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.