Grayrose Cavies

No posts for a while but still here

Life gets busy, you know. We haven't been doing any shows this year, but we are still breeding, and have finally had our first litter of cream abbies. They are just now getting to breeding age, so we should be seeing more of these beauties in the coming months. If you are interested in getting stock from us, please drop me an email.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Thanksgiving is, perhaps, my favorite holiday. Today we will be celebrating with all the classics including a 25 pound heritage turkey and ten pies, mostly pumpkin. The pigs will be included in the festivities with their own feast. I picked up several pounds of fresh organic kale for them to pig out on.

A couple days ago a red teddy sow, Grayrose Camilla, had babies — two red sows and a cream sow. The father is a DEW, QT Snowflake (Lucky). I recently bought the parents from Tess of TT Cavies in Erie, PA. I had sold her Cammie a while ago, so it was neat to get her back. The babies all look nice and curly with short faces and fat tummies. I'll keep one of the red sows, so the other two will be for sale. About two weeks ago a cream teddy sow, Perle d'Or, had two babies, a cream sow and a buff sow. I might keep the buff, but cream will definitely be for sale. I also have for sale an intermediate DEW teddy boar, an intermediate red teddy boar, and two senior cream teddy sows. These are all nice, showable animals. I just have too many. The senior sows are about a year old and have both had good litters. I also have some agouti teddies, silver, golden, cinnamon, and lemon, in both boars and sows. If interested, please let me know.

No baby abbies for a while, although I have at least six sows that are expecting and due sometime in late December or early January. And I should have a flood of babies after that in time for the PaSRBBA show.

Please take a second and register for autmatic email updates for the latest new of babies, pigs for sale, and the goings on in our caviary.

Have a great day and don't eat too much. We all have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Updated My Teddy Photos

Check out my new Teddies, including the four amazing pigs that I just bought from Katie Carter of Bandirose while in Maine. Thanks so much, Katie, for these great pigs. They've all settled in great, and the boys are in pig heaven with the sows.

Next I'm going to post the latest baby pictures and a list of pigs for sale.
Then I want to update my Cavy Breeder directory. Please drop me a line to be included, especially if you are located in the Mid-Atlantic — from New York to Virginia and East to Ohio — but I'm happy to include anyone who raises quality cavies. I just added an awesome Caviary to the list in New York — The Shire Cavies. Check them out.

Also take a minute to register for email updates, or to update your email address if you've changed it.
Finally, if you have an opinion on my article on pigaloo, please join the debate in the comments section.

Thanks

New Subscription Feature

I'm still working on the formatting, but this is so neat. You can now subscribe to Grayrose Cavies and have all of my posts delivered right into your email inbox. I don't know if it will deliver pictures, but at least you'll know when I post them here. Try it out. Hopefully, this will motivate me to post a little more often, too.

Enter your email address to receive the most recent pig posts from Grayrose Cavies delivered right to your email inbox:

Of course, it goes without saying that all email addresses will remain private. Let me know what you think.

Piggy Tip

Pigaloos.
If you want your new guinea pig to bond with you and your family, do not put a pigaloo in the cage. Or, at least, take it out of the cage during the day or when you are home. If the pig has a place to hide, he or she will always retreat to the safety of their hiding place rather than learning that you and your family are big, harmless food delivery systems. The more you handle your new pig, the more quickly he or she will bond.

I do use a variety of shelters in my cages, especially when introducing a new pig to the caviary to minimize the stress of the move. But I don't recommend them for most folks.

If you have a pig question, please let me know in the comments or drop me an email and I'll try to post an answer if I know the answer.

New Pigs From Maine

We just got back yesterday from a week in Maine, visiting family. While we were there, I drove up to Bangor to visit with Katie Carter of Bandirose Cavies. I brought home three incredible boars and a fabulous sow. Bandirose pigs are awesome, and I am just thrilled to be adding these pigs to my lines.

