Okay, sorry for the delay to those who may be keeping up. I thought I posted a few weeks ago, but come to find out that was back in March!!! Wow!
School is finally out for the summer, thankfully. Since then my anxiety has been near nothing. Between work, school, homework, friends, family and my loving pets and running on little sleep sometimes it just gets too much for me. Thankfully I only have to worry about work to manage anymore instead of cramming so much into a day since school is not in the equation right now.
Okay, well in this post I was planning on talking about my guinea pigs. Since I have gotten them I have learned a great deal about them. I bought them at Petland, but now that I did that I feel really guilty about it because of the piggies that need new homes on Petfinder. Next time I plan on adopting guinea pigs they will come from a rescue.
Little Red has red hair. When I first got her I would of said she had a caramel brown, but one day she was sitting on Katie's shoulder, and honestly their hair was the exact same shade of red! I do believe this was before she had a name. I had a hard time coming up with her name, but eventually Little Red just stuck. Mocha's name I chose the night after I saw her and the night before I went and picked her up from the pet store. I was going through a list of names and found that, and I loved it. She does look like black coffee, but Coffee just doesn't sound like a great name to me, but I loved how Mocha sounded.
They were in a small cage I bought at the pet store, but it was very hard to keep clean. Seems like I was cleaning it every day, and even an hour after I would clean it I still had the urge to re-clean it. I am no where close to being a neat person, but for some reason I like their cage to be clean. I would have to say about a month ago I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and purchased 2 boxes of a dozen cubical grids to make a new cage. Ever since then it seems like every week I am changing the cage in some way, shape or form...Hopefully after tonight it is finished for a while, but the last two days I have had this urge to make it bigger....
The first night I had it set up it was a 2X4 with a lid, which was a 2X4 set as well. The lid got in the way. I absolutally hated it, but with Murphy I thought it would be hard to keep him out of the cage. Eventually I started leaving about two grids off the lid so I could reach my hand in without messing with the lid, and without scaring them. Well, eventually the lid was left off...
When I moved my room around I made the cage smaller and into a 2X3, and then my mom got my brain turning when she mentioned I could make a loft for the girls. That was a three hour project the night I made it all in it's own. I spent a good hour taking the connecters off the grids and using zip ties. The zip ties were amazing for the 1X2 loft, but not the rest of the cage. To make the loft I used two grids for the floor, and then took one grid and bent it for the ramp and so it had a banister to prevent them from falling off the side. I also took another grid and bent it for the wall of the loft, then zip tied it all together.
Well, the loft was too low to the ground for my liking and I felt my girls were going into the dark to hide underneight the second level...and I also thought about making the loft bigger. So I decided instead of the 1X2 to do a 1X3...It was awful! Not sturdy what so ever! The girls were so scared going up to it. When I changed to that it too an hour and after it was done I decided that I was going back to a 1X2 ASAP! The next day after work I literally cut about 100 zip ties from all around the cage, replaced certain areas with the connecters (where the loft was not) and made the loft higher, resulting in another bent grid for the ramp since the loft was higher, and another bent grid to finish off the wall of the second level so that they would not fall over the edge and onto the floor of their cage. I also had to add more grids to the sides of the loft, which I used connectors for that. The connectors in some cases are simply great to keep it sturdy.
When I clean the cage I tip it back so that the two levels are on the floor and the rest is in the air. It keeps together. I use coroplast for the bottom of the cage so that when the piggies pee and poop it doesn't get into the carpet. The coro is used at sign companies, and lucky me I have an uncle and a cousin who are in the sign business, so it is free and easily accessable for me!
I use fleece for the loft and the bedding, which is a big money saver! 5 bucks on reusable bedding, just needs thrown in the washer and dryer. I have two different large fleece pieces for the first floor, one being a baby blue and another a baby pink with white poka-dots, and then for the loft I have a plain brown piece and another piece with a brown background and multiple colors with stars and hearts my mom bought me. If I do not use the brown pieces for the loft I use it under the loft where my girls tend to hang out just for extra protection there for leaks. In that case towels are used in the second story. I use an old towel for the ramp, and it has yet to be washed because the girls won't use the bathroom there.
This cage also does not have a top other than two grids over the second story that cover the hideys so if the girls jump ontop of their hideys they won't jump out of their cage.
Inside the cage I have two hidey houses (pig-gloos) one is pink and anothe is blue, and one will either be on the top and one on the bottom level, or each will be on the second or each will be on the first level, just depends on where I want them placed when I clean the cage.
Also in the cage is a small blue water bottle I paid 3 dollars for at Walmart. To attach it to the cage I have yarn. It works great and stays secure, and I tie it into a bow so I can reuse it.
Also in the cage I hand-made a cozie cup out of fleece and batting. They loved it when they were little!
They have some toys. A few nights ago I found a PVC pipe in the garage, cleaned it up and they immediatly took to it. They go in and out of it. It is one that isn't just a straight piece, it has a bend to it as well, so they could either go straight through or make a turn and come out.
They also have wuffle balls in their cage that I found for a dollar for 5 of them at the dollar store (hense the dollar I paid for them haha), and also I found two soft squeaky bones for a dollar for the dogs at the dollar store, but one ended up in with the piggies for a pillow.
