Two litters in 12hrs!

A LOT has been happening here over the last 24hrs or so. We've had two litters (Crumble yesterday, then Alice this morning), we're dealing with all the flooding (which has meant trying to find temporary homes for all the pigs inside the house), almost running out of food (due to the constant need to change bedding/clean cages with all the soggy rain), Dante failing the thrive/suckle and needing hand feeding, Yeti not seeming herself (I'm yet to put my finger on what it is, but if she makes it through the night we'll be off to a specialist vet first thing in the morning), and the rest of my every-day life with two small kids and a household to keep together!


These are Crumbles two little men - Simba (sheltie) and Safari (texel). Both purebred, both agouti, both gorgeous! They were born at approx 8:30pm last night (thursday the 26th Jan 2012) - I walked in halfway through and had to help get Simba out of his sack!


Simba:

Simba is the runt, weighing in at only 65g. He's a mix of red and golden agouti and will have the long, thick sheltie coat of his mum when he's all grown up. He's still a little wobbly at the moment, but will stay inside with me until I'm confident he's ok.


Safari:

And this is Safari, the bigger of the boys weighing in at 85g. He is a cream agouti texel, and will look a lot like his daddy Liam when he's all grown up.




Then, I woke up this morning to find three BIG gorgeous babies running around after Alice. She did a brilliant job, and they were all clean and very active. Malakai makes some incredible babies.


We have two little boys and one little girl, Monty, M.J. (short for Michael Jackson) and Mirella.


Mirella:

Mirella weighed in at a decent 105g, (and wasn't the biggest of the litter). She's a gorgeous tri-colour girl just like her mum.



M.J.:

This is M.J. - the biggest of the bunch weighing in at 115g. He is almost exactly half black and half white! Very funky little dude.





Monty:

And Monty is the 'pretty' boy of the litter with his gorgeous cream and white fur and big dark eyes. He weighed in at 85g.

Alice and her babies - 3.5wks

I got really lucky this afternoon and managed to capture this beautiful moment between Alice and her babies - now 3.5wks old!




Cleo:

Cleo is just growing into a super fluffy puff ball. She's such a little lady too. Very gentle, and very sweet. Much more like her daddy Liam than her mum.




Cricket:

And check out Mr Cricket! Little fluffy Bum! He's such a cheeky cheeky boy! He's certainly got his mum's spunky personality. But in a much nicer, more fun way - must be Liam's influence! And he's ending up with a rather 'peruvian' look too, which is kind of cool.

Baby updates

Both new mums and their 7 new babies were all looking really good this morning, so they got promoted to 'mansion-living'!

The babies were very excited, and it was just little popcorning balls of cuteness everywhere for a while. Until they tired themselves out and took a nap in the hay anyways!



Alice seemed a little stressed by the re-introduction and took out a lot of her frustration on poor Ruby. Meanwhile, Galaxy and her four 10-day old boys thought it was great fun, and did lots of bum-sniffing. Alice ended up sulking up the back of the cage while her babies sampled milk from both Ruby and Galaxy. It's fortunate that I've got two excellent mum's in those two ladies. Hopefully this was just a minor hiccup in Alice's new role as mum...

I thought I'd let you all know that I've published the information from my care-booklets given out with the adoption piggies, and it can all be found right here on my page. I've got a page on general care, and one on breeding. Let me know what you think? Too much info? Not enough?

Chloe, Cleo and Cricket

This man is 'Cricket'. The sole surviving boy of Alice's litter. He weighed in at a very normal 70g. His stillborn brother was 90g, so bigger, but not crazy big.


Cricket also has Alice's rosette placement, making him look a lot like a peruvian baby. With Liam's long-hair genes, he will probably end up looking a little peruvian when grown up, or possible a little mini-yak?

Cricket has a big cream agouti face and a cream agouti bum. one side of his body is white, and the other cream.




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This is one of the girls - little Cleo. She weighed in at 75g. A little better, and within normal newborn weight-range. She is mostly cream with a white nose, cream agouti eye patch, cream agouti bum, and a white stripe over her right front arm/shoulder.



Cleo has a very similar coat to her mum with the funky rosette placement. With the addition of Liam's long-hair genes, this little lady is going to be gorgeous! (think 'Molly'!)



