Sherlock Gets a Friend

Sherlock was now a healthy four month old, mite free, happily housed and fed little piggy, but I still felt he was lonely as I work all day.  I also did a lot of research with regards to piggies and every source stated that a piggy needs a friend.  So after careful consideration I decided to have Sherlock neutered so he could have a little girlfriend (I know my blog says living with guinea pig boys... I'll get to that).  I had read that guinea pig boys don't always get along, so I didn't want to take the chance.

I booked Sherlock in for the surgery at an excellent exotics vet and like a baby I took my boy in and cried all the way home.  I waited by the phone the whole day and the minute I was allowed to collect him I was in my car armed with love and parsley...  I picked up a rather groggy pig who was grateful for his parsley treat.  He took about two weeks to recover, but recovered very well.

One Day After His Surgery In His Hospital Bed

 I knew that when getting a new piggy you must quarantine it for two weeks before introducing it to another piggy so you can check if it has any illnesses which can be passed onto your existing piggy.  Sherlock still had two weeks to go before he was allowed to be in contact with a female after his surgery, so the timing was perfect to adopt Faye.

My Little Faye

She was so tiny and so sweet, but caused me much anxiety as she refused to eat for the first two days.  I had to syringe feed her and nurse her to health.  She also needed to be treated for mites, I used revolution this time, much better.  I was very excited for her and Sherlock to meet, and finally the day came.  I introduced them on neutral territory with my boyfriend so that we had two pairs of eyes and hands in case something went wrong.  Sherlock looked confused and made a kind of hissing sound at first, but then came and sniffed her and ate some veggies.  He then proceeded to start licking her face and I knew they would be friends.

A few days later after a couple more introductions I cleaned out Sherlock's cage and put the two piggies in together, there was a fair amount of chasing and rumble strutting from Sherlock, but all settled down very soon.  I was happy that my Sherlock was happy. However as the next few days passed I noticed some strange behavior from Sherlock and Faye which made me question Faye's gender.  She was so tiny it was so hard to tell, so I did some more research about sexing guinea pigs and to cut a long story short, Faye turned out to be a boy piggy (hence the title of this blog).  I decided to rename him Rhiley and to keep an eye out for any aggressive behavior with the boys, truth be told I was nervous as I had heard all kinds of horror stories about boars fighting.

You Mean to Tell me I'm a Boy??!!!

My Boys in Their Cage Together