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Behavior Elsa's Thread

Lady_Magoo

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No joke, I am terrified of this, but we took her in knowing she was pregnant. She needed a home, and instead of turning her away we decided to welcome her with us.

We think she is due any time now. I have been trying to figure out how to tell when she is close. She hasn't been eating as much lately. We also could not get her to touch spinach, and she had a nibble of a green pepper and dropped it. Ate half of a slice of an apple. Only success we have had is carrots. She LOVE carrots. She has barely touched her hay but is eating some pellets. When I pet her sides sometimes I can feel movement. She's not huge but she's not tiny either. I wouldn't imagine her having more than 2 in there (of course you never know!).

She is terrified of any type of hidey house. We had to remove it from her cage. Right now we have regular white bedding inside the cage, because one day she tried to burrow herself into her hay. We thought that would help soothe her since the didn't like the hidey.

One thing I have thought of is moving one of my younger female guineas into her cage. We have a male that was completely shutting down (also rescued) and once we brought him a friend he was so happy and friendly. I just didn't want to add stress to her with her being pregnant.

Can anyone tell me what to watch out for? How best I can make her comfortable? Any help is appreciated.
 

bpatters

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Re: Confirmed Pregnant Piggy

https://www.guineapigcages.com/foru...inea-pig-is-pregnant-And-how-far-along-is-she

Has the other pig been in the cage with her before? If so, how long have they been separated?

If they haven't been together before, don't put them together this close to her delivery. You don't want the stress of introductions when she's very pregnant, plus you don't know how she and the other sow will react to the pups if they're not comfortable with each other. Normally, having another sow in the cage is fine, but you don't want it to be a new pairing.

You can let this be her thread. Tell me what her name is and I'll change the thread title.
 

Lady_Magoo

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Re: Confirmed Pregnant Piggy

Her name is Elsa. We just decided on that today.

Shes doing a little better this evening, moreso now that we've figured out what kind of food she actually does like. She hasn't had much water but she's had about half a cup of veggies today. Anything she doesn't eat in a few hours I've pulled or. We haven't changed her bedding because we worry about stressing her out more. She's lying down more and relaxing unlike before.
 

Lady_Magoo

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Well, Momma pig still has not had her babies. And she is soooo timid! Not sure if it is because she is pregnant or if she just wasn't very socialized. I am terrified of moving her. I have not changed her bedding since Sunday. I do not want to add to her stress. Outside of touching her nose because she comes to my hand occasionally to let me, I have not really gotten to touch her since Sunday afternoon. I had felt the babies move on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. I am worried about her immensely. The whole situation has caused more anxiety than I had anticipated.

I decided to try and see how she would do with our small female piggy. She had not ate or drank in over a day. Still overly skiddish she was jerking her cage around horribly. When we placed the little girl in the cage with her, it wasn't 15 minutes later she seemed to have calmed. Within 6 hours we saw most of her food was gone, and a lot of her water was gone. I knew it could not have all been the little one! I can observe her more closely now without her getting seriously startled. She even rooms our little one and protects her when she feels we are too close. My hope is when she does give birth is that she allows her new cage mate to intermingle with the little ones. If not, we will have to come up with a different plan. Before we had wanted to introduce her to the little piggy, and with her name also came Anna's as well. Looking at them you can tell together they reminded us of Frozen. I am very thankful that Anna has been able to give her some ease.

I noticed she had been digging in her chips lately, and the pile of hay. So I have piled up some chips thinking she might want to burrow. I have seen videos of pigs giving birth and they weren't burrowing, but I thought if this makes her comfortable we will do it. She doesn't want a house in there at all. Even with Anna in there she spazzes with a house inside her cage.

Ideally this is not the perfect set up, but with how skiddish she is we thought being in a smaller cage would help her calm down...maybe not? It is only temporary until after she has her babies, then we hope to have her and Anna's grid cage completed so that they can finally have a larger run to enjoy.

Hope you enjoy the picture of Elsa and Anna cuddling up close! It was taken not long after the momma calmed down and allowed her to snuggle.

Also, we have noticed the last two days that Elsa has been lying on her belly a little more, and spreading her legs. I hope this means she is close!
 

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Elsa and Anna.jpg

bpatters

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Guinea pigs don't burrow.

Cute piggies!
 

Lady_Magoo

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No piggies as of this morning...Hoping for some by the end of the weekend! Fingers crossed! Anna is also smelling Elsa's rear end more. I'm used to expecting kittens, not guinea pigs lol.
 

