Grayrose Cavies

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.

Dumping Pigs

There has been a rash of pig dumping in our town in the last weeks.

We live in a college town. When the students go home for the summer, a few of them drop off their pet guinea pigs at the local pet shop.

Now we all know how hard it is to sell mature pigs. Pet stores and wholesalers want them young. The pet store which buys my pigs is now over stocked with adult pigs. And they are having a hard time selling all adult pigs. One of the reasons I like this pet shop is that they never buy more pigs from me at a time then they can handle. They also keep the boars and sows separated. And they're good people.

But now they are overflowing with guinea pigs, so my market for pet quality babies is gone for now.

And it gets worse. Today someone dropped off two 10 month old pigs. With the beginnings of upper respiratory infections. Now I can't sell these or even give them away until I can clear up these infections. I have a reputation in town for the place to go for healthy guinea pigs.

The "rescues" are upstairs in the living room so they won't infect my herd. Do I spend the $80 to take them into the vet? This is the last thing I need. My husband is quite unhappy with guinea pigs upstairs.

I wish I had new babies to write about instead.

Dark Creams not so dark

Here are the newest arrivals. And they are not as dark as I orginally thought. Maybe just a shade darker than the other creams. I'm going to have to look over their pedigrees again really closely.

Cage Cleaning made easy

First a quick announcement. I am starting a section on pets. Here you will find tips for pet care, picking a pet pig, and photos of my pet quality available pigs. The boars will usually be $8 or less, the sows $10 or less. If you see someone you like please let me know right away because they will go right to the pet store at four to five weeks. And the pet store prices are much higher.

Cage cleaning isn’t that bad, it just needs to be done all the time.

Most of my friends or neighbors that keep pigs as pets use an inch or two of pine shavings. And we did, too, before discovering pellets.

When we were on vacation last summer, one of my pig owning neighbors and her kids eagerly volunteered for pig sitting while we were gone. I thought I had made it very clear that I neither expected not even wanted them to clean cages while we were away, but they did anyway. Bless them.

They used an entire bale and a half of pine to do all the cages. No pellets. That was Friday. By the time we got home on Sunday evening, the ammonia was already starting to build up. A two-inch layer of urine soaked shaving is heavy — really heavy.

Last spring I had read an online discussion on the merits of pellets as bedding, especially for texels. I had started experimenting on my own, but Rich Bragonje of C-R Cavies in WV, really convinced me.

We now use a thin layer of wood pellets, covering about 80% of the pen, covered by a very thin layer of shavings. The pellets expand as they get wet and are superb for controlling odor.

The final adjustment came when we switched from pine to aspen shaving. The local Tractor Supply sells a bale of aspen for a couple dollars more than pine, but what a difference. First, because the aspen is fluffier, we seem to need less volume of aspen to cover a cage than pine, so a single bale will actually do twice the number of cages. Second is that the aspen is also much drier to start with than pine, even kiln dried, so it absorbs so much more, keeping the cages pretty dry even when I am a day or two late in cleaning a particular cage.

So whether you have a 100 pigs or just one pampered pet, try switching to pellets and aspen.

Choosing the Perfect Pet Guinea Pig: Texels

I get a lot of inquiries for pets, especially for texels. They are some of the most docile, sweet tempered pigs. But they do require daily grooming, even if you aren't planning to show them. Bits of bedding get caught in their long curls and quickly form mats. If these aren't caught right away, they can grow huge and start pulling painfully on the cavy's skin. Sometimes they literally get ripped out, leaving bare skin. Also cages must be kept scrupulously clean. More so than with other breeds. Excess moisture can get trapped by all that fur and lead ito stubborn fungal infections. So if you have your heart set on a texel be prepared to provide extra care.

Virtually everyone who inquires about pets initially wants a baby girl. As a breeder, I cannot guarantee girls. Also I am more inclined to keep the sows to enhance my own breeding program. So if you must have a sow, you may have to wait quite a while. The last baby pet sow I had here was in October, and I don't expect any for at least six to eight weeks and even then I have a waiting list. Also be prepared to pay more for a texel than for another, more common breed. And expect to pay a premium for texel sows.

Please consider boars. Most people with experience with guinea pigs find that boars make great pets, being even more even tempered than sows. Most breeders have extra boars, including me, so if you ask for a boar, you can usually get one right away.

Some common misconceptions about boars.
1. "They smell." No they don't. They may mark their territory by dragging their rumps in the bedding, but sows do this too.
2. "They are aggressive and fight." Nope. You can keep multiple boars together with no problems. Right now I have a big pen with five boars, and several smaller pens with two boars a piece. Virtually all adult boars will accept a baby boar as a companion, even if they have been bred. And Texels, being so mellow to begin with, seem to get along fine with everyone. I can put my adult males texels together with no problems.
3. "I already have several females and don't want to risk pregnancies." Just ask for a retired show pig that isn't breeding. A common problem with boars that have had successful show careers is that they turn out to be duds when it comes to breeding. David Hardesty in his excellent article on natural caging explains that the high body fat require to show successfully, can cause reproductive problems.

Cavies, which have a healthy percentage of body fat, are much better breeders, but do not show well. Cavies, which have a healthy percentage of body fat, may be described as " narrow in the shoulder and mid-section." Animals with very high deposits of fat within the abdominal cavity are said to have "excellent flesh condition" because they feel hard as a rock.

This is also a potential problem in the male cavy. In mammals the gonads are carried in the scrotum which keeps the gonads cooler than body temperature. Boars whose gonads do not drop into the scrotum will invariably be sterile because the body temperature inside the abdominal cavity is too hot for the production of viable sperm. Fat males sterilize themselves because their body fat constantly covers scrotum and the sperm dies from being surrounded by all the heat trapped by their fat.

If you don't want to take a chance, then just consider getting a pair of males and housing them separately. And contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, it really is not that easy for a sow to "accidentally" get pregnant.

A couple final notes. Consider taking a mature animal rather than a baby. The babies are adorable, but they are only that way for a few weeks. If you must have a baby, be prepared to wait. The fallacy is that you must have a baby in order to have it be accepted by your other pigs. But by the time the three week quarantine period is over, you no longer have a baby. Besides, adult guinea pigs accept other adults just fine, especially texels. Sure they may chase each other around a bit, but with a big cage and lots of veggies treats, you should have no problems.

So now you know everything about choosing a texel for a pet.