My guineas

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Struppi was not my guinea. I looked after Struppi and her 2 cagemates at my place for a week or 2 in the autumn while their owners were away. Unfortunately the owners had them in a far too small cage which was outside and quite flimsy, not secure against wild animals. I tried to interest the owners in bigger, more secure accommodation to no avail. I have personal reasons for not wanting to report them. One of the owners told me on the weekend they now only have two. Struppi had 'disappeared'. They live on a farm and I presume a fox took poor Struppi. I hope she went into shock and died fast. RIP Struppi.

I help out at the farm sometimes and I'd go over and talk to the guineas and sometimes feed them by hand one blade after another, tho Struppi was too nervous to take any, but her cagemates would. Struppi got lots of greens especially grass and good-quality hay, but otherwise I don't think Struppi had the best life. The cage was too small for 2 guineas far less 3. There weren't enough hidies - just two - one on top of another. Fortunately the guineas were/are all young enough to jump high to get into the second one. Struppi was the bottom of the pecking order, the other two are mother and daughter. Struppi is possibly happier on the other side of Rainbow Bridge running around the huge and safe guinea meadows than she ever was in this life.
This farming family was going to leave the guineas out last winter but after I suggested they lend me the guineas over the winter, they grabbed a heart and maybe some common sense and put the guineas inside for the winter. Otherwise they all would have died of cold or been taken by a passing predator. That's the only reason I offered to take them for what could have been up to 4-5 months. Due to my own chronic health problems, it would have been a difficult stretch for me.

I'm not distraught the way I used to be when my own guineas died, but I'm sad for Struppi and it's just such a shame the farming family didn't take my knowledge of guinea pig needs seriously. There's easily the ability and materials and tools on the farm to construct large, secure guinea housing.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I'm not very good at attachments etc so by the time I found a photo of the farm guineas and attached it I didn't have time the save the title I gave it. So, in the post above you can see Molly (left) and Elli (right). In between them you can see a little nose poking out of the hidey - all you can see of Struppi.
_______________





Here you can't see too much of Struppi either - she's in the top left-hand corner under a hidey which has a roof and posts at the corners, so you can see her nose but also her beige flank. She had rosettes.

I'll re-post the photo somewhere at some point and introduce the rest of the guineas as well.

 

[h_and_piggies]

Sorry for your loss. Sadly, too many people see small animals as ‘less’. I’m glad that Struppi had you look out for them and have their best interest at heart. Sleep tight Struppi

 

[Merab]

Run free Struppi.
Glad you were able to help with some guidance.
Holding you in my thoughts

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Struppi came back ALIVE

@Merab @h_and_piggies @Lorcan @fluffysal @Qualcast&Flymo

Apparently she'd escaped from her outside run and headed into an outbuilding where she lived for a week, sneaking out to graze on grass, before her owners cottoned on and started leaving food for her in the outbuilding (just as well, it's winter, cold, wet, sometimes snowy). Then the owners managed to catch her and put her back in her cage, now indoors with the farming family for the winter. Lucky Struppi, survived her adventure. Very surprising. The door to the outbuilding doesn't close properly, the farm cats roam in and out, foxes could come in easily, and in fact during Struppi's adventurous week the little gaggle of farm geese were attacked twice. Those the fox didn't get are now in the freezer, tho the farmers had wanted to keep a mating pair till next year. Such is farm life. Fortunately, actual pets like the dog and guineas do not get put in the freezer when in danger.

I was overjoyed to hear Struppi is alive after all. I was told by the other family on the farm. Struppi's owner remains a little in the huff with me for suggesting the guineas would be better off in bigger, more secure accommodation.

So I'll flag my post ask a Mod to move my thread elsewhere

Dear Mods,
Sorry to make extra work but could you please move this thread to Chat / Guinea Pig Chat and entitle it: My Guineas
Feel free to amalgamate posts 2 and 3 (with the photos). I suppose it would make sense to delete the whole of post 1.
I will be adding more to the thread, as I have a long history of guineas!
Thank you.

