Some Very fluffy new arrivals!

I've been feeling the 'itch' to increase my piggy family again lately. I don't know what it is about this addictive little critters, but since closing our stud last year I became very aware of just how hard it is to find guinea pigs of particular breeds/colourings/coat types. I think it's easy to take it for granted when you have huge bank/tower cages full of pedigree long-coated cavies. But take all that away, and the regular person just can't find a critter like that.

So I have been patiently keeping my eyes open, and just so happened to stumble across a little ad for some pet pigs this morning. I packed up the kids and we went for a drive and had a look - and I was blown away by the quality of these little pets. It was 6 acres of animal heaven. I think the owner was in the same head-space that I was in when I had the stud set up in that he just accepted that these were the kind of bubs he had available for adoption. His comment was 'this one has a cute face'. Meanwhile I'm thinking 'OH MY GOD THAT IS ADORABLE!'

So... what I'd planned might be one more new addition to our family became THREE! He offered to show me some more bubbas that would be able to leave their mum's in a week or so... but I had to stay strong and decline. I could seriously have taken them all home with me if we had the space. (mind you, now I'm wanting to head right back there again next week and take home some more! He did make the comment that guinea pigs are rather addictive, and I have to agree).

So we have a little cream agouti sheba-coated sow called 'Buttons' (top of the page), a tri-colour roan sheba-coated boar we've called 'Boris' (above), and a curly-sheba-style black/white/cream sow we've called 'Betty' below.

All bubs are around about 4-5wks old. I'm SO excited to watch their coats grow out. I suddenly remembered about the horror of coats getting chewed by other pigs earlier today though - so I have all my fingers crossed that we can at least make it to 4months old without too much coat damage!

Plushies and Pregnancy-watch

We had a custom order for some guinea pig plushies through our 'Emma's Bears' business this week, so I thought I'd make a couple of extra ones and trial some ideas I had in mind for a 'Himalayan' style plushie and a 'Dutch' style plushie.

These were the results. Pretty quirky with their pink-eyes, but they're growing on me. At first I was like 'hmmm.... maybe a little creepy...', but the choc-himi is kind of cute. ;)

(The available plushies can be found in our store if you'd like to take one home). 

And a quick update on little Abby - she's doing really well. She is still rediculously tiny, but her belly and nipples have grown quite a bit more then I would have expected... so I currently have her on pregnancy-watch. She did seem way too little to possibly have been pregnant when I got her, and she was housed with another girl at the time... but that doesn't mean that she didn't come into contact with a boar at some stage though.

So we just watch, and wait. And feed her lots of yummy foods!

Baby Abby

We bought home a new baby today. A tiny little pet my daughter has called 'Abby'. She's a tri-colour abyssinian x, and is apparently 7wks old. She has been bathed and wormed and cuddled and was popped out in the hutch to meet the other girls. They were great with her - very gentle and curious. No biting or fighting as can sometimes happen when a newbie is introduced.

Abby seems very comfortable around humans, and quite confident with the other guinea pigs too, so hopefully her lovely personality stays this way, and she doesn't become wary of us or starts bossing around the other pigs!

She seems so tiny next to them though. It's been so long since we had little-ones here that I'd forgotten how small they really are!

Winter's Coming!

It has gotten SO cold here in Brisbane over the last few days. A friend of ours lost one of her pet pigs to the cold, and it's only May (traditionally we don't usually see our coldest weather until late June/July. And then the nights only get down to about 5 degrees celsius at the worst!). So this cold snap has caught a lot of us by surprise.

Thankfully I already had some new piggy bedding options in the works, and have been able to get most of them sewn up and in our webstore for sale.

These are a new design concept for us - they work beautifully as a snuggly tunnel, and if you roll the ends up they stay open all by themselves (they're a layer of fleece, a layer of padding and a layer of cotton all quilted together - so nice and plush). They have a velcro strip down the side so they can also be pulled out flat to double as a lap mat, or a blanket/cage liner. This is Kobe using her best modelling skills! (I just love rex guinea pigs - how gorgeous and squishy she is!!)

We've also done some new Piggy Igloos for Winter 2014, and this time we've quilted the inside layer so the lining doesn't colapse down on the pigs while they sleep! I found this most annoying, and I'm sure the pigs did too. The internal quilting means you can't flick out the lining like before, but they're still totally machine washable and actually stay open a lot better.

We also have the classic 'Cuddle Sacks' available again as well. All the products can be found in our special Guinea Pig section on our website.

A little video

(Just testing out the video-function on Blogger with a quick little video of our rex-mumma pig 'Subi' feeding her newborn daughter 'Bonnie'.

When babies suckle from their mums over the first few days/week or so they poke their little bottoms in the air and mumma pig licks them clean. This is because the first poos are quite runny and sticky - a little like human babies and their meconium poo. After the baby-pigs have been eating solid food for a day or so, they'll start to do tiny little solid poos and gradually the mum wont have to clean them up like this!

It's important to note that if you're hand-feeding very new baby guinea pigs you will need to take over this aspect of the cleaning as well. A gently wipe over their bottom a few times with a wet cotton ball should do the trick. It will encourage them to open their bowls and get their digestive tract moving too).

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).