The new pigs are Mullraney: a DEW senior boar. He is going in with my younger cream sows.
Mackinnon, a self red satin carrier. Mac is a Sweet Wheekers pig, about 2 1/2 years old and still eager to get with the ladies. I pulled my lovely satin broken boar who hasn't produced a thing for me ever and replaced him with Mackinnon, who was in piggy heaven with three sows.

The last boar is a Golden Agouti and Red roan boar with just about everything going for him, big shoulders, lovely coat, cute little nose. He is in with the Bandirose sow, Rosario, a DEW. According to Katie, the last time she bred this pair, she did get a cream so I am hoping to reproduce her results.

New Pigs From Maine

We just got back yesterday from a week in Maine, visiting family. While we were there, I drove up to Bangor to visit with Katie Carter of Bandirose Cavies. I brought home three incredible boars and a fabulous sow. Bandirose pigs are awesome, and I am just thrilled to be adding these pigs to my lines.

The new pigs are Mullraney: a DEW senior boar. He is going in with my younger cream sows.
Mackinnon, a self red satin carrier. Mac is a Sweet Wheekers pig, about 2 1/2 years old and still eager to get with the ladies. I pulled my lovely satin broken boar who hasn't produced a thing for me ever and replaced him with Mackinnon, who was in piggy heaven with three sows.

The last boar is a Golden Agouti and Red roan boar with just about everything going for him, big shoulders, lovely coat, cute little nose. He is in with the Bandirose sow, Rosario, a DEW. According to Katie, the last time she bred this pair, she did get a cream so I am hoping to reproduce her results.

Waiting for pictures

I just took pictures of the latest babies, but on the last shot, the camera announced that the battery was exhausted. So while it's recharging I thought I'd take a minute to catch up here.

I have completely rearranged the caviary. We have one super long pen for pregnant sows and junior sows and sows taking a break from breeding. Then there are five mid-size pens which each have a boar and three sows: Broken teddies; cream teddies; satin teddies; cream abbies; and other abbies. When a sow is clearly pregnant, I pull her from the pen, moving her to the big girl pen so she can move around and get more exercise. After she gives birth, I typically put her and the babies in a small cage while she's nursing. And finally are my stacks with a breeding pair in each.

The pictures I'm waiting to post are all baby sows, mostly agouti teddies.

Litters due in the next week or so: a cream teddy sow by a cream teddy boar, a solid sliver teddy sow by a platinum agouti roan boar (MT's Frosty) and a red teddy sow by a boar that I can't think of right now, but will look up. I'd better go do that now while I'm thinking of it.

Finally, I was sad to learn that my friend Carrie of Mon-Trav Cavies is not going to be breeding any longer. Sigh. She had the best eye for type. My best babies these days come from her lines.

News

I know it's been a while since I've posted.

My step father, Hartley Gurney, died on April 5, from complications from the kidney transplant. The complications turned out to be an antibiotic resistance bacterial infection that he was exposed to in hte hospital shortly after the transplant. More people died each year from these infections, which are almost always picked up in hospitals, than from auto accidents, AIDS, and breast cancer combined. And yet there is almost nothing being done about it. After everything that he had been through, his death was a hard blow.

We cancelled our trip to the west coast to visit my brother in July because my mother wasn't doing very well. But we did go to Maine last week to visit my in-laws. Pictures here if you're interested.

And Now: CAVIES

Some big changes. I am no longer breeding texels. I have one junior sow left. She was too cute to sell, white and chocolate with a chocolate nose. Here she is She's a sweetheart, and I will sell her if someone wants her enough.

My broken teddies just aren't breeding. I had one beautiful litter of three sows, including a Lilac, REO and white with beautiful type. I have one stunning broken boar, but he just isn't getting the job done. I'm not sure what to do at this point.

On the other hand, I am getting some really beautiful creams. Lots and lots of cream teddies, both sows and boars. And I need to start making some decisions. Let me know if you're interested in a cream teddy cuz I got 'em.

