Welcome to Rusty’s Retreat first newsletter October 2022
For those of you who don’t know us we are Chris and Bo, and we live in Southampton with our 12guinea pigs and 14 rabbits. In March 2021 Chris brought his 5 rescue rabbits Zelda, with her daughter Oreo as well as Midnight, Willow and Hazel. Not long after we took a little lockdown trip to St Francis Animal Shelter in Fair Oak to look at rehom
ing 2 guinea pigs. We were quite taken with a pair of girls who Meg and Immy (our granddaughters) named Sugar and Spice. There were a pair of boars who had been there for over a year, so obviously we couldn’t leave them, and so our Rexes – Sid and Rusty came too. They settled in well but it wasn’t long before Chris wanted to go back and look at their rabbits, so we went for 1 rabbit. We took a liking to a lop-eared boy that the girls wanted to call Eevee, after a Pokemon, as he had a Pokemon ball in his cage. There was also a gorgeous velvety girl who had been there over a year that grandson Arthur wanted to call Dobbie. So we have a boy called Eevee and a girl called Dobbie! We also brought home more guinea pigs. There were 3 girls who were the survivors of a herd of 80 that were attacked by a fox, lovely little girls who we called Lily, Wotsit and Wiggy. Along with a lone boar whose partner had recently died. In the shelter they called him the Hulk, due to his size, so we called him Bernie the Hulk (Bernie after Chris’s dad). We also rehomed 3 boys called Dougal, Coffee and Rufus. Due to his annoyingness Rufus had to be separated from the others as they kept ganging up on him and biting him. He has since bonded with Marley and although they can’t live together, they are in a big cage with a wire separating them in the middle, so they still get to see each other safely. This was the start of our animal family. Since then, things progressed, and we took in 3 guineas called Daisy, Charlie and Jemima from a customer at Chris’s shop. Also, two rabbits Buttons and Fluffy from another customer’s friend. Then Chris answered an advert for a run, but it came with 2 rabbits (!), brother and sister Nancy and Dodger. We bought a little hutch which also came with a guinea pig who we called Prince but later turned out to be Princess…… And rehomed a little boy guinea called Marley who lived in a beautiful gypsy caravan. We sadly lost a few friends along the way. Bernie, Zelda, Spice, Fluffy, Daisy, Jemima, Charlie, Wiggy, Coffee and Lily all departed and are very much missed. Dodger got in with his sister Nancy and on 13 February she had 6 baby rabbits. They went to new owners, but little Peach stayed and is a great companion to Oreo who lost her mum Zelda in the spring of 2022. 2 of the babies, Roger and Reggie came to stay for a week when their new owners went on holiday in the summer, so Nancy got to see her boys again. We decided, because of his crazy behaviour, that it would be a good idea for Roger to get the snip and he did so on Valentine’s day 2022, the day after Nancy surprised us with his children! We don’t think it worked properly as not only has he not calmed down much in his behaviour but after a little play in the garden with Nancy in the summer, we were away on holiday when Chris’s nieces Monica and Chloe rang to tell us there were 4 babies just born in a nest in Nancy’s hutch! We’ve decided to let the girls stay with Nancy and if there are any boys, we will find a new home for them. So, we now have 14 rabbits and 12 guinea pigs. 2 new little girl guineas were rehomed to us this week called Freda and Freddie and yesterday a beautiful black and white boy made his way from the wild into some flats off the Avenue and after a few calls Chris took him in and he’s settling with us for 2 weeks until his owners or a potential new owner takes him. All the hutches are sheltered under cover and get wrapped warmly in the cold weather. We let them out for runs around the garden every day and the guineas go out in covered runs, we enjoy putting them in a herd so they can mingle. They get checked and groomed regularly and thanks to our Olio collections and veg donations from friends, family and neighbours they have a variety of greens for them daily. We have a happy animal family and enjoy their wonderful little personalities.
Welcome to Rusty's Retreat. 
