Mid-Week Mini: Weird Switzerland Guinea Pig Law

In this week’s Mid-Week Mini Episode, we talk how butterflies taste with their feet.

If you live in Switzerland and you decide you want a pet guinea pig, congratulations! You’re getting two guinea pigs.

Because in Switzerland, you’re not allowed to keep a guinea pig by itself.

This is one of those facts that gets passed around the Internet as a weird law: “In Switzerland, it’s illegal to own just one guinea pig.” And while that’s a simplified way of saying it, the basic idea is absolutely true.

Switzerland has some pretty specific animal-welfare laws, and those laws recognize that certain animals are social animals. Guinea pigs are one of them. Swiss authorities say guinea pigs need contact with other members of their own species, and the rules require them to be kept in groups of at least two.

And there’s an important detail here: YOU don’t count.

You can love your guinea pig. You can talk to your guinea pig. You can spend every waking hour with your guinea pig explaining the plot of The Shawshank Redemption. But according to Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, a human cannot replace another guinea pig as its social companion. Neither can a rabbit.

Guinea pigs are naturally social animals. They communicate with each other using a surprisingly large variety of sounds, and Swiss animal-welfare guidance says they only display their natural behavior when they’re living in a group. So the law isn’t really about the number of guinea pigs you’re allowed to own — it’s about preventing a social animal from being housed alone.

Which creates a problem that you may have already spotted.

Let’s say you have two guinea pigs: Steve and Gary. Steve dies.

Now Gary is alone.

And suddenly, in addition to mourning the loss of Steve, you have to think about getting Gary another guinea pig. Which eventually means Gary dies and now THAT guinea pig needs a friend. In theory, you have just entered into an endless guinea-pig subscription service.

And this isn’t the only animal Switzerland treats this way. Its animal-welfare rules include social-contact requirements for a number of species because the basic philosophy is that owning an animal means providing not just food, water and shelter, but an environment that allows the animal to behave naturally.

So yes, the Internet version — “It’s illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland” — is a little oversimplified.

But if what you mean is, “Can I legally keep a single guinea pig all by itself as my pet?”

No.

Because Switzerland looked at one lonely guinea pig sitting in a cage and essentially said:

“Go get him a friend.”

And the Internet Says it’s True.