Take a Break from Crabs

I promised you in my last entry I was going to tell you a little bit about crabs and how they die and stuff like that, but I want to tell you a little bit about my guinea pigs just for this entry (or maybe two). Here are some pictures of them.

Like I said in my first entry, my guinea pigs' names are Oreo, Red, and Mini. I call Oreo "Oreo." I call Red "Red" or "Big Red," "Stupid Stinky," or "Chucky Chunks." I call Mini "Mini," "Mini Marshmallow," "Gilbert," "Mini Gilbert," "Bebe," "Bebe Boy," or "Mini Bebe." Red and Oreo are sisters even though they don't look anything alike. Here's the history of all my pigs.

First I got Red and we had got her cage, litter, cedar ships (makes them sick so never give that to them), Timothy hay and pellets (but not too many pellets because they will make them sick and overweight. The next day I thought she was lonely so my dad took me to the pet store to get her sister, Oreo. Red had a bunch of food in her cage, but she wasn't eating it, so right as Oreo leaped in, Oreo started eating her food and Red got really mad and started to nibble faster than Oreo as it looked. My mom told me the first day I got Red and the first day I got Oreo to just leave them alone and let them get settled in, but since they have each other they won't need to leave them alone as long. Later on, maybe about a couple months later, they started getting older and it was time for them to mate. So they started fighting and had to get separate cages. It was only appearing once or twice a month or every two months. Then it started going on for longer periods of time, but not much longer. Then, about maybe half a year, a year and a half later, I took a trip on Easter to South Carolina. That is where my mom's friend lives, and her name is Kathy. She has three guinea pigs, and like you read, I have two.

Finally we arrived in South Carolina, and I couldn't WAIT to go see her pigs. Her guinea pigs' names were Coco, MINI MARSHMALLOW! and Vanilla. Coco is a boy, Mini is a boy, and Vanilla is a girl.

I didn't mention this, but Oreo and Red right now are about 2 1/2 years old and Mini is about 6. They only live till about 8, if they're luck 10 years.

But back to what I was saying. Coco had a white stripe on his nose and I think a white butt and was brown. His name suits him very well as you can see. His hair was very very very soft. Vanilla had very tough hair, but that was just the type of guinea pig she was. She was white and had colic's and had a bit of brown but I don't quite remember where. Mini was treated very very poorly. His cage stunk. His fur was falling out, and he was very stiff because he had broken his leg at one time which I will tell you about later and had sleepies in his eyes and dandruff all over his fur. As you can see in the picture of him at the top, he had a nutmegish and white color. (He is treated very well now and is getting better.)

His story was that Kathy's son, Jack, he's 12 right now, wanted a guinea pig, and his first guinea pig was Coco. He thought Coco was lonely like I thought about Red, so he went to the store and got Vanilla. They fought horribly, and so Kathy was going to take poor little Vanilla back to the pet store--Jack was younger when this happened, so he started crying because he didn't want little Vanilla to go. A little later on, maybe about a year, I'm not quite sure, Jack's father got Mini from a little girl who kept him in a very small rat cage--he was also mistreated there. He forced him on Kathy and said, "Here, Take the pig," so she had no choice but to take the little, poor creature in. A little later on, Jack brought him in for I think show and tell and he went home with one of the kids. The child left him on the couch for maybe about a minute and a half, and he fell off. He broke his leg, but it was not treated, no surgery. I'm not quite sure how it was treated, but I know it was broken. Like I said, he still has four legs, but he got very very stiff. When you pick him up, it makes you feel very very bad and sad.

So back to what I was saying about Easter at Kathy's house. I ran in the room after she told me where they were, and I scanned all three guinea pigs. The first thing I did was pet Coco, but I did not take them out yet. Then I petted Vanilla, then last but not least, I petted what looked to me at the time the weird looking Mini Marshmallow. He was very skittish and he tried to turn away from me and when I pet him literally a big clump of fur came off with all the dandruff. Then I did my rounds of taking the poggles out (pigs). I did the same order: first Coco then Vanilla and the skittish, fat Mini. I first groomed him. I pet him thoroughly, and there was about the size and I am not joking and I mean NOT joking a hairball as big as a baseball. I ran and showed Kathy but my mom kind of gave me a look that said Don't do that. After he was all cleaned, I put him in something called a sheepskin basket--just like a little holder that is really soft and has sheep fur inside--they are really nice. (You can find it at a local pet store if you want one--Pet smart.) Kathy's mom, her nickname is Punk, short for Pumpkin (a nickname inside of a nickname, but I don't quite know her real name) was there.

