News.

The Re-homing.

I found someone who wants to adopt all four of the pigs. She is an hour and a half away and we're driving to meet her tomorrow.

Sophie-Mo.

Mo's health has been on a slow but steady decline. A recent trip to the vet revealed that it's due to old age. She currently weighs in at a frail 1lb 4oz, which is less than she has ever weighed. When I got her in '07 she was around 2lbs, before she started losing weight she was around 1lb 9oz.

This morning just as I was leaving for work I saw Livvy, Tasha and Rocky all gathered around the food dish eating their breakfast. My white fluff was nowhere to be seen. Oh no.

She was laying under the hay rack, not interested in food at all. My poor lady. I eventually was able to convince her that pellets were delicious and this evening when I got home, I made her some home-made Critical Care mash with Sweet Meadow pellets, endive, maroon carrots, organic blueberries,[all of her faves] and a tiny bit of Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar. She is currently chowing down, but still not doing great.

Oh deary me.

Usually when I haven't written in a while, I make some comment about what a bad blogger I am or how things have changed drastically.

They have. I am having to do something I never thought I'd have to do.

I have to say good-bye to half of my herd.

Yes, it's true. I feel like a terrible pet owner but the truth is, I should probably have done this a long time ago, when they were younger. It would have been much easier on all parties involved.

There are several reasons why I need to do this.

1.] I am allergic to them. And not just a little. Sneezing, runny nose, itchy mouth/eyes, watery eyes, etc. are not just symptoms I get when I touch one of them, pick them up or hold them. I have them all the time. I have been miserable since we moved out of the yellow house in the beginning of February. I am also allergic to the hay, but not as bad.

2.] I don't have the space. I've had to split them up and most of them are living in pet store cages. No one is in an adequately sized cage right now. This makes changing their cages even worse because that's when I start sneezing horrendously and the mucous starts a-flowin'. Having to go through that once is bad enough, but having to go through it five times is a nightmare. I take allergy medication on the day that I change their cages, which helps a little, but not much.

3.] I am physically not able to care for all of them. I was supposed to have a surgery on my ankle to remove built-up scar tissue from an old injury. I have been delaying it for over a year due to lack of insurance. It has been slowly getting more and more painful to walk. I cannot take pain medication for it, as even the strongest of doses does just about nothing. Every time I have to change their water, feed them, play with them, etc. I have to go up and down a flight of stairs, which is very difficult for me. I don't know when I will have the surgery but even after that I won't be able to walk for about a month.

4.] None of this will change any time soon. I am not able to care for all of my cavies, and I am not doing right by them keeping them in their current conditions. Sophie-Mo, Rocky, Natasha, and Olive will be staying with me and I hope to get a good-sized cage built for them as soon as I can, and get them back on fleece, which should help.

You can see their Guinea Pig Home page here.

Much-needed update

Sorry for missing our fourth Social Sunday, folks. I was busy wondering why my bed was made of diced chicken and getting angry at Neptune for stealing my bathwater. Ehm.. I had a 103F fever.

Unfortunately, things are not well in the cavy world. Sophie-Mo has been getting bullied relentlessly by Laika. She has lost a bit of weight and just today I discovered a bald spot on her from where Laika has been pulling her hair out. We have run into this problem before, but never to this extent. I feel awful for not noticing this sooner, but Sophie is recovering quickly. I put her in a separate pen for 3-4 hours a couple of times a day so she can rest and have all she wants to eat. While I am at work I leave Mo with the herd and put Laika separate, to be sure that Mo isn't getting stressed by being away from them for so long. I am going to get her to the vet to be sure that she hasn't developed any health problems because of this.

I'm not crazy about splitting anyone up but if I absolutely must, I think that Mo, Olive, Winston and Milo will get along just fine, and Natasha sure as sugar doesn't put up with any

of Laika's crap, so she, Laika and Ferdie would be fine in a trio. The next time I clean cages I will try this setup. A 2x3 is not suitable for three girls long-term but it won't hurt for a couple of days or so, so I can see if it'll work between the boys and Livvy and Sophie.

That's what's happening in my neck of the woods. After a couple of doses of rice-water and honey, my fever/nausea/vomiting/headachey/hallucinationey-ness subsided. Hooray for natural remedies!

By the way, fi any of you have questions you'd like to submit for Social Sundays in the future, you can submit them here or at any Social Sunday post. They don't necessarily need to be about guinea pigs, the idea is to get to know each other a little better. I would like most of our Social Sundays to be about piggies though, because that is why we're all here, after all.

Introductions: Laika, Ferdie and Winston

The youngest of my herd have told me that they would like to be introduced to you all. So here we go. Ferdie, short for Ferdinand because for the first couple of weeks of her life, I thought she was a boy, Winston, and Laika are Natasha and Milo's three offspring. They will be celebrating their first birthday this year on August 13th, 2010. Two days before my birthday.

When the babies were born, I was living with a coworker due to issues I had with my roommates, one of whom is now serving some much-deserved hard time. My cavies were all living with my mother. I got a call very early the morning of the 13th and raced right over to see my tiny new family members.

Baby guinea pigs are different than the babies of most other small mammals, including rabbits, because they are born "ready to run." They are fully furred, eyes open, nails grown, can eat hay, pellets, greens... They are miniature, weightless cavies with big huge eyes.

Basically, they are the cutest thing in the entire world. Ever. Seriously.

Since that day, my caller ID photo for my mom has been a photo of her with Winston in her shirt pocket.

When I rented a room in September, the pigs had to live in less-than-ideal spaces. Milo and Winston got paired up and stuck in a 2x2-grid space, next door to Sophie, Natasha and Ferdie in a 2x3 and Livvy and Laika in a 2x2. I didn't have the girls all living together at this point because I was still unsure about Ferdinand's gender, so I didn't want to put her in a cage with anyone who wasn't spayed. This went on for four months, though it felt like eight, and it was no picnic for any of the parties involved. When we moved into the yellow house in mid-November, One of the first things I did was set up properly-sized cages for everyone, and let all my girls live together. I planned and planned and planned for a free-range room for everyone, and I am finally getting there.

I love Laika, Ferdie and Winnie very very much. Their birth was accidental and their parents and grandparents were both siblings. There grandparents were conceived in a pet store. So they are quite inbred. While this is common for many small animals, cavies included, I am still lucky that none of them were stillborn or lethals, there were no birthing complications and that Natasha did not reject any of them.

If you have any questions about these three, you're more than welcome to comment. I couldn't think of much to write about them.