 

[Claire W]

I’ve just seen your thread and my heart initially sank but I’m so pleased for the happy update that beautiful Stuppi has come home x

P.s I’ve just asked the mods to move your thread for you For future reference this can be done by clicking on the report button which is in the bottom left hand corner of the reply box x

 

[Piggies&buns]

Reports seen and move and new title made as requested.
I’ve left the post 1 in place as otherwise post 6 won’t make sense.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Reports seen and move and new title made as requested.
I’ve left the post 1 in place as otherwise post 6 won’t make sense.

Thank you so much @Piggies&buns
It's fine the way you did it, I wasn't sure exactly.

 

[weepweeps]

I’m so pleased Stuppi has returned.

 

[fluffysal]

Great news about Struppi, she's obviously a survivor.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

View attachment 261121

Here you can't see too much of Struppi either - she's in the top left-hand corner under a hidey which has a roof and posts at the corners, so you can see her nose but also her beige flank. She had rosettes.

I'll re-post the photo somewhere at some point and introduce the rest of the guineas as well.

So, introducing the rest: top left-hand corner, once again: Struppi 'returned from the dead'
In the same cage bottom: Elli, the boss and mother of Molly, one cage bottom over with similar marking.
Below Molly you will see a fairly chunky toffee-and-white piggy with a darker brown nose. This is Rufus (the Red), mistakenly also referred to as The Emperor (Kaiser).

It was a bit cheeky of me to add Rufus Kaiser, a neutered boar from the local rescue, especially from the perspective of information on this forum. (It's interesting how the views on guineas and guinea care and guinea behaviour vary by country or maybe by language). Anyway, Struppi, Elli and Molly are not my guineas, they were just boarding, but I got help from the local rescue very soon after they moved in because they drove me up the wall in their too-small-cage. Squeaking and squealing and screaming and constantly bullying Struppi. I also felt sorry for them. First I moved them into the bathroom on all sorts of fleeces and mats and in hideys and tunnels and what-not so they'd have enough space to run in. It took about an hour for them to dare. I have a lovely picture of them in my mind racing around the toilet base, it was hilarious. After they explored all this space and got used to having so much space, I didn't have the heart to move them back into their cage, so I asked the local rescue for help and they brought extra cages to expand their space. I hadn't expected this would involve leaving the cages open, but it worked. None of the piggies jumped out during the rest of their stay. They galloped from one cage bottom to the next, like a horse doing hurdles. Particularly Molly was very taken with Rufus, she'd lie on a roof of a hidey and lean over the edge to nuzzle his fur, Elli was pretty interested too, tho she tended to urine-spray his face if he got too interested. Struppi didn't like him though, she was always chasing him away.

Since I don't have my own guineas anymore, I spent a lot of time in those 2 weeks sitting by the guineas in their expanded cage or before that sitting in the bathroom doorway, watching their escapades and allowing them to come up and explore me. It felt so sweet when their little paws ran over my bare feet, but also their little noses checking me out... And hand-feeding blade of grass by blade of grass. Even Struppi learnt to take food out of my fingers, which she doesn't when I try and feed her at the farm.

When the farmers came home from holiday, their three girls went back to them and Rufus returned to the rescue and has since been adopted out to his forever home, I hope he was given to a sow or a whole harem of them who appreciated him. The Rescue and I wouldn't have allowed Rufus to move to the farm without their accommodation being made bigger and safer anyway. The rescue offered them help with this, but alas the farm wasn't interested. Elli, Molly and Struppi's owners are going away over Xmas/New Year - maybe I will be able to look after them again in my expanded cage, it depends on whether anybody else actually living on the farm would be willing to look after the guineas over the holidays.

Fun fact: In Germany, guinea parents are called either 'Two-Leg' or 'Cucumber-Donators'

 

[Merab]

So, introducing the rest: top left-hand corner, once again: Struppi 'returned from the dead'
In the same cage bottom: Elli, the boss and mother of Molly, one cage bottom over with similar marking.
Below Molly you will see a fairly chunky toffee-and-white piggy with a darker brown nose. This is Rufus (the Red), mistakenly also referred to as The Emperor (Kaiser).

