Goodbye Long John (parsley face)

Long John

Well I was planning on blogging about all the boys and their progress in the bungalow over the last year, we've had a few ups and downs but all seemed good since we got back from holiday and they were all in full swing getting into trouble and making us laugh.

Long John's bathtime

Being groomed

However, on Tuesday morning my normally always reliable Mitsubishi Colt had a hiccup which resulted in me having to take an "emergency holiday" from work. As it was still a good 15 minutes before everyone else got up I thought I'd make myself useful and feed the pigs. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw Long John, I tried to pick him up and he made a terrible noise and when I put him back down, even though he was in an awkward position, he didn't adjust himself.

Recently he had had an operation to correct a tooth which had grown a bit wayward and having got bunged with his long hair, had stopped him from eating. He lost weight and started to be attacked by mites. The vets were great. They sorted out his tooth, gave him an injection for the mites, some pain killers, antibiotics and he came home with a supply of recovery foods which we had to syringe feed him morning and night. It was a very time consuming episode but we really got into a routine and I felt like we really bonded - pig and nurse! After a couple of weeks I was starting to suspect he was enjoying all the attention too much and wasn't eating again on purpose, but gradually he started to get his appetite back and by the time we got back from our holidays and he came back from the piggery he was back to full strength. The vet had warned us that guinea pigs were prone to just giving up if they got really poorly, so I was happy that we had got through a difficult stage and everything was fine.

Back to Tuesday morning - I still had some of the recovery food left so I rushed him in and tried to clean him up with some warm water, give him a drink and a little dot of food, but he was getting worse, he started to lie on his side so I wrapped him in a towel for comfort and gave him a cuddle and 10 minutes later he'd gone.

It was upsetting but not like when Polly left us, we'd had her for 19 years and she was part of the family living with us day and night. I felt really sad, I'm not sure whether we would have gone ahead with getting the pigs if it hadn't have been for spotting Long John he was such a character and it was sad that all our hard work in nurturing him through his illness had in the end not been enough to save him. I'm now focussing all my attention on his son poor little Silver who looks very forlorn in his big cage, he's having antibiotics and sudacrem morning and night at the moment. Hopefully with us to look after him and William and Harry fussing around downstairs he wont get too lonely but we will have to see.

Long John (left) and his son Silver (right) sheltering in their run

If you're thinking about getting a guinea pig...
When we got the guinea pigs we did think they'd be quite easy to look after, we did lots of research and it took us about a years worth of talking and 2 months hard thought before we got them. We got the biggest cage we could afford and garden runs, we feed them fresh veg and dried food every day, we clean them regularly - it's quite hard work, they cost a lot in food and bedding and the initial set up was expensive. They eat lots, they poop lots and they are prone to quite a few illnesses, they are very timid and you need to handle them regularly to get the most out of them. We move them into a shed in the winter to keep them warm and dry. We look after ours well and still we have problems they all had a cough in the winter, that was four lots of antibiotics 2-3 times a day and we had to have them living inside for a while when they were poorly.
I wanted to let you know the reality of it before taking them on - even though their life span can be 7 years, poor Long John was only 3 and a half.
And finally before getting guinea pigs make sure that you want them as much as your child because for all the will in the world you will be the one looking after them. We get Lauren to wash the bowls occasionally but she's not managed a clean out and is mostly reluctant to feed them and can sometimes get an allergic reaction when they come out to play, as she gets older I will be more strict - at the moment though she's too small to clean their enormous cage but it wont always be that way!