Wanganui Popcorn Pigs - Closed

28/05/2017

Hi all, I really am sorry for the lack of updates in a really, really long time. I am very slack and pretty forgetful for these kinds of things.

We have a little good news and a bit of really stressful news.

I never updated back when I had the male in with my entire herd. The good news is somehow only that 1 female got pregnant. So we haven't increased in numbers! We just have 9 left to rehome and its all over. It's crazy to think we're just down to the final 9.
The most recent and last rescue group came in almost 2 months ago back during the storm. One of the females came in a box with a male, although told that one box was males and the second box was females. She shows absolutely no signs of pregnancy as she's such a skinny wee bean so even though it has not been the full 2 months, I'm letting her off pregnancy watch as life has become so chaotic and stressful right now and it sees, they were only together in the box for travel as they could have been mixed up. I was told it was incredibly chaotic on their side of things as well.

Now for the stressful part. We are having to move again, and this time the amount of animals I have is a real issue. Not only will very, very few landlords allow me to keep as many animals as I do. My chinchillas are having to be rehomed and I'm not sure about the rabbits. I may be able to keep my rats and it's uncertain if 15 guinea pigs will be ok. Especially if I'm keeping them indoor, as landlords really don't like indoor animals. It is absolutely killing me as I swore on my life I would never rehome my animals, especially if it was due to not finding a home. My animals mean more than the world to me and if it was up to me, this would never have to happen.

So rehoming the 9 rescues I have is an incredibly important task. My mum wants me to sell them animates, but that is something I am not comfortable doing. So finding responsible homes is hugely important, otherwise I may need foster homes in a couple weeks.

The second issue is keeping them inside. Depending on if the home has a suitable area such as a garage or shed, my cages will work out, but if not, and if I can not afford other options, I will forced to rehome more because I can't house them. I'm working on finding a small shed I can purchase but I may need some funding help as I only have $300 and a decent shed that I'm looking for can be $1000 or more. I'm still working on researching my options.
If a shed doesn't work out, though that's my most favoured option, I'll need to be on the lookout for some cheap decent quality hutches.

The adoptable guinea pigs post will be updated through the week. We have 8 females, and 1 male available though getting decent photos of some of them is a huge chore!

26/03/2017

Hi all!
I'm working on designing my own website on guinea pig care. For this, I need stakeholder opinions. You guys are my main stakeholders so I'm coming here first.

The opinions will be based on design ideas and how you like websites formatted to make it easy to navigate and understand.

Let me know what makes you like a website, in the way that it has been designed and formatted.
Here are some websites that I personally have completed design research on, and I'd love to hear what you do and don't like about each. Be constructive.
https://www.petspalacecareguide.com
http://myhouserabbit.com/
http://www.guinealynx.info/healthycavy.html

Pet care information about a variety of small animals including: Guinea Pigs, Rabbits Hamsters and Gerbils. Learn how to provide your pets with the best care.

26/03/2017

Please read this post for information on out currently adoptable guinea pigs.
If you're interested in adopting any, please message the page and I'll answer as soon as I'm able. :)

We charge a $10 adoption fee per guinea pig to approved homes. Please ensure that you have completed adequate research into the care of guinea pigs and you know you are able to provide quality care of the entirety of their lives.
I am happy to give advice and help but I can not give the entire run down of guinea pig care in a message.
Here are some very informative, reliable websites you can use to help research if you have not done so already.
http://www.guinealynx.info
https://www.petspalacecareguide.com/guineapigcare

Please find details for each individual guinea pig under their photos. I'm happy to give further details, if there is anything I haven't mentioned. Feel free to ask :)

All females can go in pairs or groups together as they all get along well as a herd. I'm willing to send off singles if you already have one, or a group of females, they will be living with.

17/03/2017

I woke up with a feeling for babies today and I was right. Unfortunately it wasn't good news.

Our most heavily pregnant sow gave birth last night. She delivered 2 very, very big pups. They were both stillborn. It was heartbreaking to see that the mother had tried so hard to wake them up. She did very, very vigorous cleaning. So vigorous that she accidentally chewed right though the skin to the inside on one of them. It was pretty graphic and very upsetting. They both didn't have very much hair on the side facing up which also showed she did very vigorous cleaning. It was sad to see all her effort to clean them up didn't work.

