Meet Elsa

After much longing Tennie finally brought home a healthy, lovable new guinea pig named Elsa today.  Ben (Ceci's female guinea pig who kept her previously male name) warmly welcomed her new cage-mate.  All is well again with the Davis girl's pets.

Yesterday Adele and Ceci played beauty shop with their guinea pigs.  I wish I had a camera on hand to see them with their elaborate beauty parlor set-up.  Adele painted her male guinea pig's nails blue (see her attempted photo of his nails today), and Ceci streaked Ben's hair with a little fuchsia.  Tres chic!

Guinea pig surprise - continued

I forgot to post the sad ending we had to our guinea pig surprise.  Tennie's Louis(a) died while in labor, and Benjamin(a)'s two off-spring died within a few days.  Very, very sad. 

Guinea Pig surprise!

As you know, the girls are the proud and loving owners of three very cute guinea pigs: Caleb, Benjamin and Louis (all of whom share a cage). Before we left we secured their care with Geoff's brother Ian and off we went.

Well, turns out Benjamin is really Benjamina as she delivered a litter of little cavies yesterday (two of six lived)! We put some pieces together and realized that Mr. Louis is really a Mrs. and was, in fact, in labor! We are awaiting news of her litter. Who knew?! (We certainly didn't!)


You can imagine how the girls feel about being here when their baby guineas are there. We gave ourselves a quick crash course on baby guinea pigs while Geoff's family rallied to figure out which one was a mother. After a call to our dear art teacher Dana Solomon (who encouraged us to own guinea pigs in the first place) she comforted us all with a visit to create little nests for the new mothers, and with the help of Geoff's dad they set up a little heat lamp, drilled a hole in the mother's cage so a water bottle could be a baby height, and separated the mothers and babies from their father since a female can get pregnant just six hours after giving birth! What a fun surprise.

Anyone want a guinea pig?