I don't quite remember what happened in between that, but the next day, I immediately started petting the guinea pigs, but I only did it for a brief moment because I wanted to get to Mini as fast as I possibly could. Yesterday when I cleaned all the sleepies and his fur off of him, I immediately fell in love with him and seemed a bit cuter to me (and not everyone else), and it seemed he was thanking me and being very nice to me, but he was still very stiff and I still felt very very bad for him. I said, "Mommy, see how cute he is," and Kathy and Mom said, "Yeeeeaaaaaaah.....he's adorable." The next day, of course we went back to Kathy's house and, like I said before, I rushed into the room and did my my petting rounds but didn't take them out, only Mini. His eyes were very sorrowful, but he looked at me, and kinda said "Thank you." It's not like he was starving.....or thirsty....it's just that his eyes rolled back in his sockets. He wouldn't eat a lot. He would only eat about one thing and Timothy hay was spread all over his cage. The other guinea pigs were fine, it's just that since Mini wasn't Kathy's favorite, he didn't get as much attention.

It was day three and I would take that pig out every day, and like I said Kathy's mom was there. She made a joke that she didn't recognize me without that pig because I didn't go straight to the pig room today and I walked in to say hi to everybody before I rushed to the pig room. Then after that she said, "Oh there's the little girl. I didn't recognize you without that pig." I think it was the third day that Kathy said, "Why don't you take him?" I had to BEG my mom for about two or three more days. Finally, she said, "If you are good, then I think I will probably consider it."

The last day finally hit, and my mom said yes to taking Mini home I think the night before. Kathy had gotten a box, some newspaper, and some veggies.

I didn't mention this before, but Mini's favorite snack is carrots because like I said his eyes were all rolled back in his sockets and people believe that carrots help your eyes and in carrots there is something called beta-carotene. It has a lot of nutrients and like I said it makes your eyes better, so I can see how he likes carrots. Sadly, neither my mom or Kathy had any carrots, so he had to settle for something called Rainbow Chard, and my pigs love it! Now like I said in my first entry about the crabs, ALL OF THIS STUFF HAS TO BE ORGANIC. We were driving through the mountains in Virginia and it was hitting six o'clock. It took us two days to get there when we were going to South Carolina, but we had been driving since about maybe around 4:00, and it hit 6:00. We found a cheap hotel and slept for about three hours. Kathy gave us an extra sheepskin basket and a carrying case for Mini. Most hotels, in fact almost ALL hotels, don't allow pets, so we had to sneak him in there in his carrier. But we didn't get caught and everything worked out A-OK.

Around 8:00 we drove the rest of the way home and we finally got to my house. Now, I used to live in a Cull-De-sac, and there were about eight girls there of all ages. I was sitting on my porch in the shade with Mini and three of the girls, Annie, Meg, and Madeline came running down yelling, "Hey Sarah, how was your trip?" I said, "Great," and I got a new guinea pig and I showed it to them, but they didn't care much, but they were still happy for me. Meg was in my same class at school, and the school was just around the corner, it was Lawton Elementary. She told me she got two fish and was really excited and I told her, "Good for you."

Mini was at his new home now and I had introduced him to the girls (Kathy said that he fought with Vanilla and Coco, but he seemed to do just fine with Red and Oreo, but they didn't seem to like him very much.). Kathy also gave us an extra cage, so now we have three cages, and there's very little room in my mom's office for them. My friend Lisa had one guinea pig at the time: Carmelita.

We would have piggy play dates and our pigs would LOVE it.

(now she has 3, but Carmelita died so 2. She died of internal bleeding and cancer.)

Lisa had rescued her from the human society and had her for 3 GREAT years.

Her other guinea pigs names are Paprika and Cinnamon.

A year after I got Mini I was doing some research I found a special type of milk.

BUT NOT JUST ANY MILK.

I gave some to all my pigs and to carmileta and mini got better.

I guess thats it.

bye.....