It was a bit cheeky of me to add Rufus Kaiser, a neutered boar from the local rescue, especially from the perspective of information on this forum. (It's interesting how the views on guineas and guinea care and guinea behaviour vary by country or maybe by language). Anyway, Struppi, Elli and Molly are not my guineas, they were just boarding, but I got help from the local rescue very soon after they moved in because they drove me up the wall in their too-small-cage. Squeaking and squealing and screaming and constantly bullying Struppi. I also felt sorry for them. First I moved them into the bathroom on all sorts of fleeces and mats and in hideys and tunnels and what-not so they'd have enough space to run in. It took about an hour for them to dare. I have a lovely picture of them in my mind racing around the toilet base, it was hilarious. After they explored all this space and got used to having so much space, I didn't have the heart to move them back into their cage, so I asked the local rescue for help and they brought extra cages to expand their space. I hadn't expected this would involve leaving the cages open, but it worked. None of the piggies jumped out during the rest of their stay. They galloped from one cage bottom to the next, like a horse doing hurdles. Particularly Molly was very taken with Rufus, she'd lie on a roof of a hidey and lean over the edge to nuzzle his fur, Elli was pretty interested too, tho she tended to urine-spray his face if he got too interested. Struppi didn't like him though, she was always chasing him away.

Since I don't have my own guineas anymore, I spent a lot of time in those 2 weeks sitting by the guineas in their expanded cage or before that sitting in the bathroom doorway, watching their escapades and allowing them to come up and explore me. It felt so sweet when their little paws ran over my bare feet, but also their little noses checking me out... And hand-feeding blade of grass by blade of grass. Even Struppi learnt to take food out of my fingers, which she doesn't when I try and feed her at the farm.

When the farmers came home from holiday, their three girls went back to them and Rufus returned to the rescue and has since been adopted out to his forever home, I hope he was given to a sow or a whole harem of them who appreciated him. The Rescue and I wouldn't have allowed Rufus to move to the farm without their accommodation being made bigger and safer anyway. The rescue offered them help with this, but alas the farm wasn't interested. Elli, Molly and Struppi's owners are going away over Xmas/New Year - maybe I will be able to look after them again in my expanded cage, it depends on whether anybody else actually living on the farm would be willing to look after the guineas over the holidays.

Fun fact: In Germany, guinea parents are called either 'Two-Leg' or 'Cucumber-Donators'

Love the name ‘Cucumber donators’

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Love the name ‘Cucumber donators’

I love the pic of who I presume is your RB guinea Merab in your avatar!

 

[Merab]

I love the pic of who I presume is your RB guinea Merab in your avatar!

Yes, that is Merab.



A beautiful fluffy aby mix

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

It's the way her nose is pointing up in your avatar - so sweet. And her pink lips, ever so slightly skee-wiff, as if she's about to start that sideways chewing guineas do

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Unfortunately, I'm way way way behind in technology and photography. Way way behind. The only photos I have are the odd ones taken by somebody else for me or ancient ones on film.

WARNING: Most of the guineas on this thread are guineas now happily munching in the Eternal Guinea Pig Meadows. I still like to think of them. But if that bothers anybody, then please don't read further. I don't want to put them on the Rainbow Bridge thread because none of their passing is recent. I'm not grieving for them anymore.

So, here's Amelie, a fighter if ever there was one.

She came to me at about the age of 3.5, with severe bumblefoot.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Amelie with husboar Charlie and female companion Cora.
This is the photo of them taken by the sort-of-rescue place they were in. Through great luck I managed to speak to the original cucumber donators and found out their history, which helped very much with Amelie and her bumblefoot. The sort-of-rescue place was the original breeders of Amelie and Cora; Charlie came from another breeder.