Lady_Magoo

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I feel like we are making some good headway with Elsa. She has started accepting food from my hand, and today I caught her being the ringleader to the "reets" when I came into their room around feeding time. These little things speak improvement to us. She is also no longer rushing away with every little noise or when my hand reaches into the cage. I am not sure what they are called, but the little tops to the timothy hay, I have discovered she loves them. I went digging into their hay bag tonight and she took half a dozen from me in a few minutes time.

Since last night I believe she is getting closer to her birthing. She is taking longer breaks, has been digging through her bedding to find a comfortable spot, and her legs are spread farther apart. I have not picked her up in a week. Still have not cleaned her cage since then either. It isn't horrible, and we added some bedding the other night because she acted like she wanted to burrow. Fingers crossed here soon. I would say she has at least 2 pups in her. My anxiety with her has eased up, thankfully. Since she seems to be doing better and seems much happier than before, I am not as worried as I was before.

Anna still seems to bring her some comfort. I caught them playing just a little bit earlier. Anna was popcorning around the cage as well. Surprisingly last night I caught Elsa do a little pop as well.
 

bpatters

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You can clean the cage with Elsa in it. Just clean one end, gently shoo her down to the clean end, then clean the other.

Again, guinea pigs don't burrow.
 

BeckieL

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so happy you're making progress! I don't know what those little hay tops are called either, but it's still the favorite treat of one of our boys. The kids and I call them "num nums" because the piggies think they are NUMMY! lol we root around in our hay box all the time looking for them to save them to use as hand-fed treats.
 

Nickthestick

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so happy you're making progress! I don't know what those little hay tops are called either, but it's still the favorite treat of one of our boys. The kids and I call them "num nums" because the piggies think they are NUMMY! lol we root around in our hay box all the time looking for them to save them to use as hand-fed treats.

Lol i also like to give it to mine as a hand treat i think it just helps with the bonding to be honest and helping them trust you more


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

bpatters

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They're the seeds of the hay, and they're higher in calcium than the rest of hay. Be careful with them if you've got stone pigs.
 

Lady_Magoo

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Still no little ones!

Still making better progress with Elsa, and Anna for that matter. They are starting to trust us more. Elsa is allowing me to rub her nose and back to her ears, but no farther. She lets me do this for several minutes and you can tell it is therapeutic to her because her eyes start to close even by a slight little touch. I am happy with her progress of trust. We even cleaned the cage out without her freaking out even the slightest bit, and she let me touch her shortly afterwards. Anna was funny during this time. She was not having it, and literally crawled over Elsa to get into the corner behind her for protection. Anna allowed me to rub her head for a moment without twitching as well. She is coming a long way for being only a few months old (at this point guessing 9-10 weeks).

Elsa is resting more, still, and tonight was the first time she ate most of her veggies. I was putting a handful in for the two of them to split at a time, and ended up removing them after a few hours because they wouldn't eat them. Tonight I had nothing to pull out. Fingers crossed for some babies here soon. I just want this part over for her. At least if she gives birth here soon she will have a fairly cleaner cage to give birth in! :)

Also, bpatters, what is stone pigs? I have tried looking it up. Is it like kidney stones in piggies?
 

bpatters

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A stone pig is one that has bladder stones. Pigs can have kidney stones, but they're not nearly as common as bladder stones.
 

Lady_Magoo

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So far we have 2 babies!!!! Aaron checked in them around 2 and nothing. At 230, there was 2!!!! Hoping for one more little one judging by how fat she is! I will post some pictures later on today once I get home!
 

BeckieL

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congrats on the babies!! I hope they and the mommy do well!!
[MENTION=13820]bpatters[/MENTION], why is everything my piggies love best high in calcium!?? cilantro, basil, oregano, and now the little hay seeds. dang it!
 

Lady_Magoo

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Well, it's been 3 hours and momma had 2. Aaron left the house at 445. We have decided not to sex them for a few days. We want them to get settled. Aaron watched them with Anna, making sure momma was okay with her in there still. She is. It was a worry we had but thankfully it is all well.
 

Lady_Magoo

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Momma doesn't mind Anna snuggled close while she is feeding the kids. She had to push her out from nursing earlier though. The babies look nothing like momma or each other, so I am actually quite curious as to what the father did look like. I am wondering if there are multiple fathers considering the little brown and white one seems weaker. She hasn't gotten up on her hind legs quite as much as the blackish one. We have a wonderful little momma on our hands, no joke. I am so glad she only had two and that they are both doing well! I will let everyone know what genders we have in the next few days.
 
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