Summers Over

Its been a week since my last blog post but I have been really busy lately. Summer is over and I had to prepare and get ready for school. I start school tomorrow; going in to sixth year which is the final year of school here in Ireland. Which is great that I'm finally going to be finished but it also means that we have huge exams in June time called the 'leaving certificate' and basically our whole lives revolve around these results.

Its pretty scary, and its going to quite hard for me to settle in to school. I haven't attended school on a regular basis since Christmas '08. So to settle into school, get into a routine and study, study, study is going to be pretty hard. Its going to be a real shock to my body tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off at 6:45 and I'm used to getting up at 12pm. I don't know how I will sleep tonight in time for school cause I usually don't sleep till 4am.

So bare with me in the next few days as I settle back into school.
Now all the introductions of my rabbits and guinea pigs are over, I will be making proper blog posts.

Love M x

Finally Friends and Gentle Giants

I wanted my three rabbits to become a trio as rabbits are best kept together. To make bonding alot easier I got Cooper, Marley and Dexter all neutered together. Thankfully it all went well and when they had all healed and all the hormones were gone I put them together in the hope I would get a trio or at least a pair.
I had to supervise them 24/7 for three days and then watch them very closely after that. There was alot of full on fights, nipping, hair pulling, cuts, attacking, mounting, chasing and all sorts. The first few days went well but after a while Cooper got depressed about being in a trio and the others picked up on it and started attacking him so I choose to separate Cooper from the pair before it got worse. I was still delighted though that Dexter and Marley finally had a friend to be with.

I felt bad separating Cooper from the others, and I always said that I would really consider getting another rabbit if one of the boys were left alone. It just so happened that the day before I had to separate Cooper I saw an add online for Flemish giant rabbits for sale. It had been my dream to own a Flemish giant rabbit for ages and I was considering it, when Coopers bond didn't work it gave me another reason to get the Flemish giant.

A few emails and a phone call later, I arranged to meet the owners or the rabbits and convinced the family that this rabbit was the right thing to do. So we went to view them and they had an amazing set up. These are the pictures from the add.

It was hard to choose one to get, but in the end we took a beautiful eight week old blue girl home. We named her Willow and from day 1 she sure was a gentle giant.  We are hoping that when Willow is old enough to get spayed, she will eventually bond with Cooper.

Two Pigs Quickly Become Five

In January 2011, we had two new additions to the family. My cat was ill, so too cheer me up my mum suggested adding to the family, so we got not one, but two new guinea pigs. They were Alfie and Rio. They were so cute, how could we say no?

Then In March, my brother seeing a guinea pig looking for a home and really wanted him, he came home that night talking about him and the next day came home with a small box with a beautiful brown agouti pig inside. We named him Nico.

Two More Joins The Herd

Just over a month later, my brother came up with the idea on getting a new rabbit - a friend for Cooper. I did know how it is recommended to not bond neutered rabbits and to wait till all are neutered, healed and recovered before bonding as they are more successful that way, but we decided to go ahead and get another rabbit, keep them separated, neuter them at the same time and then when all hormones are gone bond them.

That's when we got Marley, a beautiful white with dark points, lionlop.

When we were getting Marley, my brother fell in love with a lovely lionhead rabbit - mainly the reason why he fell in love with him was because he was ill, he had very sore stinging eyes and my brother wanted to bring him home but of course couldn't as he was ill.

But in December, just two days before Christmas, the little lionhead now bigger and perfectly healthy,  became ours. Meet Dexter.

The Big Move

So now I had three pet store cages, one for Cooper, the other for Chester and then another for Mac. My next step was to give them bigger and better accommodation and for Chester and Mac to be introduced correctly and live together in the new cage.

I had my c&c cage planned and it did take me a while to track down where to get supplies here in Ireland. Then I had to save up for the cost of it all, and after that I had a few weeks of waiting impatiently while my grids were being ordered.

In total, it took me over 20hours to make this cage but it was so worth it.

So here it is: A 2X7 c&c cage with a 2X2 downstairs area for Chester and Mac to go in and finally be together and then the rest for Cooper to have for himself. Of course it is fully enclosed as I have cats and dogs.

Please excuse the pet store cage in Coopers part, it was to help him adjust to the transition of the new cage as he seemed a little stressed but after a while he loved it. It is a good example though of how little space the 'extra large' cage sold at the store was and how much better his new home is.

Another Wheeker Joins The Family

I really enjoyed being a rabbit owner and a guinea pig owner. I quickly became obsessed with the internet side of animal ownership and learing about animal care and seeing other peoples setups. Its from there that I learned how guinea pigs and rabbits are best kept in pairs or groups and how there is alternative housing than just the cages they sell at the pet store.

I designed a c&c cage, and redesigned and redesigned until I had one that I was finally happy with. So I planned to save up for the new, bigger cage and then get Chester a new friend and then after I get Cooper neutered I would get him a friend.

Though my brother had another plan..

He arrived home from college one day saying he had something in the car for me to get for him, I went out and what did I see? But a beautiful new guinea pig. He was all different shades of brown and had medium lenght hair. He did end up being nameless for about two weeks but we named him Mac in the end. From the start he was very friendly and outgoing, compared to is cagemate to be Chester, who is shy and timid.

Macs first day here  -14th October 2010

I kept Mac and Chester seperated until I had the big cage set up and then I could introduce them there.

The First Guinea Pig

After we had Cooper for a few weeks, we decided we would get him the bigger cage at the pet store like we originally had planned. So back we went to the pet store on the 29th of June 2010, to buy the cage and a couple other bunny supplies.
Of course, the pet store had lots of cute animals, and my mum and two brothers took a fancy to the guinea pigs...
Now, this isn't the typical pet shop story, where everyone falls in love with the ball of cuteness and wants to bring it home, well its partly like that; everyone did fall in love with the guinea pigs and the thought of owning one - except for me!

I didn't want a guinea pig, if we were to add to our family, I wanted another rabbit to keep Cooper company, but of course the shop assistants were no help and they convinced my mum and brothers that a guinea pig and rabbit can be friends. They all told me that they would mind him, clean him out, feed him and care for him. So in the end I gave up convincing them not to get the guinea pig and left it up to them.


Mum went up, called the girl down and asked what guinea pigs they have, she showed her a pretty white girl, and then brought her over to another cage, lifted up a pigloo and grabbed a young, scared boy out of it. The girl popped him into the box and he became part of the fur family.

From the moment that we got out to the car to home, the box was passed to me and all ownership of the little guinea was left to me - from that second on I was the minder of this guinea pig even after all my brothers said.



His first picture



A few weeks after getting him



I managed to convince my two brothers and mum how rabbits and guinea pigs are not ment to be kept together and thankfully they believed me.

At first I was scared of the little guy, I remember taking him out of the box to put him in Coopers old cage and when I touched him, I jumped back a little. I was scared to hold him, and he was even more frightened which made it worse. For the first few cage cleaning times, I had to get mum to empty the cage before I would clean it as I didn't want to touch any of his stuff.

All that did quickly change though, I remember the very first time that I actually did get attached to him, I was sitting in the corner of the room, hoping that Chester would come out of his pigloo and when he did, he wheeked and popcorned.

It was that first wheek, the first popcorn that gave guinea pigs a part of my heart forever.