Brave Girls

With all the lovely weather we've had recently, we now have a backyard full of lush green grass. Which is about to be mowed right back tomorrow as part of our 'clean up the house for Christmas visitors' plan for the next few days!


So with that in mind, I decided to relocate our puppy dog Oliver to the fenced off section down the side of our house (with some big juicy bones to compensate for being kicked out of 'his' turf), and we let the girls run free (full supervised ofcourse!).


They LOVED it, and the smart/brave ones very quickly found where the best, softest and most juicy grass was growing! I would have to say that there are few things in life so simply satisfying as watching guinea pigs eat. They are the most thankful little beings - whether it be some vegy scraps left over from a salad, or access to a whole yard of grass. They are always so enthusiastic about food!!!

Pumpkin Surprise

The girls got an extra special breakfast this morning - 'pumpkin surprise'! As you'll be able to see in the next few photos, it caused quite a stir! I think they had a lot of fun pulling out all the bits and climbing inside of it.






And this last photo was taken about 15mins after I put the pumpkin in the cage. The girls made quick work of all the 'surprise' bits. Pumpkin isn't a favourite vegetable, but I am curious to see how much is left tomorrow morning!



And on a bitter-sweet note - Beeno went home with her new family this evening. I hope that she will be a lot calmer in her new home where she will be the sole recipient of all the attention and cuddles, and won't have to share her space with any other pesky piggies. I still have that sad feeling you get when saying goodbye to an old friend though. She had been with us since she was just a baby and knew no other life. I wish you all the best Beeno, and if your new family are reading this let them know we'd LOVE to see pics of you in your new home, and hear how you're doing from time to time :)

Watermelon

We had some watermelon left over for the pigs today. Galaxy was the first to find it, and was quickly followed by the nursing/pregnant mums. And Custard!



It didn't take long before the rest of the gang spotted it though! There's nothing more satisfying than watching guinea pigs eat!

Grandma, Daughter and Granddaughter

These three gorgeous ladies came to stay at our caviary today. Their previous owners were unable to keep them, and needed them to find new homes as soon as possible. So we took them back here, gave them a bit of a health check. They are all in excellent condition and have been well loved.


The self-black Abyssinian is the Grandma of the bunch and is about 1 year old. She is in perfect health, weighing in at just under 900g. I've just fallen in love with her, so she will be staying here. Her name is Peppa.




Peppa's daughter Pixie is mostly black with a big fat stripe of brilliant ginger-gold over her shoulders. She is a slightly longer-haired Abyssinian x and is in perfect health as well. She has been treated for mites, lice, worms and fungal just in case. Her weight is a little lower than I'd like for a 7 month old (weighing in at just over 600g), but considering she is the mum to a 3 month old... that's probably not surprising!

Pixie has a very mischievous personality on her, and I actually considered naming her 'Trouble' instead of Pixie! :P She is available for adoption for someone who can offer her a longterm home.




And lastly, this is Pixie's daughter Petal. She is a white, buff and slate Abyssinian x with semi-longhair. Her hair is actually surprisingly soft, much much softer than her mum and grandma. She has the prettiest eye patches, and the slate colouring on her rump actually appears to be roan (a mix of slate grey and black hairs). This makes no effect to her health and wellbeing, but does mean that she would be best NOT bred to another roan guinea pig to avoid serious genetic issues in the resulting offspring. She is 14 weeks old, and weighs 400g, again a little lighter than I'd expect for a 3 month old. She is in good condition, but does have some minor hair loss that she is being treated for, and will be adopted out once she is all better.


If you have any guinea pigs that you can no longer keep, or need re-homed, feel free to let me know (eleb2000@hotmail.com). Alternatively Maureen from the Cavy Cottage is always happy to take in guinea pig surrenders too.

Sheba and her boys meet the gang

Piggy updates and a new bale of hay

The bubs are doing so well. I wasn't sure if they'd be a bit daunted by all the big girls in the mansion cage, but they love it! The popcorn around the place, darting in and out of all the soft hidey houses and tunnels. For the most part the other girls ignore them, but Custard and Yeti have taken a particular interest in them. I knew about Custard's affinity for babies, but Yeti surprised me. She kind of treats them like a bossy older sister - ordering them around to different locations in the cage.




I took a couple of pics of Molly at 4 days old too. You can see the little ginger spot right on her bottom! So cute (and practical!). Ginger joined in for some of the photos, as a fellow 'ginger' coloured piggy. I don't think she was particularly impressed at being taken away from the feast in the cage though and didn't cooperate for long.





It was piggy-food-shopping-day today too, so I headed off to the produce place to buy some more hay. I learnt my lesson about hay-buying earlier in the year, so now I always inspect the hay out in the hay shed before going to the cash register. They didn't have any prime Lucerne available (my personal preference because most of my girls are still young/suckling young/possibly preg etc. and Lucerne has higher calcium content. And it's just so nice and soft with no sharp bits for damaging eyes!), so the next best thing was Barley Hay. I'd never used this before, but the girls love it! It's like sweet-smelling, soft, green straw. Hopefully there aren't any sharp shards hiding in the strands. But so far so good. I pulled a chunk from the middle of the bale to check it out, and the girls LOVE it! I suppose it's nice for them to have something a bit different to munch on too.

