Small Mammals for Sale
Browse rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and other small mammals from breeders across the United States.
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Buying small mammals: what to look at
Rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and the rest are prey animals, and a prey animal that looks ill is one that has been ill for a while. So the useful checks are close up and slightly rude: the teeth, the chin, the back end and the ribs, in that order.
Look at the teeth and feel the chin
The front teeth of a rabbit, a guinea pig or a chinchilla never stop growing, and they only stay the right length by meeting evenly and wearing against each other. Ask to see them: two top, two bottom, straight, meeting edge to edge. Teeth that cross, splay or curl are a lifelong bill. Then feel under the chin. A wet chin or a damp patch on the chest means the animal is drooling, and drooling means a mouth that hurts.
Stop talking and listen
Guinea pigs, rats and rabbits all pick up chest infections, and the early version is audible before it is visible. Hold the animal near your ear for ten seconds. Clicking, wheezing or a rattle on the breath is not a quirk. Then look at the nose and the inside of the front legs: a rabbit with a runny nose wipes it on its forelegs, so matted or crusty fur there says the nose has been running for longer than today.
Turn it over
Wet, stained or clumped fur around the tail is either diarrhoea or urine scald, and either one is a problem right now, not a maybe. Then run a thumb along the spine. You should feel it under a light covering. A spine that stands up like a ridge, on an animal with a round belly, is the classic worm picture and should bring out a worming record rather than a shrug.
Ask how it has been sexed and who it has been living with
Guinea pig boars can breed at about four weeks and rabbits at three to four months, so a mis-sexed pair produces a litter, not a surprise. Ask when the sexes were separated. It matters twice for a guinea pig sow: one bred for the first time after about eight months old risks a pelvis that has already fused, which turns an ordinary birth into an emergency. A seller who kept a young female with males past four weeks should say so.
Ask what it eats, and take some home
For rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas, hay should be most of the diet, with pellets as the small part. An animal raised on pellets and seed mix alone is the one most likely to develop the teeth and gut trouble above, so the answer tells you about the future as well as the present. Guinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C and need it in the food. Chinchillas overheat above about 80 degrees and need a dust bath, not a wet one. Whatever it is eating, leave with a week of it, because changing the food and the house in the same week is the surest route to a bad first weekend.
More on choosing a seller and reading a listing on the PetListings blog.