I adopted this trio just after the Pandemic really got going and before we went into massive lockdown, as company, in case our lockdown was like in Italy or Spain where people weren't allowed to leave the house at all. Living alone, I couldn't imagine going thru months of that. I would've been happy to take some really ancient piggies instead, but there weren't any to be had in Rescues at that time around this area. I was lucky to find this little group, all bonded already. Their cucumber donator had been a little girl about 11yo maybe, who'd developed a severe allergy to hay which got worse and worse till eventually her parents decided for their daughter's health and against the guineas, tho the whole family was devastated. They lit on the bright idea of asking the breeder of the two girls if she'd take them + Charlie back and integrate them into her own group, which she agreed to do and then put them on Internet classified ads. I can understand the breeder not being able or willing to take them back, but I don't like her having said she would and not doing so.

The breeder agreed I could adopt them, then tried to give me a different husboar instead of Charlie, but I won out. You can see in the pics that there are some fur/skin issues with the ladies. The breeder came out with all sorts of ludicrous diagnoses, also for Amelie's bumblefoot. All wrong, some of the diagnoses didn't even exist (!)

Charlie was a real sweetie and quite a handsome boy. There's even a pigture of him all by himself. He'd slink around his ladies, purring from time to time.
Cora was unusual, for me anyway: dark skin and white fur! Dark claws too unfortunately, making claw-clipping extra difficult. She could be a bit aloof from her guinea mates, Amelie and Charlie would be together a bit more.

Their original owners brought me their massive accommodation, which was on two levels and had plexiglass along the front and one side. My original accommodation, made by carpenter, was pretty good, but not quite as good. All of them, even Amelie with her bumblefoot loved to stand up against the plexiglas with their paws on top, begging. Sometimes, I'd lean over and left them snuffle in my face or hair. Usually I'd just sit and talk to them and of course feed hay blade by hay blade.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Getting a little teary-eyed since reading about ughabbie's Moose and dental problems. Amelie had dental problems too and I didn't manage to catch them in time, due to own health problems, fatigue etc. Which is one reason why I don't have my own piggies any more tho happy to pig-sit. Believe me, the farm guineas never get weighed at home. So I didn't stress with that when they were here either.

Anyway by the time I was at vet's with Amelie about her back teeth, she was too weak to recover from severe under-eating i.e. starving. The vet snipped her back teeth w/o anaesthetic because I knew 6yo Amelie wouldn't recover from that. Amelie held still, good as gold, but didn't get back to eating properly. Died that night. Undoubtedly I tried with Critical Care with which I always have difficulties. Applying the amount of force (not much is it?) to hold guinea still and feed/clip claws/whatever = violence in my psyche = trauma = no-can-do, need-help = severe triggering for me (both the no-can-do and pressure=violence). Have expressed in therapy, problem lessened but didn't go away.

Poor Amelie, tho I know she's in her happy place now. She was such a fighter with her bumblefoot too. She outlived Charlie and Cora, tho Charlie came to me perfectly healthy and Cora just had the same skin problem as Amelie and recovered fast once diagnosed and in treatment.

After Charlie died, I got a Leihmeerschweinchen, 'guinea on loan' from the local rescue. Not being the most inventive with guinea names, I called him Little Mr. Sexbomb for quite a while, since I didn't like the name he was given in the rescue, but eventually settled on Arthur. He was, of course, neutered long before he left the rescue! He went straight back after Amelie died and got paired with a sow called Torti, which is like being called 'Cream Cake' - she was on the large size, and I presume the rambunctious and energetic Arthur helped her reduce her waistline somewhat. I'm not sure if I even have a photo of Arthur, just have him in my mind's eye in various poses, tho mostly running or paying attention to his lovely ladies.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I have found 3 photos of Arthur, but can't figure out how to copy them off the email attachment or download it. Tho I usually can do that! This one's tricky though. A shame, Arthur might be a candidate for the Lesser Stripey Nose Club. otoh he isn't mine anymore, tho presumably still alive.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Photos, files, paper are all a bit overwhelming atm so I'm just going to write tidbits about previous guineas of mine, as they occur to me. Some other time I hope to manage pics, tho some of my pigs date from before digital photos. Usually something another mbr on here wrote reminds me.

