First litter away from our stud!

Our 'Sirocco Tiiva' and 'Sirocco Montezuma' travelled off to their new home at a stud South of us here at Sirocco back in early Dec. We knew there was a good chance these two would produce satin bubs - and they didn't disappoint.

Their new owner sent me these very cute photos today. A little of three pedigree texels - all girls! And TWO of them are satins! I feel like a very proud granny!

Baby 1 - satin, showing both sides. She has brilliant markings.

Baby 2 - satin, showing both sides.

And baby 3 - Satin-carrier. Showing both sides.

Plushie pigs

Back in June of last year I set about to create a small collection of plushie guinea pigs for our webstore www.furaddiction.com (where we sell our imported faux fur fabrics for craft use).

Most of this collection have since found new homes, but there are a few still looking for a new home!
(see below).

A new year!

Happy New Year everyone! Isn't it crazy that we're in 2014 now - and in fact actually half way through January already!!! I ALMOST missed our eldest pig's 7th birthday on the 13th as well. I had my sister-in-law visiting and my 2yr old neice, and we were cuddling the guinea pigs and talking about how old Custard was when it suddently ocurred to me to check the date. It was the 13th! Custard was 7yrs old!!!

We all sang her happy birthday - to which she just sat there looking suspiciously at us! I don't think she knew what was going on! She is now officially my oldest living guinea pig I have ever owned. The last oldest was one of my first pigs from my childhood, a peruvian called 'Fuzzer'. He lived till about 6yrs, passing away quietly in his specially designed comfort-cage in my room when I was about 15yrs old.

Custard definitely shows her age. Her coat isn't quite as glossy as it once was, and her claws are a little knarley. She doesn't like to be picked up a lot any more and tenses herself. But she still has a strong enthusiasm for fresh green grass and a new bowl of grain mix! The photo above shows her and her 3 sisters the day they were born. From left to right we had 'Bundy' the little white one, 'Custard', 'Sweep' the silver agouti and white one and lastly 'Sophie' the cream/white/chocolate one. We were so lucky to get a litter of 4 girls - that very rarely happens. But the girl's mum was not so lucky. Something went wrong with her recovery and she passed away about 4 days following the birth.

We were so worried that the girls wouldn't survive without their mum, and I remember driving around to all the local vets trying to find one that had a guinea pig suitable formula mix I could feed them, only to be told there wasn't anything suitable. I was told to just wait and see what happened. So we did - and the girls surprised us! They were so strong and active that they just kept on with eating solids (vegetables, grass, hay etc) and thrived.

(This is Custard and her sister Bundy enjoying some free-range time. They were approx 2yrs old here)

(Sweep, Sophie and Bundy)

 (Sophie having a rest in the cage after running around the backyard all morning)

 (Custard, looking like she's smiling here!)

(And Bundy, hiding in the garden. She liked to think you couldn't see her if she did this - I hated to remind her that she was bright white and stood out like a sore thumb!)


Sadly, Custard's three sisters didn't survive as long as she did. Custard is the last remaining pig from her litter. She may have even outlived her father (a pedigree cream sheltie called 'Noah's Arc Sullivan') who went to live with another cavy stud shortly after the girl's birth.

So this is where Custard lives now. How ever much longer she has on this earth, she'll be able to spend it lazing about on her pink vetbed bedding, munching on freshly cut grass and hanging out with my daughter's pigs 'Kobe' and 'Lilly'. All three of them get along so well.

I will have to get some updated pics of the three of them together again as little Lilly has grown quite a bit since the last photos. It looks like she'll end up with the slightly longer fuzzy rex coat rather then the longer texel look of her dad. Will try and do that before the week is out :)

Our final three

So we are officially down to our final three sows. It hasn't been quite as hard as I thought it would be rehoming the pedigree pigs as I know they've all gone to great homes where they will be treated with the respect they deserve.

These girls have been living it up, enjoying an over-abundance of food as I try to adjust to only needing to feed 3 pigs, not 30 plus!

Last baby left needing a new home

Little leighton is the last pig left to find a new home now. He is the surprise pet-satin we had born to Chilli x Montezuma. He looks like he'll have a shorter more rex-like coat, and still has his stunning rich colouring.

Laura, the satin-carrier sibling has already gone to her new home so we forgot to get her coat-update. She was looking quite fluffy though. And then Lilly's update is below. She wasn't cooperating for an 'in the sun' photo, so looks quite dull in the shade (the satin effect messes with my camera! It doesn't like photographing it! The iphone does a much better job!).

Lilly is looking quite fluffy though, and may end up looking like a coronet (a texel with the crest).

And this is how the last remaining pigs are living until the tower cages get picked up this weekend. After monday, and provided little Leighton finds his new home, we'll be down to just three pet girls - Lilly, Kobe and our old girl Custard (the big cream girl shown on the blog's top banner). She is only a few weeks away from her 7th birthday now!

Stud Closure

We made the sad decision a few weeks ago to close the stud. We've been slowly reducing our numbers over the last few months, but it just hasn't been enough. I just don't have the heart for breeding anymore. We are going to keep 3 pet sows for the kids, but all of the pedigree animals have been found new homes with trusted studs to continue the work with our lines.

We have a few last pet pigs looking for homes still. A pair of pet rex sows (Cupcake - shown above, and Chilli will go together nicely), as well as our LAST baby pedigree texel, and a baby satin curly-coated boar. All the information on our adoptables can be found on the available page.

We will need to sell our tower cages as well. The above cage shows our newest long 3-bay cage. This one measures 200cm x 60cm x 110cm tall. Each of the 3 levels is 200cm x 60cm allowing for LOTS of room. There are centre dividers that are hinged and have a bolt to allow you to secure them out of the way when opening the section up (no need to remove/no risk they'll get lost). They also have front pannels that are removable for easy cleaning - with each pannel the same size so they can all be mixed around. We're asking $400 for this cage, and pick up is from Wynnum West, Qld.

The older cage is our taller 4-bay tower cage. Each section here measures 120cm x 60cm, and it too has the centre dividers to turn it into 8 single cages if required and the front lift-out panels. We're asking $300 for this cage. They cost well over $1000 new, and have been professionally custom made by a fellow Brisbane Cavy stud.

There is also this little patio-hutch style cage below with the lift-up lid. It measures 120cm long by 45cm wide by 50cm tall. It's one of our very first cages, so is a few years old. But hasn't been used in a while. We're asking $40 for this one.

Email me at eleb2000@hotmail.com if you're interested in any of our cages.

Our very last litter here at Sirocco

Last Wednesday (the 13th Nov) our pet rex  Chilli (shown below) delivered three gorgeous big 85g babies. This was an experiemental pet litter fathered by our satin texel. We had some information about Chilli's dad carrying the satin gene, so I decided to see if she was possibly carrying the gene as well.... and sure enough, 2 of her 3 babies have been born with satin curls!

This is little Lilly - she is a lemon agouti, white and cream curly-coated girl with a crest and the gorgeous satin shine. She will be staying here after we close our stud at the end of this year as a pet sow.

(Chilli feeding Lilly - you can see how much her coat reflects the light in this photo!)

And this is the little boy - Mr Leighton. He too has the satin coat, this time in a gold agouti tri-colour patterning. He will be looking for a new home in a few weeks, and will be one of our last available babies.

And this is Laura. She has the 'normal' non-satin coat in the same colouring as her brother. She has a new home lined up already, and will carry the satin gene like her mum.