Crumble's Baby Girl - Molly

This is little Molly, daughter of Crumble and an unknown dad. Crumble has been living with us for 63 days, so little Molly could possibly be the daughter of Liam - but I would place my bets otherwise.

Molly is a surprisingly big baby, weighing in at 105g. She was born sometime in the early hours of Sunday the 14th August and has two brothers - Mika and Mason.



I'm a little thrown by Molly's colouring. If I didn't know better, I would have thought Sheba was her mummy! (But Crumble was in her birthing cage all by herself!). Molly will most probably end up with Peruvian hair, or somewhere half way between Peruvian and Abyssinian. It really depends on what her daddy looked like - which is a mystery! I am in love with her sweet ginger and white patches though - what a heart breaker! So far she's the most boisterous out of the three bubs. She did NOT want to sit still for her photos!

Sprout is on the mend

I think Sprout might finally be feeling better. His weight has slowly been creeping back up and is now sitting at about 430g. Even Kobe put on a little bit. I let the two of them have the day on the grass in the puppy pen so they could fill their bellies to the brim.





I also think Miss Crumble might be pregnant. She gained the most out of all the pigs at the last weigh in, and her belly is definitely ballooning. I can't feel anything hard, or anything moving yet. But we'll keep an eye on her. We've only had her and Sheba 5 weeks now, so I'm curious to know whether these are Liam's bubs or some unknown pigs bubs. I'm leaning more towards the possibility that she was pregnant when we got her though. She's one of my more demanding personalities, standing here at the door way to the mansion cage, asking to be let out on the grass.



This is a little glimpse of the mess they make over a few days! I think they're all pretty keen to get outside.



As soon as the door was open, they all made a mad dash for the best grass...

A little video of the girls at breakfast time

Byron meets the girls

I thought Byron (my 4month old) might like to hang with the girls on the grass this afternoon. They thought he was very curious indeed...



... but I think having ten of them surround him was a bit much! :p Well they are such scary things :P

a new Video

Just a quick video I took during the week of the girls checking out the cuddle sack for the first time. I love how curious guinea pigs can be. They get very nosy when something new is placed in their space!

A bigger run for the girls

After the last cramped attempt at having the girls on the grass in the little run, I decided to buy them a more spacious one. This is actually a puppy pen, but works really well for the pigs!



I sat with them for a while and managed to catch some lovely shots of Kobe and Ruby together. They're really similar in colouring, only Kobe has the gorgeous straight, shiny fur, while Ruby's is matt and curly. Ruby is supposedly a texel, but at this stage she is looking more like a soft coated rex. (which, from all the reading I've done, is what the US breed 'Teddy' is supposedly like).

Trying to enjoy the grass...

I let the girls have some time in the lawn cage yesterday. I'm letting the run around their mansion regrow a bit. (It is amazing how quickly 9 hungry guinea pigs can get through such a large patch of grass!).

The lawn cage was a little squishy though, and combined with my toddler Chelsea hanging around and making unpleasant high-pitched noises, the girls were a little antsy!



I also have an update on Sprout and his bad hair. After checking them last night, it looks like the treatment last week hasn't made much of a difference after all. (I actually found two big scabby spots on his rump). Amazingly Liam is still fine. But I don't know how long for... More revolution treatments today! :P

Monday weigh in

This is today's run down, with the weigh gained since last week in (brackets):

Sprout is 240g (gained 50g) - 4wks
Sparrow is 235g (gained 25g) - 4wks
Liam is 300g (gained 50g) - 5wks
Ruby is 375g (gained 35g) - 7wks
Ginger is 390g (gained 35g) - 7wks
Kobe is 405g (gained 25g) - 10wks
Alice is 400g (gained 25g) - 12wks
Beeno is 400g (lost 10g) - 10wks
Alba is 445g (gained 30g) - 10wks
Custard is 865g (lost 45g) - 4yrs
and Subi is 1070g (lost 35g) - 1-2yrs

Total piggy weight 5.125 kg! (total gained 205g!!)

Our porkers for the week are Sprout and Liam! Obviously things have been pretty good out in the bachelor pad this week! And it looks like Sprout is feeling a lot better after his mite treatment on Wednesday too!

I am a little concerned at the weight loss from Beeno, Custard and Subi though. Especially Custard. She's a lot older than everyone else and can't afford to loose any weight. The fact that Subi was less too though makes me think that maybe it was just a time-of-day thing. Last week I weighed them at the end of a day of gorging on veg! Today it was just before lunch time.

Beeno is young though, and should be growing steadily each week. I did notice that her ear is a bit crusty, and am wondering if she has a fungal infection. I'm going to pick up some anti fungal cream tomorrow, and see if that helps things.

Adventures outside the cage!

I thought I'd see if the girls wanted to venture outside of their cage yesterday morning. The grass between the cage and the perimeter fence is getting a little long. The thinking when we set up the cage was to let them eat it down when it got too long, cause getting a mower in there would be rather tricky!

However they weren't interested at all when I first opened the door!

After a while Custard led the way and half of them followed her.



They all went back inside and snuggled in the straw during snooze-time (middle of the day), so I shut the door again. (How cute does Ginger look in her little nest!)



Once the afternoon shadows had spread over the backyard, the girls were active again. This time ALL of them came out within minutes. It's almost like the ones that went out that morning had been bragging about how yummy the grass was!!:P





And yet again, it only took one day for them to cotton on to this new routine. Now all I have to do is open the door and stand back, and they all come running!