I had a little boar, must've been Rubi, I think, aka Rubi-Cubi, Rubix-Cubix, who got so excited about his lady, Poppet, that he couldn't walk straight while rumble-strutting, which he did most of the time. Walking thru his shavings, he'd end up squirming and squiggling on his side, with his paws in all directions. He used to jump onto a wooden hidey roof and rumble-strut sideways and backwards till he fell off, repeatedly. Falling off didn't bother him at all, he just jumped straight back up and rumble-strutted till he fell off again. Oh to be young with no fear of bone-breaks!

It was hilarious. Poppet was quite often in the hidey, ignoring him.

Then there was Snowy, Rubi's son, who jumped out of his cage through a little gate I had for them in the bars. Unfortunately, he didn't wait for me to put the ramp in and went straight out, nose down, and ended up with his back feet hooked over the bars and his head pointing down. Poor Snowy. I helped him out and took him to the vet's the next day. Fortunately no broken bones, tho probably bruises that we couldn't see. He was more cautious after that, when exiting thru side gate before floor time. It was my fault tho for not keeping my hand over gate opening before hooking ramp in.

Snowy was born on a very snowy March day. We had heaps of snow that winter. He looked like a little snowball with a little brown nose, so that's how he got his name.

I had a little rescue girl called Rapunzel (she didn't have long braids to hang out a tower room ;-) ), who came as a baby. She simply loved her hammock. She'd throw herself in headlong and squirm and wriggle, half on her back, half on her tummy with legs and paws in all directions, a bit like Rubi and his rumble-strutting, except she was clever enough to never fall out of her hammock.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I've been seeing so many posts recently about guineas going over the rainbow bridge. I want to show my support and write something, but find I can't. It's too much. It's one of the reasons I stopped keeping guineas before Corona - I just couldn't bear the pain of them dying. Now I seem not to be able to even share ever so briefly in others' pain and write that I'm sorry.

I was interested to read in some of the masses of very useful information from Wiebke that people can get ptsd from their pets dying. That explains a lot. Particularly because I already have cptsd due to family-of-origin childhood stuff. And then all my own guilt at not being able to handle my guineas as well as others can, like with syringe feeding etc which lack of is unfortunately influenced by my own cptsd and then feeling like a failure, even tho knowing I did the best I could. It all kind of multiplied, every time.

Anyway, as an antidote I figured I'd at least try and list my guineas, who are all in the eternal meadows. (Struppi and mates upthread are not mine.)

In my childhood I had Pinny (pinny guinea - I was still at a rhyming age apparently), a short-haired, smooth-haired girl, almost all black with just a stripe of white and one of tan on her face. I got her for my 7th birthday, back in the 70's. She came from the petshop. After a while we noticed she looked as if she had paniers either side... We kept her daughter Squeaky (also smooth, short-haired but with the very common brown face and rear with white band in the middle - or possibly vice versa, long time ago now) and gave her son Fluffy (white and grey with rosettes) to neighbours. He lived on his own, poor fellow though he made it to 4yo as far as I remember and my girls only made it to 3yo. One summer we were away and couldn't find any neighbourhood children to look after them. My mother didn't want to 'bother' an adult. We knew the petshop would board so that's where my piggies went, and died of stress.