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And this is little Chloe. She will most probably end up staying here - she's just too cute! She was the tiniest bub, weighing in at a very petite 55g. She is white with one cream eye patch, one cream agouti eye patch and a creamy bum. It appears that she will end up with curly fur, possibly quite texel looking. Only time will tell how long her hair gets. I might get lucky and get my half-length coat!



Chloe is probably the bub I'm most worried about too. She's still very wobbly, but is still managing to wobble after Alice when she moves around the birthing suite.

You can just make out the soft little curls on her fur. I'm very excited to see how Chloe grows. The curl's don't appear very tight at this stage - nothing like my rex Bonnie when she was born... so it's a bit of a 'wait and see' situation as to how her coat develops.

Alice has delivered

Alice has surprised me by delivering a day earlier than her estimated due date. I checked her at 1:30pm this afternoon and found 4 babies, a lot of mess and 4 uneaten placentas. One of the babies was dead, and the others didn't look as strong as I'd like to see.

We cleaned up the (bright pink) birth suite and settled them back in with some clean bedding, fresh veg and a big bottle of water. At a quick glance it appears that we have two girls and 1 surviving boy (the still born was also a boy). I'll leave them for a few hours now to settle in with mum, and to let Alice adjust to her new mother-role. And hopefully they'll be looking a lot better this evening.

Home grown parsley

Almost exactly a year ago we moved into our current house, and I decided I wanted a vegetable patch! We knew we had to fence it off from the toddler, and the puppy - which we did. But it kind of meant that the garden got left to it's own devices a bit. One of the few plants that is still growing really well is the parsley. Which is so handy because the guinea pigs LOVE it. And it has heaps of vitamin C, which they need every day. (and it doesn't get cheaper or easier than picking your own home-grown 'organic' parsley!).


Liam was quite partial to it this afternoon. He gobbled down his piece in about 20sec!





Alice is a little more cautious. She still ate it. But wanted to keep an eye on me and that strange black contraption in my hands.



I thought I'd show off her crazy backside hair-do too. It's like a guinea pig mullet - business at the front, party at the back!

Plush piggies

I've been busy sewing lately! Meet my latest plush pigs! This is Mishka the tri-colour sheltie posed next to Alice. She's available from my etsy store, and $10 from her adoption fee goes directly to The Cavy Cottage guinea pig shelter (where GaGa and Yeti came from).



Here we have 'Stardust II' the silver agouti smoothcoat next to my Sparrow, also a silver agouti smooth coat. Sparrow was a little reluctant to be a model, but we got there in the end! (She kept head butting Stardust and trying to hide under him!).



And lastly, a funky pink texel plush guinea pig named 'Candy' next to little Yeti. Again, Yeti wasn't real keen on posing. She has really made herself at home in the big cage and was super keen to get back there, so I didn't hold her up any longer.



We just did some posing with the plushies instead. So much more cooperative!

The Piggy Castle

With it getting colder and colder at night here now, I decided to buy the pigs another house/igloo thing to hide in. I found this massive 'small animal castle' at our local pet store. I figured at least 3 or 4 of them could snuggle up in here together.

Alice had other ideas.

She moved in. Claimed it as her space. Had a bit of a lye down and wouldn't let anyone else in! This girl will be challenging Subi for top spot before we know it!



I thought this was a cute photo too. I've been so worried about Oliver (our Beagalier) getting to the guinea pigs that I've been tying him up when I have them on the grass. The last few days I've had the time to watch him though, so I let him be free. He knows not to pounce and run at them. So he's taken to lying down next to the pen and sticking his tongue through the bars. (I have no doubts that he's trying to taste them!). What I find bizzare though, is that the guinea pigs really don't seem worried by him at all. Alba even came right up to him and had a good old sniff before scampering away.



Meanwhile, if I was to even walk near the pen they all scatter in different directions!

Noses

I had a bit of time in the middle of the day today when both of the kids were asleep at the same time. So instead of frantically doing some bear making, I decided to sit out with the guinea pigs and take some photos.

How cute are these little noses. They belong to Liam, Alice and Alba who are currently cage-buddies. I got to see a little bit of their personalities too. Alice, who looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth (if guinea pigs ate butter) is really mean! It started raining so she sat in the doorway to the shelter and nipped anyone who tried to get in!