Foster pig gave birth last night!

[Wolfchan]

Hello all, I'm new to the board. I'm an RVT at a large animal shelter in California. Recently we had two pregnant guinea pigs surrendered. Unfortunately, after the first piggy gave birth she became defensive toward her sister, so I took the sister home to foster until the babies are weaned. Last night she gave birth to two beautiful boys and a perfect little girl. I have two potential homes lined up so I'm hoping to send the boars out together and the sow out with mama, as my shelter no longer has any vets comfortable neutering guinea pigs. (We used to neuter all the boys but our main small animal surgeon moved away and the others are *barely* getting used to doing rabbit spays and neuters.)

Anyways, I don't really have any questions at the moment, I'm just super excited to have this perfect little family in my home for the next three weeks. I'm also well aware that their current setup is too small, it's what the shelter had available to loan out. I'm helping my coworker who wants the boys get a nice C&C setup together and my friend who wants the girls has a great deal of experience in spoiling pets rotten, so they won't be cooped up fro very long.

Mama Hazel was born in September according to her former owner.




Here's the three little muffins! The agouti and white are the boys and the little PEW is the female.


Mama's little doppleganger.


Loving this white moustache he's got going...


Last but not least, the little girl!


Looks like the photos aren't working, but the links to the photos should work. Sorry about that!

[Lynx]

Wow, they are cute! I changed the "pics" tags to "img" tags. Only the "img" tags will work to display pictures.

[Wolfchan]

Aha, thank you!


I just had the joy of giving the piggies a sheet of crumpled brown paper and watching the littles nibble the edges while Hazel zipped in and out underneath it. I love how playful and easy to amuse they are!

[JX4]

We have a PEW! She was born to us when we had a boy we thought was a girl and babies came.

We still have the PEW; she is almost four years old now. We raised 4 babies (had six and rehomed the two boys, kept the four girls).

Seeing you PEW baby's pic made me do a double take as she looks just like ours did when she was born. We named ours Sugar. She is the largest of our "babies" now.

[Sef]

Oh my word! These are all so beautiful! Those pictures just started my morning off right.

[PooksiedAnimals]

So cute!

[Wolfchan]

JX4, I am unashamed to admit that the PEW is 150% my favorite. I developed a soft spot for PEW small animals when I saw how long they took to get adopted from my shelter compared to their more colorful brethren, and if I were in a position to keep some small animals permanently, little Lyra and mama Hazel would be staying forever.

[Sef]

I adore PEWs, too. It's so sad that they and other pink/ruby-eyed piggys have greater trouble getting adopted because of bias, misinformation and downright stupidity (I'll never forget a comment years ago from a prospective adopter who described PEWs as "evil-looking").

[JX4]

My daughters toyed with naming Sugar "Ebola" instead (she was born around the time of the Ebola scare) -- just so they could tell people "We have Ebola!!"

I nixed that idea.

Then they wanted to name her "Ghost," but I nixed that idea too. She is Sugar because she has such a sweet personality.

Sugar loves to be held, but it took her a few years to learn that nipping was not appreciated as a mode of showing affection by humans. I don't know why it took her so long to learn that, when it took the others less than a few months. She just licks now, like the others all do. But it took a lot of patience on my part to teach her by re-directing her when she tried to nibble and then profusely praising her when she (Finally!!) licked instead.

[BenjisMama]

Such sweet babies!