My parents got me a new guinea, since it hadn't been my fault. I called her Tiddly, and she was pretty crazy. In retrospect, she'd probably been taken from her mother far, far too early. Even my mother said that at the time. She was very particular about which people she liked/put up with - me, my mother and my elder brother, tho once when I was passing my brother she took a flying leap into my arms. She also liked to be tipped onto her back to lie in my hands. She seemed to want that, it wasn't something I tried out for fun or anything. Never had a guinea before or after who did that. Later we got her a mate from the local SPCA, for my younger brother who named his piggy Gregory, after Gregory Guinea Pig from the Rupert books. Well, of course they had babies - it was planned, actually. Fortunately, a boy and a girl, so the boy Itchy, so named because about the first he did after birth was sit and have a good scratch, moved in with his dad and the girl Munch lived with her mum. Munch so named because one of the first things she did was try and eat adult guinea food - probably oats out of the dish. There were an awful lot of things we didn't know then about guinea care. I remember there were cubes of hard-packed alfalfa maybe about 4 times the size of normal dice, which we often bought at the petshop, supposedly to wear their teeth down. I suppose it was kind of hay-like, but alfalfa is something you can feed your farm animals, like milk cows, but it's not for guineas. Normal hay was a treat from time to time. Unfortunately, when you're just a child you can't change your parents' attitudes to pets... My guineas were very, very important to me tho! Little life-savers for me. Of those 4, Munch and Gregory lived the longest, they both might have been about 5yo. Tiddly was especially important to and for me because she was such a one-person guinea. She put up with my mother and one brother, but it was really me that she was most crazy about - or with whom and for whom she did all those crazy things. We got a labrador puppy (also SPCA) shortly after Tiddly and she accepted Tiddly and later guineas as part of the family. The only dangerous thing she sometimes did was drop presents, like tennis balls into their cage. She did occasionally try their food and found lettuce most peculiar, tho oats etc were apparently edible at least. Lettuce - what is this thing hanging out of my mouth?

Much later we adopted two more from the SPCA - Meggie and a male, George I think, but we only kept Meggie for the summer and then passed her onto other people. Back then the SPCA was fine with that, at least as far as small animals were concerned, I don't know about dogs and cats. We kept both for the summer and kept them separate so they'd have a good time out on the lawn. Actually back then the SPCA pts any excess animals for reasons of space. We didn't know if they pts guineas, but certainly dogs and cats, so we were looking for one guinea and decided to rescue both.

Of course pigtures would be much much more exciting on here! I have pigtures in my mind's eye tho even they have got a big hazy with time.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

...they got a BIT hazy with time.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I had a little boar, must've been Rubi, I think, aka Rubi-Cubi, Rubix-Cubix,

Actually writing something today about my piggies made me realise it was actually Robbie with Poppet. Robbie had a mask-like appearance on his face. So 'robber' / 'bank robber' led to Robbie.

Robbie was absolutely adorable. Unfortunately he died after neutering op. Developed an abscess, my misunderstanding of vet combined with feeling shame about going to vet's again like a hypochondriac ... (my own cptsd got in the way again). By the time I got him to the vet's, he was too weakened and they couldn't save him. Our vet even took him home overnight (same building as her practice!) but it wasn't to be. I was heart-broken, kept his and Poppet's babies, Snowy and Hughie, and started my career of two separate guinea groups: girls and boys. Then later husboar plus girls; 2 boys separate.

I wouldn't allow a guinea of mine to get pregnant now but back then - about 20 years ago - it was much, much harder to get a rescue guinea out in the boondocks, you had to be in a city; city rescues wouldn't adopt out beyond a certain distance of so many kilometres and local pet shops weren't good at all and animal shelters usually didn't have guineas and suggested going to pet shops.

Just to be clear, looking back it was a bad and unfair decision to get Poppet pregnant, especially learning over the years what all could have gone wrong.

 

[Roselina]

Actually writing something today about my piggies made me realise it was actually Robbie with Poppet. Robbie had a mask-like appearance on his face. So 'robber' / 'bank robber' led to Robbie.

Robbie was absolutely adorable. Unfortunately he died after neutering op. Developed an abscess, my misunderstanding of vet combined with feeling shame about going to vet's again like a hypochondriac ... (my own cptsd got in the way again). By the time I got him to the vet's, he was too weakened and they couldn't save him. Our vet even took him home overnight (same building as her practice!) but it wasn't to be. I was heart-broken, kept his and Poppet's babies, Snowy and Hughie, and started my career of two separate guinea groups: girls and boys. Then later husboar plus girls; 2 boys separate.

