Guinea pig

Guinea pigs are tameable herbivores with a fast movement speed. Guinea Pigs come in three colors: Cream, Black and Brown.

Acquisition

Guinea pigs can be found in temperate forests, temperate swamps, tropical rainforests, tropical swamps, arid shrublands, deserts, extreme deserts, and cold bogs. They can either be tamed by a handler or self-tame in a random event.

Guinea Pigs can be bought and sold in other faction bases and from bulk goods traders. Guinea Pigs purchased from traders will be already tamed.

Analysis

Guinea pigs can be farmed for meat and fur. While each guinea pig is small, they reproduce rapidly, so a large pack of guinea pigs can produce a lot of material. Compared to chinchillas, guinea pigs are not pen animals, so they will need to constantly be re-tamed. However, guinea pigs can nuzzle and can be controlled via allowed areas.

Due to their high reproductive rate, guinea pigs can be used as bait animals. Set an allowed area towards the direction of raiders. This allows you to direct where the guinea pigs go, and they will be shot at rather than your colonists. This results in less meat & leather than slaughtering them would, but can be useful in combat. Compared to rats and hares, guinea pigs offer a more valuable fur and can nuzzle colonists, but are larger targets and reproduce less.

They are one of the few animals that can nuzzle, occasionally giving a +4 Nuzzled moodlet to colonists. Guinea pigs and monkeys are the only 2 wild animals that can nuzzle.

Leather

Guinea pigs have valuable fur. As clothing and building material, it has a few merits, but is generally lacking:

Guinea pig fur may not have the best physical protection, but it has the best cold insulation in the game, protecting your colonists against cold temperatures. Guinea pig parkas are the most insulative gear in the game. In less extreme biomes, tribalwear can be used to protect against heat and cold, potentially letting you wear a jacket instead of a parka. However, guinea pigs are only native to tropical biomes, which ultimately limits this use.
Guinea pig fur is very beautiful. However, only a select few objects can be made out of leather - a single armchair's beauty is unlikely to have much impact.

Otherwise, the best use for their fur is for trade. It is a valuable resource, worth more than even devilstrand.

Female guinea pigs produce:

Baby slaughter: 1.05 fur per day, or 6.569 fur per 1 unit nutrition.
Adult slaughter: 4.2 fur per day, or 10.357 fur per 1 unit nutrition.

When considering a 1:1 ratio of males:females, fur lowers to 3.285 per 1 unit nutrition (baby), or 7.429 per 1 unit nutrition (adult). A higher ratio of females will increase efficiency from there.

For the sole purpose of farming leather, chinchillas are superior as they do not need to be retamed. Guinea pigs have some non-leather advantages, as listed above.

Training

This animal can be trained as follows:

Guard:
Attack:
Rescue:
Haul:

*As of version 1.1.2610, all animals can be tamed. The percentage of likelihood of success depends on factors such as the Animals Wildness Percentage, Pawn Handling Skill, and others. More information can be found on the animals page.

Health

Body part	Health
Head	10
Skull	10
Brain	4
Nose	4
Neck	10
Jaw	8
Eye ^[1] (left, right)	4
Ear (left, right)	4
Body	16
Kidney^[2] (left, right)	6
Lung^[2] (left, right)	6
Liver^[2]	8
Heart^[2]	6
Spine^[2]	10
Stomach^[2]	8
Limbs (left, right, fore, hind)	12
Appendage (left, right, fore, hind)	8