Also in the cage is a yellow food "bowl." It came from the pet store cage, but it is actually long and it is suppose to go into the pet store cage and attach to a whole side of it. It has two dips and they both get filled with pellets.
Something all guinea pigs need is Timothy Hay, which I pay less than 4 dollars for at Walmart and it takes them a month to go through an average 5 pound bag of it. I have been experimenting with how to place it in the cage. They had a plastic piece that is used a lot like a toilet for ferrits that came with the pet store cage and it worked for a short while, until they decided lying in the hay was nicer, and even better they could pee and poop in it. I was so irritated. After it happened a second time I decided I was done. I hated having the hay all over the bottom of the cage all spread out when I would just lay a pile in, so someone on a guinea pig forum suggested bending yet another grid and attaching it to the corner of a cage. To keep the hay from going out of the cage, take a piece of coro and place it against the corner and place the hay in between the coro and the bent grid. I did this this evening so we shall see how it works.
Guinea pigs need a lot of Vitamin C, and I did not know this until now but VC is found in green peppers and romain lettuce. Never feed a guinea pig ice burg lettuce, it doesn't go through their systems well. Guinea pigs should have a bout 1/8 a cup of pellets daily and 1 cup of fresh veggies, 1/2 cup first feeding and 1/2 cup the second feeding.
My girls enjoy green peppers, romain lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, celery, broccoli, cabbage and their favorite hands down is cherry tomatoes. They also like oranges, seedless grapes and apples. Their favorite fruit is bananas. They do not like strawberries very well, so if I absolutally have to give them strawberries I do but just one cut into fourths. Last night I cut off a piece of raw corn on the cob and gave it to them to try. Little Red did not like it too well, but Mocha was in love I do believe. It was something different.
I did learn last night do not feed them with your fingers. Little Red accidently bit me going for a piece of carrot. My thumb bled for 15 minutes, and it is still sore today. Mocha has bit me on purpose once I do believe out off fear but she has never drawn blood. Red is the one who loves to lick the salt off your fingers. I've had people ask why I still have them after she bit, but it was an accident. Any other time she would never do it. It did show me how sharp her teeth are.
Okay, well I do believe I have wrote enough about my girls. Hopefully here soon I will post some pictures of them and my Murphy and those awful basset hounds...Oh, since I was on here we have another basset, a girl, Scooby's half sister. Her name is Gracie, and she is a brat! She is very cute, but her cuteness is deceiving I must say! She is a sweet heart when she is sleeping! I love snuggling on the couch with her at night!
School is finally out for the summer, thankfully. Since then my anxiety has been near nothing. Between work, school, homework, friends, family and my loving pets and running on little sleep sometimes it just gets too much for me. Thankfully I only have to worry about work to manage anymore instead of cramming so much into a day since school is not in the equation right now.
Okay, well in this post I was planning on talking about my guinea pigs. Since I have gotten them I have learned a great deal about them. I bought them at Petland, but now that I did that I feel really guilty about it because of the piggies that need new homes on Petfinder. Next time I plan on adopting guinea pigs they will come from a rescue.
Little Red has red hair. When I first got her I would of said she had a caramel brown, but one day she was sitting on Katie's shoulder, and honestly their hair was the exact same shade of red! I do believe this was before she had a name. I had a hard time coming up with her name, but eventually Little Red just stuck. Mocha's name I chose the night after I saw her and the night before I went and picked her up from the pet store. I was going through a list of names and found that, and I loved it. She does look like black coffee, but Coffee just doesn't sound like a great name to me, but I loved how Mocha sounded.
They were in a small cage I bought at the pet store, but it was very hard to keep clean. Seems like I was cleaning it every day, and even an hour after I would clean it I still had the urge to re-clean it. I am no where close to being a neat person, but for some reason I like their cage to be clean. I would have to say about a month ago I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and purchased 2 boxes of a dozen cubical grids to make a new cage. Ever since then it seems like every week I am changing the cage in some way, shape or form...Hopefully after tonight it is finished for a while, but the last two days I have had this urge to make it bigger....
The first night I had it set up it was a 2X4 with a lid, which was a 2X4 set as well. The lid got in the way. I absolutally hated it, but with Murphy I thought it would be hard to keep him out of the cage. Eventually I started leaving about two grids off the lid so I could reach my hand in without messing with the lid, and without scaring them. Well, eventually the lid was left off...
When I moved my room around I made the cage smaller and into a 2X3, and then my mom got my brain turning when she mentioned I could make a loft for the girls. That was a three hour project the night I made it all in it's own. I spent a good hour taking the connecters off the grids and using zip ties. The zip ties were amazing for the 1X2 loft, but not the rest of the cage. To make the loft I used two grids for the floor, and then took one grid and bent it for the ramp and so it had a banister to prevent them from falling off the side. I also took another grid and bent it for the wall of the loft, then zip tied it all together.