I wouldn't allow a guinea of mine to get pregnant now but back then - about 20 years ago - it was much, much harder to get a rescue guinea out in the boondocks, you had to be in a city; city rescues wouldn't adopt out beyond a certain distance of so many kilometres and local pet shops weren't good at all and animal shelters usually didn't have guineas and suggested going to pet shops.

Just to be clear, looking back it was a bad and unfair decision to get Poppet pregnant, especially learning over the years what all could have gone wrong.

Times change and we learn so much more nowadays Mrs Tiggy Winkle - I know you did the best you could and what was right at that time -
Don’t have regrets ….you cared about your piggies and loved them and that’s all piggies want or need
I liked looking at your photos - such beautiful piggies

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Thank you @Roselina for your kind words. You're right, I did care about and love my piggies, very much so!
Partially I did want to make sure no newbies got any ideas (like: well Mrs T W did it, so...).

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

This is Emily. At the time of the photo she was an old lady with bumblefoot and I'd had to give her to a rescue. With me, she lived with husboar Snowy and Suzie. When Snowy died, Emily went kind of crazy and attacked all possible husboars. She didn't attack old Suzie, but she wasn't interested in her either - she just ignored her.

She was quite a character. She couldn't be bothered running down her ramp onto the ground floor of her Palace, so she jumped down, mostly via a wooden hidey, but at least once straight down, no step. Once she sat in the garden in her run eating buttercup leaves. These are actually poisonous, but I figured that by that age she knew what she was doing and needed some medicinal property in them, or something. She certainly seemed fine afterwards. If there had been only buttercup in the run, that would've been different, but choosing buttercup over grass, yeah OK. I was sure with Emily, and I was right.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Emily came to me with Suzie, I got them both from a rescue to go with husboar Snowy. The two girls were about 3.5 - 4 years. I can't remember exactly. Suzie and Snowy were very close and Emily tended to be a bit more independent, or at least it seemed that way, but then the way she fell apart after he died was something I've never had then or after with a guinea. She was quite 'difficult' in the rescue she went to as well, until they finally found a husboar who tamed her and taught her not to attack everybody. Before Snowy died, she wasn't difficult at all and didn't attack other guineas. I can still see in my mind's eye the way Emily trotted around inspecting things when out for a run.

Emily made it to 8 yo roughly, she remained at the final rescue place because of the bumblefoot she developed there and her new husboar was in the senior group anyway. Snowy and Suzie both had dental problems for a while and I fed them by hand, the teeniest, tiniest slivers of carrot and oatflakes. Emily did not need to be fed by hand, but she wanted it too. So I'd sit there, cutting normalish bits of carrot for her, but she'd still finish these before Snowy and Suzie got through their slivers. It was quite the job, balancing that. If Emily's piece was 'too big' she'd come to the front for a small piece and the attention that brought. My friends said my guineas had me wrapped around their little paws and I suppose that's right. It's just as well I didn't have any human children.

(I didn't know at that time that you shouldn't feed so much carrot - I only learnt that on this forum. Oatflakes aren't the best for guineas, but Snowy and Suzie were both very old and I let them eat what they wanted till the dental problem resolved itself, after the vet care. They did get back to normal eating.)

The picture down below is Snowy, when he still lived with and terrorised poor Woolly, a neutered boar.

 

[Roselina]

It’s lovely to read and see your past piggies Mrs Tiggy Winkle
We all have lovely memories of our piggies ….they leave their little paw marks on our hearts

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Here's little old Suzie, tho it's a much better shot of their Palace than anything else. You can see her little nose though. You can also see two ramps and in between a sort of guard rail which Emily jumped over, because it was less effort than using the ramp apparently. Once, the downstairs hidey wasn't there, so there was no roof to land on. She got a bit of a surprise, but it didn't harm her.

You can also see a grey tunnel with three openings. Something I got from a DIY store and stuffed with hay. They'd all sit around it, one guinea mouth per opening and gradually eat their way through. Bad photo, the Palace is not actually on a slant!