And now for my abbies:
I have a Salmon Agouti junior sow:

And a golden agouti roan sow:

And, born last week, a lemon agouti sow:

She doesn't look like much right now, but she seems to have all the rosettes and ridges in the right places.

These girls are NOT for sale. I'll try to post a list of what I do have for sale in the next week or so.

News

Spent the last two days massively cleaning and sterilizing cages. I'm about half way done. Hopefully the weather will start to warm up a bit soon so I can get some fresh air into the caviary and even let the piggies out to munch on the grass.

My husband and neighbors took great care of the herd while I was focused on my folks. But they didn't keep very good records. There are quite a few youngsters I don't recognize and several of my favorites that are missing. Noir, our gorgeous silver agouti Aby, died over the winter. And so did Mrs. Puff, a TSW aby. Noir was almost six; Mrs. Puff was four.

On the new side, we have some way cool babies. Maybe I'll get some pictures taken this weekend. But I also have to do taxes this weekend, too. And Saturday is baking day.

Back Home

We are finally back. My step-father was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic for a kidney transplant on Nov 7, 2005. The transplant itself went well, but a few days later his condition started to deteriorate. He has been in the ICU there ever since, until a couple weeks ago, when he finally started to improve enough for us to move him to a hospital closer to home. We are not out of the woods yet, but I am home now most of the time and will be getting back to breeding and, hopefully showing again soon.

In the meantime, I have some catching up to do.

First item. If you need a pedigree please email me with your address and info on the pigs in question, and I'll send those out ASAP.

Second item. I selling off my texels. I have two breeding trios for sale, plus four juniors (3 boars and a sow). Please email me for details. They will need to be picked up here until I can start getting to shows again. The adult boars both have done well on the show table, as have some of the sows.

Third: Cream Teddies for sale. Boars and sows. I will try to get more info posted about them by the end of the week.

Thanks to all who have checked in with me during this hard time. Your thoughts and prayers have helped so much.

He WANTS to be someone's special pig

I have this junior boar. He's a safforn teddy satin. He looks like he is made of gold. He is the exact color of 24 carat gold with a sheen to match. And his eyes look like two rubies. He is a gem.

His type his bad. His density is terrible. He has a big nose. And he escapes — A Lot.

In fact, he has escaped from just about every pen or cage I've put him in. But it isn't a problem because as soon as I come in to the pig room, he toddles right up to my feet and waits to be picked up. I have never had a teddy who wanted to be loved as much as this guy. There is no reason to breed him, but every reason to make a pet out of him. So if you have room for a really beautiful guinea pig that will follow you around like a tiny puppy, this is the guy. Oh, and he gets along very well with other boars.

Good news on the computer front. I am going to pick up my desktop machine this afternoon. So by this evening I'll be able to do pedigrees, enter new births, and resume posting my for sale lists. Plus new litters. We just had a salmon agouti abyssinian born this week. He won't be photographed for a while though, because he's being fostered by some neighbor kids.

School starts next week!

I finally understand all of the cartoons, comics and commericals about parents and school. I am so ready for summer to end. There is nothing to do this week with the kids. We went to the county fair this weekend (no guinea pigs – just rabbits plus all the standard live stock). We may do a matinee this afternoon after making a run out to the feed store.

I have so much catching up to do. We had two litters of teddies, a satin abby litter and a litter of texels this week. But we also had two miscarriages. And I finally have a list of everyone that I am selling. Most of them have been photographed. But my main computer is still in the shop, so I don't have access to my database of breeding records or pedigree info. Keep your fingers crossed that they can at least salvage my hard drive.

The new food, Blue Seal, seems to be working out great. Everyone loves it. And I love my new food dispensers. It has taken a while for those in the cages with them to figure them out, but they are now being emptied regularly. No more pooping and peeing in the food dishes. I am going to install these in all my pens and cages, except for the "maternity ward" cages, for now. Bass Equipement sells them for a lot less than the feed store.

