Unexpected new cavy slave! Advice?

Hello everyone!

I thought I would take a moment to introduce myself, and my two new arrivals, before posting elsewhere in the forums. I am a recently engaged, recently 'cavy enslaved' girl with two adorable sows.

I live in a studio apartment, but rushed out to buy and build a C&C cage as soon as I found the information regarding how much space a cavy needs to be happy. My ‘girl's’ cage takes up over a quarter of my bedroom….so you can see why I say I am already a cavy slave!

I am not a person who thought I would ever own a cavy.

In fact, I was disinterested in them and had even had been given the impression they were rather stupid and smelly critters! This misconception was due to the condition I always witnessed them in at the local pet stores when buying supplies for my other pets.

So how did I end up a slave? My first Sow arrived a few weeks ago when her owners had to sell their home and move into a rental that would not allow pets. ‘Penny’ had been in my oldest brother’s house as a pet for his boys, for the last six years. I could tell he loved her very much by the hour long ‘care instructions’ I received when he had to hand her over.

I could also tell at once that her cage was far too small. It was a yard long, and only a foot and a half wide. At this size it was barely over three times her own length, and not even twice her length across. Her ‘pigloo’ touched the walls of the pen on each side width wise.

I didn’t understand how anyone could think this was enough room for a critter her size…and then I learned it was what the pet store had told him would work ‘very well’ for her all those years ago. And that he regularly let her have the run of his large fenced in back yard. (I found that kind of frightening for several reasons including poisonous plants, predators, heat stroke ext...))

The day I got ‘Penny’ I started surfing the internet within about an hour of her arrival, I wanted to find out how to properly care for a cavy. And to find out how big a cage she REALLY needed. I then proceeded to drag my poor fiancee around as soon as he got off work that day, and used a good chunk of my savings to purchase materials for a proper C&C cage. Then I had him assemble her new cage that same evening, while surfing this website again for even more information.

‘Penny’ had a sister, but she died seven months ago from ‘blunt force trauma’ received while her family was on vacation and they had a local boy watching the sows. Since then Penny was kept all alone in her tiny cage. She hardly ever left her purple ‘pigloo’ and never made any noise save for a few ‘wheep’ noises when I fed her fresh greens and veggies twice a day.

I read how they are ‘herd’ animals, and that she was laying around because she was depressed and confined to that tiny old cage. The cage issue was fixed with the new C&C cage, now I had to fix the companion problem! I found another rescue sow that needed a home because her owner was allergic to the Timothy hay.

This second Sow I named ‘Chii’, she is just under a year old. Even at this age however, I was told she had already had one litter and a miscarriage due to her being housed with a boar. Chii’s cage (the one she came with when I received her) was twice the size of Penny’s old one, but still way to small!

Since then the girls have been quarantined, then successfully introduced via the ‘buddy bath’ method and are happily living in their new large cage! I even was lucky enough to see ‘popcorning’ for myself yesterday, and Penny is making noises I have never heard her make before almost like she is ‘talking’ to Chii. They appear to ‘talk’ back and forth all day.

It’s very satisfying to see Penny come ‘back to life’ so to speak.

Still…I am a VERY new owner, a little less than a month into ‘slavery’. So I would welcome any advice that experienced members might have to offer.

Thank you!

(( Penny is the mostly white one with the black mask. Chii is the' tortie/calico looking sow.))