Thankfully however, the mother is doing pretty well. With the litter she had previous, she had 5 little ones and she didn't have the energy to clean them off at all so they were all still in their sacks when I found them. She has more energy this morning and she came up to meet me at the door as she usually does. She was a little slower than usual but that does make sense since she did give birth.
She still has fat on her as if she is still pregnant. It's puzzling as I can't feel any pups inside of her. I'm getting my mum who trained as a vet in university to have a look at her soon and if we think anything is weird, it's off to the vet.
I'm delaying an immediate vet visit as she still has energy and is behaving normally, which is completely different to how she was last time and is a very good sign. If I had plenty of money to spare, I would be taking her immediately to be sure, but since everything appears normal, I feel no need to be spending $80 or so on a check up. She will be carefully watched but I'm just thankful she's ok and this won't ever have to happen to her again.

15/03/2017

Very soon we will be moving our guinea pigs inside and they will no longer be living outside, at least for the winter.

While our landlord doesn't allow animals inside the house, we're allowed them inside the garage. The garage has been turned into my animal room since the day we moved in.

Most people in the guinea pig community, more so around the world such as in America and the UK house their guinea pigs inside in what we call C&C cages. This means cubes and coroplast. The cubes used are actually meant to be used for shelving, but work perfectly to construct a fully customisable indoor cage.

Recently I stumbled across some of these grids in my dad's garage. I recognised them immediately and I was allowed to take them. This weekend I constructed my first C&C cage, using a tarpaulin as the base instead of coroplast.

I really love these cages and now that I've discovered where I can purchase more grids, I will be creating a huge enclosure for the herd. They will also now be bedded on fleece, instead of the plain ground and straw inside their hutch.

I'll be building a 5x10 enclosure, which comes to about 1.7x3.5 metres of space.
This will take 30 grids for the sides, and 50 for the roof because we have cats.
All the grids are only costing me $102, I will even have some left over that I won't be using!

If you have the space in your house, I greatly encourage investing in one of these homemade cages. They're super affordable and you can customise your own shapes and add multiple levels, providing you have grids to stabilise them. They're much, much cheaper than an outside hutch that provides only the bare minimum of space needed, if they even are big enough to meet housing requirements.

You can find the cubes required by searching "cube storage" on trademe. They'll be shown as wardrobes, but they're the same size and shape as the grids I've used in my cage. Although they are all solid, not wire, they work exactly the same.

Here's a picture of the cage I created over the weekend. 2x4 grids is the minimum size for a pair of guinea pigs, but bigger is always better if you have the space.

13/03/2017

We finally have 2 wee boys up for adoption. These guys have been here for a while, but they've been a little under condition so I've wanted to keep them longer till they were better.

Yogi, the golden agouti/white crested, was adopted in November, when he was about 1-2 months old. So he is about 6 months old now. I got him as a companion for one of my own older male as I had no other suitable males. Unfortunately they both had very dominant personalities and it wasn't a good match.
He's a very beautiful boy but is quite timid. I'm not able to dedicate a large amount of time to handle each guinea pig daily so he hasn't been handled as much as I would have liked to. Yogi is, however, friendly enough to know when you have food and he'll make his way up to say hi, though he really just wants the food! He'll need some love and time but taming is all part of the bonding process between pet and owner.

The cream agouti boy does not have a name as of yet. So you get to decide that all for yourself, though you are of course welcome to rename Yogi if you please.
This wee man was one of the pups from the rescue litters. He was born December the 18th.
Since I've been able to handle him from the day of birth, he's a much more friendly pig. He's very cheeky and is always waiting by the cage bars for a little scratch and pellet as a treat. He is such a lovely wee dude.

The black boy in one of Yogi's photos has already gone to a new home. He just happens to be in one of Yogi's nicer photos.

The pair will be $25 to an approved home. All money made from adoptions and donations goes towards various supplies for the animals.
Please message the page if you're interested in adopting. Viewing is welcome to see if the pair is right for you.

10/03/2017

UPDATE:
I admit that I did react to this news impulsively. I apologise to those I scared. There is no concrete evidence to support the fact that this is the new strain of virus being released. I acted upon the multiple sources I had seen posting about the release and sudden personal experiences on a virus that recently killed their rabbits.

I'd like to leave this here as a warning to those who own rabbits. I'd like for everyone to prepare for the likelihood of the virus being released in the future. We don't know how long we have, it could be a month to a year, more or less. Seeking out a suitable inside cage is a good start as rabbit will be much less exposed to a virus living inside rather than outside. While that is not all needed to prevent rabbits catching the virus, it's a good starter step. For the rabbit's safety, I encourage preparing.

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Dear rabbit owners! I have very important news for you all!

