Large scale Rescue 4/10/2011
Cavy Angel’s Guinea Pig Rescue received a phone call from an older Man who explained that he would like us to take his guinea pigs as they are costing him more then what they are worth and that he was planing to go on holidays with his wife in the upcoming weeks and needs them gone.
He then went on to say that he was breeding them to sell the baby to one of the local pet shop and that he had them in the bottom of his bird aviary and was finding it increasingly hard to catch the babies and impossible to catch the adults this is when he asked for our assistance in catching the very wild guinea pigs.
So we arranged a time to meet him the next day with our car loaded with carry cages, nets, hides etc.
On arrival we where greeted by a very friendly man who took us around the back of his house where there was a large aviary the man then opened the aviary door to let me in to catch the guinea pigs the conditions where quite horrific the bottom of the aviary was covered in faeces/ no food and just a dish of disturbing green water with mosquito larvae swimming around in it..
Trying to keep a calm and professional manner I started to try and catch the terrified guinea pigs it was not an easy task but after just over an hour we had managed to catch all 12 guinea pigs.
As I was catching the guinea pigs Cavy Angel’s co manager was talking to the man to gather more information the man explained that he started off with 2 guinea pigs from the local pet shop and he let them breed once he got to 12 guinea pigs he decided to keep them as his breeding stock and any more baby’s that are born he would sell to the local pet shop.
To think that all but 2 of these 12 guinea pigs have never been held our cuddled or been shown any love or compassion from a human was very disheartening.
Once all the guinea pigs had been caught and placed in their carry cage we loaded them up and headed home.
Once we got home we got home we where able to get a proper look at the guinea pigs one by one we got the very nervous and scared guinea pigs out and treated them for mites/mange/lice and worms we also treated them for coccidioses even though they did not have symptoms of coccidioses coming from a background like they did we where not taking any chances..
We then decided to let them calm down after such a traumatic day and just put them in their new clean cages with lots of fresh hay and water and have a better look at them the next day.
The next day we decided to get them all out and have a good look at them get some photos etc unfortunately they where still just as terrified you could not get near the cage with out them running and jumping around in absolute terra.
Everone of the guinea pigs was suffering from some kind of medical condition all were covered in lice some had the effects from mites/mange many where suffering from bumblefoot one girl had 2 large cysts and all the males where suffering from impaction and one girl was suffering from a birth defect in her hind legs/hips..
All 6 of the females where pregnant but sadly all but one of the girls gave birth to still born (Dead babies) most likely from the stress of the whole ordeal the only girl that gave birth successfully had 4 babies unfortunately one of the babies was very weak we did all we could to save the little girl that we named Moppet but sadly she was too weak and she lost her fight.. RIP Moppet..
We where able to treat their medical condition with no problems but It took many weeks/ months until you could get near their cage with out them running and hiding in terra but after time they started to get used to us coming and feeding them they learnt that we are not all bad after several months they started to run and great us at the door when we come to bring food and now will even let you touch and pat them they are still a little nervous when you go to get them out of the cage and will put up a fight but once out of the cage they are starting to calm right down and will allow you to pat them and show them what being a guinea pig is really all about!
This is the perfect story of how guinea pigs will forgive and forget!