a t-shirt on top and nestled the cuy between them. I then covered the box with another piece of cloth.

The little cuy and its mop top

My host sister told me I was going to kill the cuy because “cuy are cold-weather animals that die in heat”. Well, maybe they die in the heat of mid-summer coastal Peruvian sun (I think anything would), but it’s a newborn animal that was forsaken and cold. So I ignored her.

After awhile in the warmth it started trying to lift its head. I also noticed it shook and twitched every time my host niece screamed like a banshee (as two-year-olds will do) so I brought the box into my room.

I wasn't getting attached, I was just doing the right thing and taking care of it.

...or I was getting way too attached.

We tried feeding it milk with a syringe (sans needle, obviously) but it wouldn’t take much. My host sister tried shoving alfalfa in its face and said, “a good newborn cuy would eat alfalfa right away.”

I started to see why her first cuys died.

After deciding I would no longer listen to anything my host sister said about taking care of cuy, I went to Google. Newborn cuys need so much care; hourly feeding, “stimulation” to go to the bathroom, and they need to be introduced to appropriate foods at specific time in their growth.

I looked up new feeding options for the newborn cuy, and of course cows milk is not the best. After reading various different message boards, it seemed cutting the milk with water and adding a tiny bit of sugar would help. I tried the new mixture and the cuy not only drank all of it, but was voluntarily drinking it as opposed to having it forced in its mouth.

My host sister asked if it was eating and I told her about the mixture I made and she said, “That’s ridiculous, cuy don’t drink water.”

“Uh…what?” I didn’t own any guinea pigs growing up, but I do know mammals kind of need water to survive. And that wasn’t the point of giving it water either, it was to cut the cow’s milk.

“You don’t give cuy water. People who raise cuy only give them alfalfa, and they get their water intake from that,” she said.

I tried to not get distracted from the main point.

I tried explaining the reasoning behind cutting the milk with water to her, but being as my Spanish isn’t that great it came out more like, “The cows milk is too strong for the cuy. I put water in the milk to make it less strong, the internet said.”

My host sister started to write the cuy off for dead, but within the day it already made huge advances and seemed like it was going to be okay, it just needed some TLC. The only problem was none of the mothers would take it in and it needed a cuy to teach it how to be a cuy. It really wouldn’t survive amongst other cuy if that didn’t happen. And thus began my delusional thoughts of asking to keep the cuy and raising it in my room.

It would be so perfect! Cuy are anxious animals that like dark, sheltered areas. It wouldn’t even need a cage, I would just corral off half my room with cardboard and let it run around free. I have cement floors so I could care less if I have to sweep up cuy turds. It would be used to me because I’d have handled it since it was a baby and it would snuggle and make its cute little chirping noises….

I have no idea if it is a girl or boy. You need an expert determine the sex of a newborn cuy.

Daaaaaaaaaawwww!

…But…a cuy is a cuy. It’s not a pet. My host sister spent money on the mother cuys so they could have babies and she could raise cuy to someday eat or sell to be eaten. It would be like me asking a rancher to give me his calf because it was abandoned by its mom. I guess I could technically buy the cuy off her, but for some reason that makes me realize the seriousness of such a pet. And while I have ample time to take care of hourly feedings and such until it grows strong enough to eat alfalfa and vegetables…what would happen in a year when I get ready to leave? I would have this completely domestic cuy that loves humans in a culture that only has cuys for eating. Bringing it back to the U.S. would be difficult, and leaving it with my host family would mean it would definitely end up as a meal.

Last night my host sister had plans to “sneak” the cuy into a cage with another cuy mother and try to trick it into believing it was its own. She wasn’t optimistic.

“Well, if no one wants it and it’s left for dead, give it to me because I like the cuy!” I said frantically as she was about to leave. As she left all I could think of was how her care-taking techniques sucked, and if she really cared about it she wouldn't write it off as dead already. But then I remembered, she's raising livestock, and I'm thinking about a pet.

I can’t believe how attached I got to that cuy in one day.

This is about when it hooked its adorable not-fully-developed claws into my emotions and affection for small defenseless animals.

I think this just goes to show how deprived I am of animal companionship. I rarely have the opportunity to be around an animal in a non-hostile situation. Stray dogs chase you, cats skitter away in fear, roosters will try to peck your eyes out if you go near them…

I just miss having a pet. And I’m pushing the idea of the cuy out of my mind as much as possible because I couldn’t bare the thought if it died last night when I could’ve taken care of it.

Besides, if I ended up with a cuy for a pet, how could I continue to eat them for meals?