A.Sloan
Junior Guinea Pig
Below is our precious Tyrion (formerly known as ). I got a call from an acquaintance on Monday asking for me to take her daughter's guinea pig because she didn't want him anymore. We have three precious boys at home who I just got situated in a cage together so I was sort of scared to get another but more scared to leave him somewhere he wasn't wanted and my daughter had heard stories of how this girl mistreated another piggie she had... who I found out Monday had died. We went to "look" at him but I knew darn well I wasn't going to leave him there. I asked her what she was feeding him she said oh some guinea pig food from Wal-Mart and then I asked her if they had been feeding him hay and she said no we didn't know he needed it. OMG! She then said he was lucky if her daughter gave him water! He would wheek when he was out! It took all I had to hold it together. I took everything thing she had for him including the small cage he'd never been out of and extra bedding... thanked her and escaped with him. Well it felt like we were escaping with him. Poor little guy. Such a sweet personality and incredibly enough looked good despite his situation. His toenails were curled from not being cut so we trimmed them as best we could, he had bright eyes, great appetite, no drainage or signs of mites. We are newbies to piggies so trimming his nails was major for us, we were so afraid we'd hurt him, I had the flashlight out making sure we didn't get in the quick! Anyway we got him into a 3 x 4 C & C fleece bottom cage and took the plastic base off his old small cage and set it inside so he'd have something familiar and he could hop in and out of it to run around. After sniffing and sampling the big pile of hay I put in his cage he started to popcorn and race around. When I reached for the bag of cheap food he had been eating to mix with Oxbow I noticed a ragged hole in the side of the bag and realized it must have been beside his cage and he had to chew through it because he didn't get fed. I just started crying, how could anyone neglect this sweet thing? I gave him 1/2 of an Oxbow vitamin C tab, a urinary health tab and a small leaf of green lettuce to start with because he'd never had fresh anything I didn't want to shock his system. It's been three days of love, unlimited hay, water, good food, vitamin C and fresh veggies... his poo is now normal (it was sort of soft) & he is no longer shedding. I'm trying to get a good look at his teeth, he's eating fine but to be sure I found a vet 45 miles away and I'll take him next week for a once over to make sure I haven't missed anything and then we'll put him beside our other 3 to see how they might get on. I am utterly and completely in love with this little man and so glad we were the ones they called to come get him. I know it sounds harsh but that is the only thing they did right by him. I'll never understand why a parent would buy a pet for a child and not make sure that pet was looked after. This family is pretty wealthy too... no excuse for not being able to give him everything he needed...... What is wrong with people?
) but I think they are under 7 months. We got Sebastian at the end of June, Boomer 2 weeks later and Ferris about 2 weeks after Boomer. They squabble a little bit and I'm sure it'll get worse the older they get but they have a really big cage to get away from each other. It is "L'' shaped one wing is 2 x 5 with a loft and the other is 2 x 4. I'm going to expand it to 2 x 5. They have three of everything and a separate 1x2 kitchen off the main cage.
