Our awards for the Noughties are:
- Oldest rescue guinea rehomed: Mr Happy @ 5 and a half years old.
- Oldest rescue guinea pig taken in: Satin, age 7 years.
- Oldest foster pigs here well enough to be rehomed: Keenan and Kel @ 6 years old stayed with their fosterer until they left us to be Stars on Planet Guinea.
- Youngest guinea pig rehomed: Molly (2009) @ 6 wheeks.
- Youngest guinea to arrive at the rescue (not including the ones in Mum’s tums 🙂 ): 4 day old Pixie and Dixie (2002).
- First boar @ Reading Guinea Pig Rescue (RGPR) (rescue), Eddie, a lone boar who was later paired with an existing boar, 2001.
- First sow on RGPR (rescue): Sugar and Spice, 2001.
- First litter born @RGPR: The Buffy Kids, 2003, 5 pups born, 1 dead on arrival.
- Biggest litters born @ RGPR: Summer had a litter of 8 pups, 5 survived, Posy had 8 as well in 2008.
- Smallest litter born: One little girl, Ariel, to the lovely Scrumptious.
- Largest pup born: Solo an only pup weighed in at 150g.
- Smallest surviving pup: was Marsh who lived here for 8 wheeks before going to be a start= on Planet guinea, followed by his brother Maple @ 44g and still looking for that Forever home, and Mr.Big also 44g.
- Most guineas rehomed to one person over the years: 18 to Chrissie of Gorgeous Guineas, starting in 2002 till 2009. Chrissie makes a rule of rehoming only those that are over 2 years, the oldest being Mr Happy at 5 years.
- Biggest number of guineas taken in at one go: 18, in 2002. I was told to expect 6, which was ‘pushing it’, spacewise. Luckily, Chrissie, who had just adopted Florence from us and was building RGPR’s first website, offered hutch space for two sows and two boars. The rest is history- Gorgeous Guineas‘ history! Clover and daisy went from being scruffy short haired guineas to stunning Coronets! The girls were adopted, the boys stayed as Gorgeous Guineas 🙂 .
- Most common colour to come into RGPR: Chocolate, our first chocolates were Charlie and his Chocolate Factory, Miss Piggy and her 5 pups born here.
- Most common breed ‘type’ to come into RGPR: The Himalayan is by far the most popular type to come in, they are never well smutted like the true purebreed, but have the choc nose/feet/ears. All but one of the Himmy sows that have arrived here have been in pig (except for the pups born here of course). At the time of writing I have a Himmy boar, Acorn, looking for a Forever home and two boars born to Himmy mums that have been here over a year looking for homes.
- Most common ‘problem’ that guineas have on arrival @ RGPR: For the most part skin problems, but more recently behavioural issues have been rising.
- Most common reason for ‘handing over’ guineas to RGPR: ‘Change of Circumstances’.
- Most guineas rehomed @ RGPR: 46 in 2008 to Animal Welfare Act compliant homes and above.
- Least amount of guineas rehomed by RGPR: 8 in 2001, this was without any internet advertising neither did we have a website.
- Biggest challenge: This has to be Lily’s arrival, Lily is blind and deaf, although she can probably see light and dark and shapes/outlines; I had Marsh who was without eyes but a deaf blind is so different. Whilst I could talk to Mrsh and get a reaction from him, Lily can’t acknowledge my prescence simply by hearing me. For the first few days I had to ‘get her up’ in the mornings to come and get her food, now she runs with the others and wheeks for her food 🙂 She taught me she is just like the others and needs no ‘special care’, funnily enough the other guins have never treated her as a ‘special case’ either.
I’m sure there are many other Noughtie things that have happened, these are just the ones that stand out for me. Next year I will look back on a decade of rescue, rehoming and the changes I’ve seen, but lets all enjoy 2010 first! Have a good one everybody 🙂
The Pig Issue 