Grayrose Cavies

Baby Pics

Here they are: First three teddies. They were born three days ago, a cream sow, a PEW sow (who is hiding) and a PEW boar. 

And five Abbies. These guys were superwiggly so I could only get a good shot of one of them, but here they all are. They're a week old. Three cream sows, one cream boar and a DEW boar. All look good so far.

Baby Teddies!

Went into the caviary this morning, and there was Critter, sitting all by herself at one end of the pen. And peaking out from under her was a tiny cream butt. When I lifted her up, there were two more tiny butts. Actually, all three babies are a nice size. We have a cream sow, a PEW sow and a PEW boar. Yay! Exactly what I had hoped for. I can't tell yet if they are satins because they're all still a little damp and mama is still cleaning them up. Pictures soon. I'm gonna let mama and babies settle in to their new little nursing cage. Critter is such a sweet and competent mother. 

Abyssinians for sale

I have decided to part with the following. I will post more soon as I make decisions going into the summer. These are all $15 each, but I'd be delighted to give one price for multiple animals, especially if you come to pick them up. 

 White sow, 5 weeks old, may be showable.

[SOLD]

 

 

 

 

And two white boars, siblings to the sow. These would be better as pets. I only keep boars that are practically perfect. With Abbies, I find that it's critical. I am more flexible when it comes to teddy boars, but not abbies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cream sow, year old. Not showable, but would make great pet. Or if someone wanted to work with creams as long as you had very good boars to breed with her. She has given me a couple of showable offspring. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show quality REO sow. 11 weeks old. [SOLD]

 

 

Lilac and REO sow, eight weeks old. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red sow, 19 weeks old.  

Sire is a GA, Dam is DEW.

She could be shown but the red is on the orange side, probably because of the modifiers from the white mother. However all the ridges and rosettes are pretty good, so she'd be good in a breeding program for creams, white, silver agouti, and even dilutes.

Photos coming soon soon soon

Getting photos up has always been a bit of struggle around here. My ditigal camera is about 10 years old and technology for uploading pictures is ancient. We're not much of a high tech family here. But yesterday I finally broke down and ordered myself a new iPhone with all the bells and whistles so getting pictures up should be a snap from here on out. Woot!

The iPhone gets here tomorrow.

Long range forecast

Breeding is sometimes like gambling. You place your bets and hope for a lucky roll of the dice. After cleaning out the big girl cage, I reshuffled the deck and made some new mating decisions. Hopefully, informed decisions. The cards are played and now we have to wait. 

In the Teddy catagory:

The two creams are staying together. That's Ash and Ori. Critter, the dilute agouti sow, has been bred to CaraMel, the satin gold boar with excellent results, however I want to try my red sow with Mel. She has such nice type and her last litter was so disappointing. So Salvia (red) is in with Mel (satin gold), and Critter (DA) is in with CocoPuff, a lilac boar. He's six months old, so this will be his first go. 

In the nursery, Dreamsicle (Roan gold (pink eyes) delivered yesterday. Sadly only one baby made it. She's a nice little satin cream. Yay, a satin sow at last. I've gone years getting only the occasional satin and then always a boar. 

 

In the Abyssinian catagory:

Carmelo (Roan cream) x Lilla (Lilac & REO). Both have good ridges and I'm hoping for a roan lilac & REO.

And the rest are combinations of gold x whites or creams x white. I did decide to breed my red boar to a younger red sow just because they are both really nice abbies. 

And in the aby nursery, Ninata (cream) had four DEW babies about a week ago, two of each, all doing well. The sire is Snowy (DEW — what else?). Now Ninata ridges and rosettes are all over the place, but Snowy's are great and all of the babies take after dad! How excellent is that? I really need white abbies for both creams and silver agouti, so this was a bet that really paid off. 

I'll try to add some photos soon. First though, I need to clean more cages. 

Next batch of babies due in May

The latest baby cavy boomlet was disappointing. Mostly red and orangy golds. I want creams and whites. Out of a dozen babies I might keep two. There is one chocolate and white agouti abby sow that I'm in love with even though her rosettes and ridges are all over the place. 

The next series of litters should include a couple of teddies, too. 

Cage cleaning today

The kids are home for Spring Break, or what passes for it in our school district. I'm going to see if I can get them to help with cage cleaning. "Hey guys, it's FUN!" 

We have several junior abyssinian cream sows that are ready for new homes. They'll go fast so if you're intetested please let me know. The good news is that there are more coming this month. I have four sows that are due in the next couple of weeks. No teddy litters until April, however. 

All's well.

All the expectant moms have now delivered safely. And all the babies are doing well. The next litters is not due for at least two-three weeks. I've got three abbies who are due next month. 

Right now I have a junior lilac teddy boar and a cream aby boar that ready to go to a new home. 

 

   

Look like my piggies pulled the old switch-a-roo.

The red teddy still hasn't delivered. But at about three o'clock this afternoon, I went down to check water bottles and there was an aby sitting in the corner resting surrounded by four still damp pups. Two cream boars, a lovely gold sow and a DEW sow. Mama and babies are all doing fine. So now I have new babies to look at and put in my new database program. I'll try to get some fresh pictures up as soon as I find the camera. 

Waiting is the hardest part....

I've been waiting and waiting for my red teddy sow to deliver her litter. She's so ready to give birth. 

Nubbers

I wish I had a photo of Nubbers somewhere. He was such a fixture in the caviary for so long that I never thought to take his picture. When he finally died last fall he was over six and still producing lovely babies. I miss him. In the mornings or evening or whenever one of us would go into the caviary, he'd be right there with his little front feet on the edge of his tray, standing up there to say "hi", give you a little kiss and accept any treat that might be forth-coming. When he passed, my heart went out of Teddies, and I ended up selling most of my Teddy herd. I kept his last mate, who was pregnant with his last litter, plus two others.

So it's been about four months. I have ten teddies now. And Nubbers' daughter is expecting her first litter any day. 

Announcing Babies

Everyone's favorite announcement. Sarafine, my only remaining senior red aby sow delivered to very nice little sows, a REO and a cream. The sire is Kiku, a hefty pink-eyed cream. 

I'm going to need to update all my photos here, too. Five years is a long time in pig years. 

Updating everything

Finally got all my records up-to-date and transfered to my new pedigree program. I also have rejoined the ACBA. I'll have to reactivate my memberships with the regional Cavy association as well. But one thing at a time. I'm also going to have to go through all my links here. It seems that a number of breeders I knew aren't breeding anymore. But I'm certain there are new ones out there. If you're in the Mid Atlantic or Northeast, or if you're a breeder of Teddies or Abyssinians, drop me a note so I can put a link up. 

 

Welcome back. We're still here after all these years.

I guess it's been almost five years since I've posted anything. Life keeps rolling along. But pigs are always an important part of our lives here. We have had to cut way down, though, and really focus. Showing had become difficult to impossible, and yet I really have missed it, more now than ever, because what we've got in the caviary is unbelievably gorgeous — practically perfect cream abyssinians. And finally, our first silver agouti abbies. We still have a few teddies. Only the best. I'm updating our records with photos, so I hope to get some posted here. We actually may even have a few babies for sale in the next month or two. 

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.