Baby Boys

I was giving Ben and Beethoven some cuddles last night, and realised that I hadn't gotten any updated coat photos of them since they were born. They are both growing so much and have chubby little pot-bellies on them too. Beethoven's stunning roan-effect is showing up more and more as his hair grows, and he is looking just like his daddy Boris did as a bub.

Ben probably has the longer coat at this stage - his density is incredible for 2 weeks.

Below is a photo of daddy pig Boris sitting on my lap while I played with his hair. He is a wonderful boy, and his son's are growing up just like him.

As much as it breaks my heart, we will probably need to find new homes for the baby boys in a few weeks time. They would make a wonderful pair together, but will need a home that appreciates the specific needs of a long-haired pig. I haven't put this out there officially yet as I'm still making up my mind...I am finding the idea of rehoming my babies so much harder this time around. But really the only way to keep them here without ending up with a community of cages taking over our backyard is to get them desexed so they could hang with the girls in the big pen. Which could be an option... I just get nervous putting a cavy under anesthetic for something that doesn't really need to happen - the risks outweigh the benefits especially as they could live quite happily together without needing surgery!

We will see how we go... my heart is getting too jaded.  I used to just trust blindly that my pigs would be loved and well cared for in their new homes, but I've learnt that it just isn't always the case...

New piggy - Cherry

My daughter and I went to a local residence this morning to collect a female guinea pig that was no longer wanted. She had been given a 'summer hair cut', but as soon as I held her in my hands I could tell that her coat wasn't just cut - there were balding/thin patches and patches with new hair growth coming through. I asked the owner if she'd been treated for mites/lice lately, and apparently she'd had 'treatment' a few weeks earlier. I don't know what was done to her exactly, but she's certainly not totally ok yet.

We took her home, gave her a dip to kill any external parasites and a dose of ivermectin to kill anything internal. She is now in quarantine while we make sure she is 100% healthy before she meets the rest of the gang. My daughter is loving it and has taken on the responsibility of having her stay in her room with much enthusiasm.

You can't see her terrible well here, but she looks like she'll have a peruvian-type coat when it eventually grows back. And she's a pretty lilac, gold and white marked girl. We called her 'Cherry' due to her stunning cherry-red eyes.

Eloise's bubbas

At about 2:30pm on Saturday the 13th December, Eloise delivered three big bubs. A stunning tri-agouti roan boy, a gold agouti boy and a dark-eyed-white girl. It was rediculously cold here on that particular weekend (we were used to temps around the 30-35 degree mark, and on that day is was about 10 degrees colder), so we helped Eloise get her bubs dry a bit faster. She was an excellent mum though, and her bubs are thriving.

My 5yr old daughter helped me name them. This little white one is 'Mary'. (as in Mary had a little lamb who's fleece was white as snow!)

This handsome man is 'Ben'. And the stunner below is 'Beethoven' - the tri roan. He is JUST like his daddy when he was a little fellow. I'll have to take some comparison photos when Beethoven is around 3-4weeks old.

We have chickens!

We moved house recently, and now have a much bigger backyard. One of our plans was to eventually get chickens too. We wanted a coop that would last a little longer then the 'mansion cage' we bought for the guinea pigs at our last house (it started falling apart after about 2 years!). So we went with this one from a local aussie retailer. It is suppose to be double the strength of the regular fir wood cages - and certainly weighs about twice as much! 

The whole cage measures 3.6m x 1.1m. The pen area is 6m x 3m so hopefully they have enough space to be happy. We bought 4 araucana cross breed hens who will apparently lay blue/green eggs! They're beautiful little creatures.

Harriet

Meet Harriet.
Isn't she just DIVINE!!!

I worked my butt off for years trying to produce a curly-coated pig like her as part of my curly-coated sheba program, and she appears in a random pet litter born at an acquaintances stud a month ago!

Granted she is related to one of our Sirocco foundation animals 'Glenjolie Liam' (she's his Great Great Granddaughter), and is actually also related to our famous 'Kobe' (she's Kobe's Great Granddaughter). But there have been so many other lines introduced along the way that there isn't much of a resemblance anymore!

I do not intend to start up that project again as the mature curly-sheba doesn't look dramatically different to a mature alpaca guinea pig, but I have always loved this look in cavies, so will treasure her as a pretty little pet. And can't wait to watch her grow into her curls.

More Cavy Plushies... its addictive!

Spent the better part of this week sewing up yet more plushie guinea pigs. You can see a bit of my work-in-progress above.

The end result are these cute little faces below. I fall in love with each one as soon as they're completed as well, and I think I'm getting a little better at the real-ism. I've never been great with getting art fully true-to-life (so I've ALWAYS gone for the more cartoony/stylised genre) - but these guys have been a nice break from that.

Granted they do still have quite cutesy, rounded little faces that aren't totally true to a classic cavy shape... but, I'm going to blame my little butterball Kobe on that! (as you can see below!)

So, this big boy is 'Shelton' - and yep, he's a 'Sheltie' style coated guinea pig. He's the adult-size, so full 9", and is actually really quite heavily weighted. He feels like you're picking up a real pig - minus the scratchy claws!

Shelton is currently (as of the time of writing) still available for adoption too.

Then I decided to make a mum and baby pair of plushies. Cookie and Mumma Pig were the resulting creation. They too are available for adoption. 

And this little guy was another custom request. I just love this fur made up into a guinea pig. All of our fabrics are fake fur from our fabric supply store - no real fur was used on these plushies.

Custom Cavy Plushies

The two cute little pigs in the photos above are Abby and Spikey, and belong to a couple from Singapore. We were asked to make some plushie look-alikes this week, and this is what we came up with...

... not perfectly realistic (they are just mohair and stuffing afterall!), but there's enough of a likeness there to recognise who is who I think!

Little Abby even has the tufted-out look to his fur around his face and along his body.

And Spikey has the wispy bit of fringe that flops over his eyes. One side he has his larger cream eye patch, and the other side just a hint of cream.

I tried to get one of our pigs to sit in on the photo to show the size comparison too. This is our 'Abby' sitting next to the two plushies (she was a little confused by them I think! lol).

These plushies are obviously claimed, but if you would like your own replica guinea pig soft sculpture made, feel free to contact us (eleb2000@hotmail.com) or check out the ready-made plushies in our store.

The Lucky One

This gorgeous boy has just joined our family. He is 5 weeks old and a pedigree sheltie. His granddad was our 'Sirocco Omari'.

His name is 'Ohana The Lucky One' - sole survivor of a litter of 5!



(The photos below are of his granddad when he was a bub and later at a few months old. Sadly he is no longer living, so it makes Lucky all the more special)