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).

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!