Thought it was about time I made a dedicated ongoing thread about my herd.
First, a little about me. I’m Hannah, 28. Originally from the U.K. But moved to Australia with my boyfriend in September 2018. Animals are the biggest passion in my life, I love all creatures great and small. I take great joy in being around and caring for them. Small animals make my heart melt with cuteness and larger animals are my fantastic companions. I have 3 horses, 2 of which are Australian Brumbies which I trained from the wild. Other than animals I enjoy occasionally doing crafts such as sewing for the piggies or a little bit of painting. I’m also not too bad in the kitchen, I’m a vegan cook.
Enough about me! Who cares!We’re here for the Guinea sqwigs!
First up I’ll introduce Olive and Opal. My first 2 pigs here in Aus. I went with a friend to rescue a few pigs from a bad situation, I was still on a working holiday visa so wasn’t going to keep them..just bring them back to health and find them good homes. We got to the house and was shocked at the conditions the 30+ guinea pigs where living in. They were in a small outdoor aviary along with lots of finches. All of the Guineas where Underweight and covered in sores from mites, fighting and dirt from the birds. They were breeding non stop and living in a very stressful situation. They were ONLY fed carrots. No hay, no pellets no grass. Just carrots.
We took 5 adults and 4 week old babies. And got out of there fast. I cried the second I got in the car. It was awful to leave the rest behind. We reported him to the RSPCA.
I took on 2 adults (young, I’m guessing where maybe 8-12 months old?) whom I named Olive and Opal.
They were very skittish and scared, But clearly delighted with the abundance of food they suddenly had available. They couldn’t get enough of the hay they’d been deprived of all there life. I treated them for their mites and skin condition, Fed them good quality pellets, vegetables and love. In a clean and quiet environment.
In just a few weeks they were starting to recover well.
Olive and Opal have now had a home with me for a year and a half, they are still shy but full of personality. I don’t tend to give them lap time very often as they don’t enjoy it. But they love floortime and it’s great pleasure to watch them happily and healthily popcorn and play. Olive is at the bottom of the pecking order but she has a temper! She loves to tell Patrick off and boss him about. Opal tells Olive to get out the way quite often in which Olive does as she’s told straight away. But they are still good friends and look to each other when worried.
Olive day
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Opal day 1:
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The girls now..
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and happy ones in just a few minutes! Keep up your amazing good work x
Opal!I just got a photo of the herd!
Unfortunately no Wilma in it because she’s not friends with them yetView attachment 131720View attachment 131721
That face will definitely control me in terms of treats! 
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. Patrick looks very similar to my very first guinea pig Rodney (short for Rodney the Rodent haha) many many years ago (long before you were even a twinkle in your parents' eyes 
). The warmest ours have ever experienced is 28 degrees and all they tend to do then is lay with their little legs stuck out. I also put them onto woodchip as I feel it's cooler for them than fleece. Our piggies live in my 13 year old son's bed room. They don't seem to mind teenage boy bedroom smell 
but guess they don't know any different as they've grown with it as we've had them for 3 years. We don't have an air conditioning unit but do have a floor standing pillar fan so I fill empty 2 litre soda bottles with water & freeze them and then place them in their cage and aim the fan at them. The girls move to be in front of the cool air. Your blog has been lovely to read. I look forward to reading more
Love the picture of an annoyed Opal!
. But I guess it’s not an option try bonding them now? It may stress her out and cause her to become sick(er). I can’t just try her with one of the others as that isn’t fair on them to take them away from their friends and then to loose their new friend and then go back to their old friends which may cause a fall out!
I’m feeling really guilty that Wilma hasn’t got any friends
A week after I got Wilma I tried bonding her with the herd, I made a neutral, clean pen and put her and Mary in first to see how they go and then slowly add the others. However it stopped there as Wilma and Mary where very hostile to each other and it ended in a fight before I quickly separated them. I decided to wait 4 weeks until I tried again. But of course since then, Wilma has been diagnosed with incurable cancer . She’s possibly only got a few weeks left.
But when I have her out for floortime or the others out and she’s in. She chews on the bars as though she wants to be with them, And tries to scratch her way out. It’s making me feel really awful. Before the diagnosis I had already thought if she still didn’t get along with the herd I’d find her her own friend. But of course I can’t do that now. I don’t want her to die alone
Poor Wilma, she’s so active tonight during her floortime, it would be lovely to watch her have fun with a piggy friend
She can smell, talk and sniff the others through the grid but that’s not good enough
My partner thought Patrick was dying/fitting the other day because he was sleeping like that but he was also twitching.. Then he shot up and started eating..so he must have just been dreaming!I can see exactly what you mean about Patrick