I know a few people here keep rabbits as well as guinea pigs, or know some people who keep rabbits so please do share this information.

A new strain of RCD has recently been released and I've found out as someone in Wanganui reported a case of losing 4 rabbits to it. The vet confirmed that it was a new strain.

This virus was released in order to lower the population of wild rabbits. As disgusting and inhumane as it sounds, the government has really done it. Many of us fought for it to be cancelled, or at least delayed until a vaccination was created and released to pet owners. Unfortunately we weren't even given notice that this was to release.

THE VIRUS IS AIRBORNE. This is hugely important. It can also be carried by flies. If you can move your rabbits inside, please do. And do update the vaccinations. Unfortunately the current RCD vaccination does not greatly prevent the new virus but it may give a chance at holding it off.

09/03/2017

Sounds about right!

Just 2 weeks of pregnancy watch left. 2 weeks and a day if we want to be really precise. I can't believe we haven't had any little ones left! They're really holding on but I'm definitely expecting pups soon. Especially from the huge girl I posted last weekend.

We're really hoping for small litters! Most girls don't really have an excessive amount of weight so I'm hoping it's just because they're only having small litters, and not that I've counted the dates wrong. They just don't seem to have the amount of pregnancy weight that I would expect and have had experience with in the past. But as I said, small litters are very welcome. What would be great news is if some of these girls are just a little chubby rather than pregnant. Though we do know that's pretty unlikely. I do know we will absolutely have some girls available in the next 2 weeks, and the rest following in 3-5 weeks.

Hold tight for updates! I know we're all excited to see the little ones and hear about good news for the tired old mothers.

04/03/2017

Just 3 weeks of pregnancy watch remaining!
I haven't done a proper count up but I'm pleased to announce that there are a good number of piggies who are not pregnant. At least, they aren't showing any pregnancy fat.

This is our most heavily pregnant female. Unfortunately this was also the girl who really struggled with giving birth last time. I was worried I would lose her as she had 5 stillborn pups and was incredibly lethargic. Thankfully she pulled through. She's in much better condition now and hopefully she will have much better luck this time.

I can't wait until this is all over and these girls never have to go through pregnancy again. Extra special care is being taken to ensure all guinea pigs are sexed correctly, but that one male was the only mistake I have made in the past so I'm confident we won't have this issue again.

21/02/2017

Here are most of the rescues we currently have with us. A few aren't listed as I couldn't get decent quality pictures without stressing them out too much. Some of them are still very nervous around people due to not having much human interaction.

None of these girls will be available for adoption or reserves until pregnancy watch is, or is almost, over. This is to avoid confusion and excessive waiting. I've found that about half of people keen on adopting, drop out without letting me know when they need to wait long periods of time. I have already made 2 reservations before I made the decision which is why there is the exception. I'm still putting the information out there however to show the piggies who will need a loving home in the future.

Some details, such as age, may not be accurate as I have no information on when they were born and there is no way to tell for certain. I did my best to guess based on the size they were when I first got them, and how long I've had them for.
Pregnancy is also not determined. There is no definite answer until they give birth, or pass the pregnancy watch end date. This is just given as an idea of who could be available for adoption sooner than others.
More details on the known history and personalities coming later.

18/02/2017

Sorry for the lack of updates in a long while.

We've calculated dates and all females will be off pregnancy watch on Saturday 25th of March.
We took the longest gestation period of 75 days, and added that to the latest date they were able to get pregnant. 9th of January was the day we discovered Neo and removed him from the herd.

Unfortunately it looks as though over half of the herd has become pregnant. It's crazy how such a minor mistake of sexing a single male guinea pig incorrectly can result in such disaster. Fortunately I am in a place where I will be able to provide for them all until they find homes and after this, none of these guinea pigs will be subject to breeding again. Lord knows they need a life long retirement of TLC and extra special love.

We will be expecting a baby boom within the next 5 weeks and I will keep you all posted. I'm hoping desperately that these pups will have a much better chance at survival due to the fact I have had them for the entirety of their gestation and have been able to provide the care and nutrients pregnant sows require.

I will not be taking reserves at the moment as from experience, I have had a lot of people drop out from adopting if they have to wait a long period of time.
In 2 or 3 more weeks I will begin adopting out some females who are not pregnant. As with only 2 weeks remaining for gestation, I can be confident in those who are and aren't carrying.
Those that are pregnant will come available some time after their pups have been weaned to ensure they are in good condition after having to provide for their offspring.