Newbie to CC and Piggies

[Buggie_00]

Hello all, I'm Casey and I live in SC. I guess I should share a little about myself and my piggies in this thread and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible, hopefully.

I live in SC with my husband Adam who is in the Navy and our two boys, Brett (6) and Jacob (15 months), we are having our third and LAST child in November and don't know the sex yet. Since my husbands schedule is changing every week and child care costs are insane here I'm a stay at home Mommy. Before I left my job I worked as a phlebotomist in a hospital in Florida (we moved here just before I had Jake). We will be moving to a bigger home in the next few months to accomodate our growing family. Besides our piggies we have 2 female cats that are the same age as Jacob. We found them while visiting family and found homes for all of their siblings too, they were just barely 8 weeks old at the time.

I had guineas as a child and apparently my parents didn't do research into how to care for them and I just read a few basic books. According to all the things I've learned in the last few weeks our cages were too small and they didn't get the exercise or veggies they needed. I feel terribly guilty about that now that I know better.
In April we decided to purchase two young (aprox 8 weeks old) female piggies from a local pet store (mistake number 1, had I known there were rescues I would have gotten them from there) and a cage from petsmart (mistake 2, this cage is large enough for a pig or maybe 2 tops but not the 3 we have now. We will be buying or building a properly sized C&C cage within the next few weeks) I fed them daily with Kaytee Guinea pig food and put vitamins in their water (I've since learned this isn't a good idea too) and made sure they got lots of veggies and hay (just Timothy since I didn't know they could eat alfalfa till recently) Cut to last week when we discover that one of the piggies had given birth to a single baby. I was shocked and didn't even know she was pregnant. First thing we did was to take them to make sure they were in fact both girls, and determine the sex of the baby (she's a girl too) then I got on the internet and did TONS of research into cavy care and needs and although I admit I should have been more responsible and done that research before I got them I'm glad I've learned so much and continue to learn so much more.

Now plans are in the works for a 2x4 or 2x5 C&C cage and I'm going this afternoon to a local exotic vets office to purchase oxbow's foods and vitamin C treats for them. They only use their cage now for night time and have tons of space in my livingroom during the day and evening, we give them lots of love and play time, as well as all the veggies they love and will be adding alfalfa and orchard grasses as soon as this evening. I may have had a rocky start but I'm trying to turn things around. These little animals are amazing friendly caring creatures and I want to give them the best home I possibly can, and by joining forums like this one and other groups I plan on doing just that and learning as much as possible as fast as possible.

My piggies are French Fry (a white and cream abby who is really kind of mellow and cuddly) Cookie ( the new mommy, is red and has a white streak down one side and a rosette? on her head) and Bisucit ( who is the baby now almost 2 weeks old, she is white with a red diagonal stripe and a brown stripe around her bottom) Cookie is the alpha pig and a little pushy, I'm hoping she calms down some but if now I will just build a second C&C cage and seperate her from French Fry who seems to just let herself be bullied.
My cats are interested in the piggies but won't let the piggies follow them anywhere. They like to sniff them and pet them but when a pig walks up to have a sniff herself the cats run away. Jennie has taken to sitting or laying with the pigs and nibbling on their hay.

I have an appointment next week to have them checked out by a local exotics vet who has lots of experience with piggies and hopefully they will all three get a clean bill of health.

Please forgive me for the length of this, as well as my rocky start with my piggies, they are so sweet and I am trying so hard to make up for it.

[Ruby77]

Hi Casey, I am new too to this site but not guinea's. You are certainly doing everything right this time around and the piggies are lucky to have found you. Aren't minipigs great too, so independant!
The only thing I would say would be to watch out for the alfalfa hay as it is really only fed as a treat maybe once a week and not good for piggies with bladder problems as it is very high in calcium!
Good luck with the new baby (I have 4!) and the new house.

[fourbwabbys]

Your pigs sound adorable! Do you have any pigtures of them? I'm glad you realised now that there are pigs in rescues, at least you know for the future. I made the same mistake. I look forward to seeing you around the forum!

Originally Posted by Ruby77

The only thing I would say would be to watch out for the alfalfa hay as it is really only fed as a treat maybe once a week and not good for piggies with bladder problems as it is very high in calcium!

That goes for pigs under 6 months old. You only specified the baby's age, so I don't know how old your other pigs are. After they reach the 6 month point, they should be switched to Timothy hay.

[Percy's Mom]

Sounds like you're very willing to learn the best ways to take care of your little family, and that's wonderful! We're all eagerly awaiting pigtures. Since your crew is all so young and growing so fast, the alfalfa is fine for another couple of months. After about 6 months old, you want them to just have grass hays (timothy, orchard, meadow, etc), but, like Ruby said, you can give alfalfa rarely as a sweet treat.

Unfortunately, missexed pigs and having both sexes in one cage is one of the downfalls of petstore pigs. Most importantly though is that you've learned that adopting is the way to go if you want more pigs in the future and your current crew sounds to be in a wonderful loving home.

[cavy-cool-crazy]

Your pigs sound adorable. For some reason I really, really like the name French Fry!! It's just sounds so right. Well done for finding us, it sounds liek you have learnt so much from us already. Don't worry about the buying from pet stores bit - many of us started out where you are now, not knowing about rescues, shleters and all those homeless guineas. The point is, you know now and you understand it all, which is great.

Have you any pigtures of your piggles? We are piggy pigture addicts here so always love to see new pigs (and members) join the Cavy Cages crew.

Congrats on your pregnancy too. My mom is 37 weeks with twins so it's all too near for us. Almost 18 years I've been an only child so it's madness to have two come along at once!! Your sons names are beautiful.

Anyway, welcome to the forum!

[jdomans]

Hey Casey,
If I had read this thread first I wouldn't have had such a jolt when I read CCCs twin update! Anyhow, you are very close to me. I am in Savannah. I have 7 girls and a neutered 'wee little man' as JarBax calls him. Laura (CCC) calls him 'my little man'.
You will find that we 'adopt' each others pigs and become godparents around here.
It is great that after all you have been through you found us. You should have no problems getting materials for the C&C cage.
Judy