Computer Death

My computer just exploded. Not the one I am using here, but our main desktop which has all my breeding and pedigree information on it. This morning I was entering some babies when it made a scary electrical bang then died. I've called the computer repair people and set up an appointment for tomorrow to drop it off. At the very least, they'll probably be able to salvage some stuff off the hard drive. But it may take a while. These thing usually do.

I can still take and post photos on this computer (my husband's laptop), and write posts for the main blog, but won't be able to do much with pedigree info (DOBs, parentage).

Well, when computers explode, it's time to go take the kids to the ice cream store. Maybe an extra large hot fudge sundae will help.

Selling the last of our Americans

Yesterday our last American boar, a junior lilac self, went home with his new people. So we couldn't breed Americans any more even if we wanted to. But I just don't have room anymore for these sentimental favorites. Our last five American sows are for sale. These were some of our very first pigs, either our original stock or the babies of those first pigs. So each is special. They have all been bred several times, the chocolate and the silver agouti most recently.

Some of these sows could be shown, but they will be best in a small caviary where a premium is placed on cuddling. Or as great pets. That is not to say that they are merely "Pet Quality", rather, since they were among our first babies, they were pampered, snuggled, cuddled, and spoiled. It is amazing how easy it is fuss over babies when you only have 30 pigs. Their pictures and descriptions are listed in the "For Sale" album. The oldest is a 2-1/2 year old brindle. The rest were all born in the winter or spring of 2004, so they are still young.

Next to come will be the listing of Senior Abyssinian sows, and junior abby boars. Plus some baby pictures: just had a litter of chocolate and chocolate roan teddies last night. Can't wait to show them to everyone.

Pigs For Sale: Junior and Senior Teddy Boars

I am finally getting my "For Sale" lists put together and posted.

Starting with Junior and Senior Teddies and Teddy Satins. Next I'll do the intermediate Teddy boars, and start working on the Teddy sows. After that I'll do the Abyssinians and finally the Texels. Stay tuned. Actually, I'm probably going to do all the boars of everything first before making the difficult decisions about the sows.

You can view the current list here: Teddy Boars For Sale. These all have full pedigrees.

I'll post updated lists and links as I get them photographed. If you see something you like, need more information on, or would like to see additional photos, please email me at grayrose@adelphia.net. If you are looking for something not on the list, please let me know by signing up on my waiting list with a brief description of what you are looking for.

Please keep in mind that I almost always keep my "show quality" animals as do most breeders. In other words, don't expect to buy show quality, except rarely. The pigs for sale here have breeding potential, and a few may be showable. But please don't ask me to sell you a trio of "show quality" teddies or abbies. Instead let me know what breed you are working with and what characteristics you need for your breeding program, i.e. type, coat, sheen, color, and I'll do my best to set you up with something that will work. If I can't meet your needs, then I'll refer you to another breeder.

One more issue to consider. My babies are all well handled and used to people.

Feed update

I went out to the Agway to pick-up another two weeks supply of pig food. I told them I wanted eight 25# bags of guinea pig pellets. Imagine my surprise and delight when they told me that they now carried it in 50#. Plus it was made by a different company – Blue Seal. And it's less expensive. So I bought 250# of food and spent less than I had planned.

The label says that Blue Seal has no corn and is 20% protein. I'll let you know how everyone does.

I also bought a couple of the food hoppers that hang on the side of the pens. I'm tired of the junior boars climbing into their dishes and peeing on most of the food. They are still figuring out how to use the new food dispensers, but so far no one has climbed in and peed.

This afternoon I am driving up to Elmira to meet Shelley of the Shire Cavies and pick up four satin teddies she is getting for me from Bee Balm Farms.

For sale: Texels

My friend, Terry, has some young texels for sale in SE Pennsylvania, including a young sow. She is also expecting a litte anyday now.
Here they are.

I have decided to sell a number of senior teddy boars, both satin and standard, plus a few sows. I hope to have the list up by this weekend.