Well, the loft was too low to the ground for my liking and I felt my girls were going into the dark to hide underneight the second level...and I also thought about making the loft bigger. So I decided instead of the 1X2 to do a 1X3...It was awful! Not sturdy what so ever! The girls were so scared going up to it. When I changed to that it too an hour and after it was done I decided that I was going back to a 1X2 ASAP! The next day after work I literally cut about 100 zip ties from all around the cage, replaced certain areas with the connecters (where the loft was not) and made the loft higher, resulting in another bent grid for the ramp since the loft was higher, and another bent grid to finish off the wall of the second level so that they would not fall over the edge and onto the floor of their cage. I also had to add more grids to the sides of the loft, which I used connectors for that. The connectors in some cases are simply great to keep it sturdy.
When I clean the cage I tip it back so that the two levels are on the floor and the rest is in the air. It keeps together. I use coroplast for the bottom of the cage so that when the piggies pee and poop it doesn't get into the carpet. The coro is used at sign companies, and lucky me I have an uncle and a cousin who are in the sign business, so it is free and easily accessable for me!
I use fleece for the loft and the bedding, which is a big money saver! 5 bucks on reusable bedding, just needs thrown in the washer and dryer. I have two different large fleece pieces for the first floor, one being a baby blue and another a baby pink with white poka-dots, and then for the loft I have a plain brown piece and another piece with a brown background and multiple colors with stars and hearts my mom bought me. If I do not use the brown pieces for the loft I use it under the loft where my girls tend to hang out just for extra protection there for leaks. In that case towels are used in the second story. I use an old towel for the ramp, and it has yet to be washed because the girls won't use the bathroom there.
This cage also does not have a top other than two grids over the second story that cover the hideys so if the girls jump ontop of their hideys they won't jump out of their cage.
Inside the cage I have two hidey houses (pig-gloos) one is pink and anothe is blue, and one will either be on the top and one on the bottom level, or each will be on the second or each will be on the first level, just depends on where I want them placed when I clean the cage.
Also in the cage is a small blue water bottle I paid 3 dollars for at Walmart. To attach it to the cage I have yarn. It works great and stays secure, and I tie it into a bow so I can reuse it.
Also in the cage I hand-made a cozie cup out of fleece and batting. They loved it when they were little!
They have some toys. A few nights ago I found a PVC pipe in the garage, cleaned it up and they immediatly took to it. They go in and out of it. It is one that isn't just a straight piece, it has a bend to it as well, so they could either go straight through or make a turn and come out.
They also have wuffle balls in their cage that I found for a dollar for 5 of them at the dollar store (hense the dollar I paid for them haha), and also I found two soft squeaky bones for a dollar for the dogs at the dollar store, but one ended up in with the piggies for a pillow.
Also in the cage is a yellow food "bowl." It came from the pet store cage, but it is actually long and it is suppose to go into the pet store cage and attach to a whole side of it. It has two dips and they both get filled with pellets.
Something all guinea pigs need is Timothy Hay, which I pay less than 4 dollars for at Walmart and it takes them a month to go through an average 5 pound bag of it. I have been experimenting with how to place it in the cage. They had a plastic piece that is used a lot like a toilet for ferrits that came with the pet store cage and it worked for a short while, until they decided lying in the hay was nicer, and even better they could pee and poop in it. I was so irritated. After it happened a second time I decided I was done. I hated having the hay all over the bottom of the cage all spread out when I would just lay a pile in, so someone on a guinea pig forum suggested bending yet another grid and attaching it to the corner of a cage. To keep the hay from going out of the cage, take a piece of coro and place it against the corner and place the hay in between the coro and the bent grid. I did this this evening so we shall see how it works.
Guinea pigs need a lot of Vitamin C, and I did not know this until now but VC is found in green peppers and romain lettuce. Never feed a guinea pig ice burg lettuce, it doesn't go through their systems well. Guinea pigs should have a bout 1/8 a cup of pellets daily and 1 cup of fresh veggies, 1/2 cup first feeding and 1/2 cup the second feeding.
My girls enjoy green peppers, romain lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, celery, broccoli, cabbage and their favorite hands down is cherry tomatoes. They also like oranges, seedless grapes and apples. Their favorite fruit is bananas. They do not like strawberries very well, so if I absolutally have to give them strawberries I do but just one cut into fourths. Last night I cut off a piece of raw corn on the cob and gave it to them to try. Little Red did not like it too well, but Mocha was in love I do believe. It was something different.
I did learn last night do not feed them with your fingers. Little Red accidently bit me going for a piece of carrot. My thumb bled for 15 minutes, and it is still sore today. Mocha has bit me on purpose once I do believe out off fear but she has never drawn blood. Red is the one who loves to lick the salt off your fingers. I've had people ask why I still have them after she bit, but it was an accident. Any other time she would never do it. It did show me how sharp her teeth are.
Okay, well I do believe I have wrote enough about my girls. Hopefully here soon I will post some pictures of them and my Murphy and those awful basset hounds...Oh, since I was on here we have another basset, a girl, Scooby's half sister. Her name is Gracie, and she is a brat! She is very cute, but her cuteness is deceiving I must say! She is a sweet heart when she is sleeping! I love snuggling on the couch with her at night!
