CogGirl
New Born Pup
Hey all!
I'm CogGirl, aka Emma; some of you'll already know me from the Introductions page or from Facebook, but for the uninitiated I'm 27, Welsh and relatively-recent mama to five beautiful baby guinea-girls; Lagertha, Siggy and Auslag moved in on Jan 19th, and Thorunn and Helga joined the family on Jan 26th. The other pig-parent in the household is my better half, aka the minion, who will occasionally be featuring in these posts as well
I've seen a lot of people (more on Facebook than here, granted) asking questions along the lines of "It's day three since I adopted my pig and he still won't come to greet me; why doesn't he like being petted?". While this is not meant to be a criticism of any enthusiastic new owner, or a 'best way to do things' (and, indeed, I more than welcome suggestions / criticism from more knowledgeable cavvy-wranglers) I thought it would be helpful to keep a record of how our girls are settling in, both to show that it's a slow process and to prove that patience is rewarded. I'll be aiming to update sort-of-daily to keep track of how they're progressing.
Admins: feel free to move this if it's in the wrong place; this seemed like the best spot.
----
General things we have been doing: initially we tried to disturb the girls as little as possible to let them settle in; for the first few days we fed them in the hutch (we keep them indoors in a converted hen-coop, and have a playpen we can put up around it) and just sat outside talking quietly. We also put some small pouches made from fleecy socks we'd been wearing in the run up to getting the girls in with them, so they'd get used to our smell.
Now the girls get their evening feed at 6.30pm (they also get fresh hay and pellets at 8am (before I go to work) and midnight (when they go back in the hutch)). The run goes up, the doors open. Myself and the minion will sit in the pen for a while, talking and generally letting them run around us while we spotclean. We'll also handfeed them (carrot sticks, green beans and crispy lettuce leaves are particular favourites), and then leave them be for the rest of the evening (with the run still up and their food set in it) through until about midnight.
----
Feb 7th 2015
Lagertha / Siggy / Auslag - Day 19
Thorunn / Helga - Day 12
The girls now very definitely know when dinner is; I was about 15 mins later serving them tonight, and was greeted by a chorus of curious pops and wheeks when I set the run up.
Helga is the bravest of my furbabies; she's reached the point where she's curious and confident enough to try taking little nibbles of my fingertips and knuckles, and will quite happily sit and munch something I'm holding. Auslag comes a close second; she's not nibbling me yet.
Siggy is very much the alpha of the herd, and likes to remind everyone of it by joining in on whatever they're eating, so long as she doesn't brush against me; as soon as she smells skin she scarpers.
Thorunn is still super-nervous, but she's now happy to take beans from my hand (provided she can then run off with them, she won't sit and eat them while I'm holding them like Helga does), usually if someone else has already started eating she'll join in. Lagertha is the only one who won't take them; she waits for someone else to bring one back and steals it from them.
None of them are happy being petted yet; they tend to run off whenever my hand moves towards them. Picking them up is still definitely not something they're cool with; we've been using the tunnels and cuddle-cups to move them, as this seems to stress them out less.
Thinking next week I'll start laptime, but currently it feels very cruel because they're so nervous about being picked up; Helga will clamber up onto my shoulder when we're moving them, the others mostly try and burrow into our dressing gowns and squeak indignantly. Clean-out day is tomorrow, so they'll be sulking again after we have the audacity to move them.
I'm CogGirl, aka Emma; some of you'll already know me from the Introductions page or from Facebook, but for the uninitiated I'm 27, Welsh and relatively-recent mama to five beautiful baby guinea-girls; Lagertha, Siggy and Auslag moved in on Jan 19th, and Thorunn and Helga joined the family on Jan 26th. The other pig-parent in the household is my better half, aka the minion, who will occasionally be featuring in these posts as well
I've seen a lot of people (more on Facebook than here, granted) asking questions along the lines of "It's day three since I adopted my pig and he still won't come to greet me; why doesn't he like being petted?". While this is not meant to be a criticism of any enthusiastic new owner, or a 'best way to do things' (and, indeed, I more than welcome suggestions / criticism from more knowledgeable cavvy-wranglers) I thought it would be helpful to keep a record of how our girls are settling in, both to show that it's a slow process and to prove that patience is rewarded. I'll be aiming to update sort-of-daily to keep track of how they're progressing.
Admins: feel free to move this if it's in the wrong place; this seemed like the best spot.
----
General things we have been doing: initially we tried to disturb the girls as little as possible to let them settle in; for the first few days we fed them in the hutch (we keep them indoors in a converted hen-coop, and have a playpen we can put up around it) and just sat outside talking quietly. We also put some small pouches made from fleecy socks we'd been wearing in the run up to getting the girls in with them, so they'd get used to our smell.
Now the girls get their evening feed at 6.30pm (they also get fresh hay and pellets at 8am (before I go to work) and midnight (when they go back in the hutch)). The run goes up, the doors open. Myself and the minion will sit in the pen for a while, talking and generally letting them run around us while we spotclean. We'll also handfeed them (carrot sticks, green beans and crispy lettuce leaves are particular favourites), and then leave them be for the rest of the evening (with the run still up and their food set in it) through until about midnight.
----
Feb 7th 2015
Lagertha / Siggy / Auslag - Day 19
Thorunn / Helga - Day 12
The girls now very definitely know when dinner is; I was about 15 mins later serving them tonight, and was greeted by a chorus of curious pops and wheeks when I set the run up.
Helga is the bravest of my furbabies; she's reached the point where she's curious and confident enough to try taking little nibbles of my fingertips and knuckles, and will quite happily sit and munch something I'm holding. Auslag comes a close second; she's not nibbling me yet.
Siggy is very much the alpha of the herd, and likes to remind everyone of it by joining in on whatever they're eating, so long as she doesn't brush against me; as soon as she smells skin she scarpers.
Thorunn is still super-nervous, but she's now happy to take beans from my hand (provided she can then run off with them, she won't sit and eat them while I'm holding them like Helga does), usually if someone else has already started eating she'll join in. Lagertha is the only one who won't take them; she waits for someone else to bring one back and steals it from them.
None of them are happy being petted yet; they tend to run off whenever my hand moves towards them. Picking them up is still definitely not something they're cool with; we've been using the tunnels and cuddle-cups to move them, as this seems to stress them out less.
Thinking next week I'll start laptime, but currently it feels very cruel because they're so nervous about being picked up; Helga will clamber up onto my shoulder when we're moving them, the others mostly try and burrow into our dressing gowns and squeak indignantly. Clean-out day is tomorrow, so they'll be sulking again after we have the audacity to move them.