Reuniting the right guinea pigs after a clean-out sounds simple until several similar-looking pigs from different homes are waiting in holding pens at once. What protects your pair is identity a member of staff can check without you in the room: photographs taken face-on and from each flank, markings written out in words rather than left to a blurry picture, a current weight, and an explicit note of who is bonded to whom — and who must never be housed with another pig.
The Pairing Details Boarders Actually Use
Agree the identification routine in writing at booking, not at drop-off. Pigs who live together should travel to a labelled holding pen together while their enclosure is cleaned, with their own fleece, hides, and scent-marked bedding moving with them, so the smell of home comes back into the cleaned pen with them. Names get matched against the photo sheet before any pig is put back, and a photo sheet taped to the enclosure door, agreed before you leave, is worth more than reassurance at the door.
What to Put on Each Pig's Sheet
For every pig, give the boarder a sheet that works at arm's length:
- A face-on photo and one from each side, taken in plain light
- Markings described in words — a white blaze, a dark left ear, a rosette on one hip
- Current weight, so a mix-up between similar pigs shows up on the scales
- Bond notes in plain terms: housed with this companion only, never with pigs from other homes
- Any look-alike warning — another pig boarding at the same time with near-identical colouring
Why Written Identity Beats Memory
Staff clean many enclosures in a day, and guinea pigs are at their most anonymous mid-clean: wet, indignant, and out of the pen that identifies them. A written sheet survives a shift change; a verbal description at drop-off does not. Photographs settle arguments that memory cannot, especially at the end of a long cleaning round when several pens are being refilled at once and two pigs differ only by a patch over one eye or a whisker of white on a chin. If pigs from different homes look alike, saying so at booking lets the service plan separate holding pens and cleaning order before the problem exists. Before you leave, check that packet travels well: in KinsLe, the guinea pigs' own Pet Passport holds their pictures and bond details, so staff reuniting pairs after cleaning work from photographs rather than memory.