Guinea Pig Tales
October 21st, 2010 by Leora
Meet Bingo. As in, Bingo the Guinea Pig. Although my boys would correct you and say, that’s Achilles. When my daughter decided she wanted guinea pigs, my eldest son declared, on the condition that he gets to name one. Well, she never agreed to this, but my son still says the pig is named Achilles. The other guinea pig is called Racer, because he races about whenever we let him out of his cage. No one disagrees about his name.
My daughter claims when we go to shul (synagogue) on Shabbat, the pigs go to a “guinea pig shul.” This led to some theorizing about what goes on in the guinea pigs’ spiritual lives. While we are celebrating Passover and the going out of Egypt, they must be telling the tale of Yitzeeyat PETCO, the going out of PETCO, the store in which we bought them. While we eat dairy on Shavuot because the Jews at Sinai had not yet learn the laws of meat and dairy, the guinea pigs refrain from eating fruit and only eat vegetables on Shavuot. In general, we suppose they don’t mix fruit and vegetables – thou shalt not mix a strawberry with Timothy Hay.
Mrs. S. told me the Hebrew term for guinea pigs is tsarhanim (shriekers?) sharkanim (chirpers?). Do you know how to say guinea pig in any other languages? If you like critters, Mrs. S. has a skink this week.
We say “cochon d’Inde”; no need to translate I suppose.
I am sure your daughter is thrilled with her pets. Does she feed them and generally take care of them?
I am the main feeder; as she needs to get out for school in the morning, I do the feeding on weekdays. On weekends she sometimes joins me; I wish it were more often.
Today she brought Bingo and Racer some carrots before she left for school. I’m going to try to encourage her to do that more often, as opposed to holding them, which takes too long and distracts her from other chores, like homework.
Aww, such a cutie.
Oh how cute…I still have my daughter’s pet frog from collage…..11 years ago….lol…
Actually, it’s sharkanim.
Shrikah is whistle. (According to Hebrew Wikipedia, guinea pigs “chirp” when they are frightened. Is this true?)
Thanks for the link, and Shabbat Shalom!
I even looked it up – I found that yam word, which you said wasn’t used. I remembered you said sharkanim, but then I looked up and found tsarhanim means to shriek… couldn’t find anything useful under sharkan.
Chirp? They do make cute noises. The ones I had this summer made a lot more noise than the ones we have now.
OK, I corrected what I wrote. For whatever it’s worth (wouldn’t want some poor Anglo in Israel to refer to the g. pigs by the wrong name).
Cute, but why not a picture of both? He looks smaller than the one we acquired this summer. Though he can squash himself together, when he stretches himself out, he is over a foot long.
The other one (Racer) doesn’t get taken out as much because he runs away. I really would like to take photos of both of them outside. Oh, time, where are thee?
Bingo is small and young. In August he was about 4 or 5 months old. Racer is significantly bigger (and he bullies Bingo a bit).
Cute! Yup. Sharkanim. They’re also called חזיר ים. Don’t know why exactly. I don’t think they swim.