We Are Back Home.

Our two weeks in Maine are over. I picked up some beautiful white teddies from Katie Carter of Bandirose. Pictures as soon as I unpack the camera.

Plenty of new babies while we were gone, too, including a pair of cream teddies. No texels litters yet but soon, I hope.

I just want to add that rural America is still there for anyone who takes the time to get off the Interstates. Walmart hasn't taken over everything, not yet.

More soon. But I have a mountain of stuff to take care of here. Two weeks is a really long time to be way from home.

Choosing Your Cavy Feed

Finding a good cavy feed can be challenging at best.  What one breeder swears by may not work for you at all.  It takes time and patience to find a feed that is readily available in your area and that your cavies do well on.

There is no "perfect feed" out there.  And even though the feed bag has the same name on it (like Manna Pro), does not mean it has the same stuff inside.  Many feed companies will swap out ingredients if something cheaper comes along, so stay in touch with you feed Rep. and look at the ingredients tags to see if they have changed something. Some feeds (like Manna Pro Rabbit Gro) use different mills in different parts of the country.  Some mills are known for having poor quality feed, some for high quality. So just because your breeder friends in New York have great luck with a feed, does not mean you will have the same results with the same feed in California, even though it has the same name on the feed bag.  Do your research first!  Ask the feed reps where the feed was milled.

Call the manufacturers (all of them that you can find) and ask to talk to someone who really knows guinea pigs, and see why they think you should use their feed.  Let them "prove" to you that their feed is worth your business.  Then ask them if they know about the "other guy's" feed.  Compare the feeds as much as possible.  You will learn fascinating things about each feed company doing this.  You may also find that you will be offered "free" feed or coupons, to try their feed out. 

Also, find out who your feed store gets their feed from (which large distributor).  My feed store did not even know they could get Oxbow Cavy Performance.  I called "their" supplier/wholesaler and asked, the supplier said they could easily send a bag if it to the feed store in their weekly order.  The feed store was surprised when I told them this, but when they called their wholesaler, sure enough, the Oxbow was readily available.  So...you may have more feeds available to you than you think (more than even your own feed store thinks/knows about!)! It took a couple days of calling around, but at least I found some alternatives to the poor quality cavy chow that my feed store regularly carries.

Probably the best thing to do is research all available cavy feeds in your own area.  Find one that is readily available (you may have to drive a bit to find it!), made with good ingredients (no animal products, no corn if possible, etc), preferably hay based (usually alfalfa), has Vit C, and is fairly fresh (within 3 months).  You may have to try it out for a few months before deciding if it is the right feed for you.  It can be a challenge finding a good cavy feed in your area, keep calling, be willing to drive a bit or even have it shipped in if necessary.  Consider combining your feed needs with other breeders in your area, you may be able to get a good quality feed shipped in if enough people commit to purchasing it.

When evaluating the feed you have chosen to go with, make sure it looks and smells fresh.  It is better if it has been stored inside, as heat or vermin can ruin a good bag of feed.  After using it for a while, your animals should appear healthy, bright eyed, have shiny coats, and nice hard bodies.  Some good indicators that the feed you are using is working: high conception rates, healthy animals, low incidence of pregnancy toxemia, low stillborn rate, nice sized babies, and comments from the judges that your animals feel great and have great coat and body condition. 

Some indicators that you may need to switch feeds or at least supplement you current feed:  poor condition (flabby bodies, too fat, etc), dull or thinning hair, low conception rates, sows dumping their litters, baby small and weak, high stillborn rate, babies not thriving after weaning, many cases of pregnancy toxemia, neural tube defects in newborns (folic acid deficiency), difficulty walking/bleeding gums (or other signs of Vit C deficiency), sows dying during childbirth or right after (calcium deficiency?), animals not making senior weight (if it's in their genes to be large)  and judges making comments about the poor body/coat condition. 

May everyone find a feed that works for them!