Two's Company, Three's a Crowd, Four's a HERD :)

TheCageCleaner · Post » Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:24 am

Starting a thread here for our herd!

I'm CageCleaner and Cramer is my partner. We share our home with our three piggies and as of Tuesday we have a new face in the house--here's Opal:

She is two months old and adopted from the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. Tipping the scales at 440 grams and eating like a champ already. Was an 'oops' baby along with a brother named Moose who was adopted to another family. Mom is white/grey roan, dad is tan/chocolate, both Abbies, so her coloring is VERY unique!

Hope to post more updates and pics of the rest of the herd soon :)

Post » Fri Apr 26, 2019 3:45 pm

She is an adorable girl!

Renonvsparky · Post » Fri Apr 26, 2019 5:05 pm

Little Abbies are the cutest guinea pigs of all! By far my favorite!

Renonvsparky · Post » Fri Apr 26, 2019 8:26 pm

Here's proof of how adorable Abbies are. This is my 5 week old Scruffy getting out of the pet carrier for the first time. He didn't want to wait until I was ready to pick him up. He wanted out now!

Sef · Post » Fri Apr 26, 2019 8:37 pm

Awwww! She's so cute!

Love the hair! :D

TheCageCleaner · Post » Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:42 am

Good morning from the rest of the herd, who are patiently waiting for Opal to finish quarantine:

Dana is the redhead Abbie, 6 years old now, previously posted about here since she had a lipoma removed a while ago and has been doing fantastic since.

Bean is the calico, ~1 year old? My shy girl, hoping Opal can buddy up with her and get her out of her shell.

Casanova is the blonde, ~1.5-2 years old, our neutered boar all the way from Miami. He is very vocal and chatters at any/everything, but has taken to wheeking loudly at Opal so she will wheek back at 5 in the morning :)

Sef · Post » Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:30 am

Great looking group! Dana reminds me of our Gabriel, who had the some coloring but with ruby eyes.

Cute fleece, too. :)

Curious to hear how the dynamics of the trio with a neutered male changes with the addition of another female.

Renonvsparky · Post » Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:45 am

I'd be lucky to have 3 together in the same enclosure, much less 4 :) I'm also curious to hear about the dynamic. It's amazing how just one wheeker can trigger the others. Neither of my first pair of boars did it until I brought Sammy home; who wheeks at just about everything. Now 3 of them are doing it. It's probably my favorite thing that guinea pigs do, so I have no complaints.

TheCageCleaner · Post » Tue Apr 30, 2019 11:02 am

Happy to report that Opie is doing great and eating fine again after she refused veggies the other night for some reason. We think she’s just new to the whole concept :) I actually stuck some grids on a liner in front of the main cage so she could see the others while eating last night. A bit unorthodox but since nobody could smell each other through the plexiglas it wasn’t a true ‘intro’—and everyone seemed content to watch each other like they were a TV during dinner!

Sef · Post » Wed May 01, 2019 10:24 pm

Ha! Clever idea!

pigjes · Post » Thu May 02, 2019 2:26 am

I'm having a chuckle over your name, which must be the cleverest name I ever saw, lol. Such a lovely piggie!!

TheCageCleaner · Post » Thu May 02, 2019 8:33 am

I will have to find a way to post the video, but we had some *serious* zoomies last night before dinner. This little girl is a massive bundle of energy! I can't wait to build the cage expansion when she's done being quarantined so all 4 of our pigs have a ton of room to run around. I have half a mind to build a Murphy bed too so we can use the whole room for floortime...

TheCageCleaner · Post » Mon May 06, 2019 6:25 am

Opal and Casanova went to the vet on Saturday for their annuals. Both pigs looking great. Opal is *definitely* female, and definitely not pregnant, hooray! Cas has a patch of hair loss on his back for some reason. Vet suspected mites despite both of the other pigs not having symptoms, so it's Ivermectin for all and a couple more weeks of quarantine for Opal so her immune system can continue to mature before we introduce her to the herd.

Will have to post pic when I get home, but I switched from using 3 hides in the main cage to a fleece forest/cuddle cups to see if piggies like it. Easier cleanup if they do! :)

Post » Mon May 06, 2019 3:50 pm

You have a very good vet if he/she observed possible signs of mites and went ahead and treated everyone.

TheCageCleaner · Post » Tue May 07, 2019 6:39 am

We LOVE them--Exotic Animal Hospital of Orlando, FL. We usually see Dr. Diaz but he has a new doc in the office and she saw our pigs this time/recommended we treat. They are hands-down the most cavy savvy vets we've ever worked with. Dr. Diaz started out in the Miami area and had been working with the large GP rescue out there until he moved here to start his own practice.

AldenM1 · Post » Wed May 08, 2019 10:59 pm

Opal is adorbs.

TheCageCleaner · Post » Fri May 10, 2019 6:30 am

G'morning friends! Finally got the chance to upload a few more pics. Here is Opal enjoying her 'tv dinner' from behind the Plexiglas the other night. You can really get a sense of the size difference we're working with here :)

I recently made a fleece forest and put down cuddle cups on the side of the cage, and the piggies are loving it.

I meal prepped for everyone the other day and snapped a pic. These takeout soup containers are from Amazon and I love using them.

And a bonus pic! My beautiful son, Fox Mulder (yes, he is the counterpart to our redhead Abbie Dana Scully), decided to help out with the pigs' laundry:

Renonvsparky · Post » Fri May 10, 2019 6:27 pm

Pretty cat. Does he bother the guinea pigs? Neither of my cats even show an interest in my piggies, but we don't even give them any opportunity to.

TheCageCleaner · Post » Fri May 10, 2019 9:43 pm

We have our two cats completely separated from the pigs at all times—pigs are in the master bedroom just beyond the door. The few times I’ve had the cats in the bedroom they definitely have shown prey drive behaviors, so I don’t trust any kind of cat-proofing of the cage.

Post » Fri May 10, 2019 10:59 pm

Looks like you have a happy guinea pig house there!