Chuffnut Cavies - Australian Cavy Sanctuary Melbourne Shelter

14/03/2026

Chuffnut piggies at their annual vet nursing class

16/02/2026

UPDATE 25/2/2026 ON PIGGY MEDICAL TREAMENTS IN COMMENTS BELOW

We really hate to ask🥺

We are always the worst at asking for help...but we have hit a point of desperation.Chuffnut Cavies - Australian Cavy Sanctuary Melbourne shelter is currently drowning in medical cases.Our shelter has always serviced over 200 guinea pigs. We are currently reducing our intake to keep our numbers down...

20/12/2025

SECRET SANTA ###XX

20/12/2025

Chuffnut wishes to extend to you, your family and loved ones, and to your precious furry potatoes, a very happy festive season. Maybe you all enjoy peace and enjoyment this season.

Please send all your positive thoughts to the corners of this troubled world, where there are people, including furry/feathered/scaled/slimey "people", who may be suffering and not being afforded the peace we are able to enjoy.
Please swamp this world with the energy of positive thought, with non-judgemental love ❤️, and with a promise to be one of those people who can, and will, be a guiding light to a much brighter future for all.

Hug your furries for us!!

01/12/2025

Chuffnut has been trying to keep incoming piggies to a minimum until we reduced our numbers - and we have successfully dropped from around 220 piggies a few months ago to 184 today, thanks to a heap of fabulous adoptions.

BUT this last couple of weeks, we have taken in a pair of girls surrendered via a FB group (and thankfully came to us, as one girl is heavily pregnant despite the previous owner saying she hasn't be around males 🤔 so there must have been an "oops" event in the last couple of months).

And today, we accepted two single girls (see attached pics).

We have come to the conclusion that we were meant to take in these 2 girls.

The shelter manager lost a dear friend last year by the name of Beth and was actually writing a short eulogy about her when the email came in asking if we could take in a piggy called Beth! Then, today, the shelter manager was supposed to meet up with a friend called Rosemary but, instead, changed plans so she could pick up a piggy, who turned out to be named Rosemary!

Rosemary, named by her rescuers, was found last week, running around a Brunswick schoolyard, assumed to be dumped. A lovely young couple caught her and asked if we could take her in. She is a sweet gold and white aby X ridgeback, and is in fabulous condition, so we suspect she wasn't roaming free for too long. She is now on pregnancy watch, just in case.

Beth is a sweet Himilayan girl who recently lost her long-term companion and her loving family was not in a position to take on another guinea pig. We were asked to take her.

Both girls also came from addresses that had the house number 10. They are single girls, and both around the same age. Given all the coincidences, we figured these 2 girls were meant to be friends. so, tonight, we started the bonding process ❤️🧡💛

30/10/2025

This is an amazing project. So many wonderful rescues doing great work, al around the world.

Chuffnut has been recipient of many incredible gifts from donors over the years, and we are eternally grateful. We are a bit slack/slow about "Thank You" posts, but please know that we are humbled by your kindness and your contributions to the piggies at Chuffnut.

Please consider supporting a rescue in your region this year - the guinea pigs deserve every treat ❤️🧡💛

Rescues don't forget to display the JPG and let your Followers know they can specifically request to be a Secret Santa for your Rescue.

24/07/2025

The Chuffnut team will be at PetO in Moorabbin on Sunday - come along to meet some of our gorgeous guinea.pigs available for adoption!
Hope to see you there 😀

10/04/2025

If you are looking for suitable guinea pig cages and products, please check out The General Pet Store - they are having a huge warehouse sale at the moment. Crazy cheap prices and a fabulous business to support.

02/04/2025

So true

It has come to our attention that cavy shows/breeders are offering Guinea pigs for “adoption” for our supporters I would like to teach you the difference…

Just because the word adoption is thrown about does it really mean that is what is happening?

If so, they will provide the left column. If not it would be more of a purchase.

In summary, while both adopting and purchasing involve bringing an animal into your home, they differ significantly in terms of financial implications, impact on animal welfare, availability of information about the animal’s background, and contributions toward addressing pet overpopulation issues.

*While we do cover veterinary bills post adoption, we must be at fault and please contact us first for our vets details.

21/03/2025

3rd UPDATE:
A third litter has been born - a single chunky bubba. There are still a number of girls expected to be pregnant, although a lot of the 44 that came in are actually very young themselves so hopefully won't be pregnant. They will still need to be on pregnancy watch though.

The Foster Care Information Pack is now available on our website:
https://www.australiancavysanctuary.org/enquire-to-foster
2ND UPDATE:
Yet another girl has stress-birthed 2 tiny but healthy bubbas. The mum is only a baby herself. The girls are currently out on the grass and will be bathed once the day has warmed up a little more. They are all filthy 😞

UPDATE:
Thank you to so MANY wonderful people for offers to foster. We collected the girls late on Saturday and will process them all tomorrow (medical check, bath, mite treatment) on Sunday. We will also upload the foster carer info pack (sorry, we have been super flat out preparing for these girls to come in and haven't been online much). Please bear with us as we are currently a 1-person team, so we haven't had a chance to reply to all your wonderful messages offering assistance - it is now 12.35am, and I am going to get some sleep, so hope to reply to a few messages tomorrow (Sunday).

Once we get all the girls processed, we will go through foster offers to match piggies with homes, and get them out to people over then next week to 10 days (maybe 2 weeks for those in Bendigo and Kyneton).

The stress of being rescued, then transported to us, has caused one sweet girl to give birth a little prematurely. Her 4 babies are tiny, and one sadly didn't survive the birth 😞 Mumma was a bit stressed, too, but she and her three tiny babies seem to be doing better about 3 hours after the birth. Will post photos in the comments.

DESPERATE FOR FOSTER CARERS IN THE GREATER MELBOURNE AREA:
Two massive surrenders/rescues have come our way - a total of 64 guinea pigs (which includes 44 females, all possibly pregnant) - have been collected, and the 44 females will soon be making their way to Chuffnut.

But we desperately need some foster homes for these pregnant ladies as they will need some one-on-one care while they go through their pregnancies and weaning of their bubs.

So, if you have ever considered fostering guinea pigs and possibly even foster-to-adopt, please reach out to Chuffnut. We will upload a foster carer information kit to our website shortly. Or you can message us for the kit.

If needed, we can supply some cages, pellet food, and hay, if you are able to supply the vegies and maybe some grass. Please, though, we can probably only manage foster homes that are in the Greater Melbourne area as country locations may be too difficult to manage :(