Boris

I do love comparison photos. Especially coat-growth shots of long-coated guinea pigs! (probably why I have a whole blog full of guinea pig photos! lol). 

This is the not-so-little-anymore Boris. Above he was 3-4wks old. Below he is 4 months old! Crazy what a few months of growing can do. 

Boris is actually going to be a dad shortly as well. He and Abby (photo below) are expecting their first litter together within the next fortnight or so. I'm expecting tri-coloured, rosetted bubs. Some might have their Dad's roaning. Some may end up with mum's shorter hair, some may end up with longer hair (Abby carries the long-hair gene).

Or we might get total surprise colours/coat types. You never do know with pets.

I do know that they are going to be gorgeous and unrestricted by the demands of being a 'pedigree'. They will be what they will be!

 It has been way too long since we've had bubba guinea pigs popcorning around our caviary!

Eloise

Check out that face! This is little Eloise. She was born mid July 2014 and is a long-coated pet. Most likely to grow a peruvian-looking coat, but she is not 'pedigree' for any particular breed. Just another very pretty little lady to add to our piggy family.

Fluffy Baby Boris

Check out the coat growth on this spunky little dude! 

Boris was about 1 month old in the photo above. 

He is now about 2.5months old (photos below). 

He is the sweetest, cuddliest little guy. He LOVES to sit on top of his hidey house, rather then in it. He doesn't like to be caught, but once in your arms is quite content to have his chin rubbed and his hair brushed. Most of his coat is growing back (from behind his head towards his rump like a Sheltie), but then he has the rosettes by his chin that give him parakeet chops like a Sheba Mini Yak, and two bum-rosettes that flick his rear gold-patch up in the air a bit like a Peruvian!

I do love pet/mixed breed pigs. They don't have to look like anything. And there is certainly a freedom in that after owning/breeding/assessing pedigrees for many years. 

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.