Friday, November 13, 2009

Good news, bad news

J's parents are here, which is lovely. It is J's dad's birthday today, which is also good.

Not so good is that two of our piggies, Brownie and Pumpkin, seem to have nibbled patches in their fur, on their cheeks - which means that they didn't do it themselves. This is known as barbering and it's not a good thing - it can be a sign of stress or aggression, and can be a forerunner of biting. The un-nibbled pig is Cupcake, who is about as aggressive as a cotton-wool ball, as far as we can tell.

So maybe Brownie and Pumpkin are doing it to each other? But it seems very odd that the patches would be in exactly the same place, which they are. We've never seen any of them behaving aggressively, so it's hard to tell.

I have posted for advice on a guinea pig forum and am awaiting developments. We do tend to worry about our piggies' health far more than we probably need to; but then they can't talk, so they can't tell us if something's wrong.

Whatever is wrong, it's not life-threatening and we can take them to the vet next week if we need to. Think about something positive.

It's six weeks until Christmas! I feel fairly positive about this; I like Christmas. Yesterday I saw that they had started to put up the Winter Wonderland amusements on Princes Street. I've never been on the big wheel, but I like the way it looks.

Different angle

4 comments:

Mildawg said...

I hope you get the guinea pig problem resolved :)

Thimbleanna said...

What a pretty picture! Is this something they do yearly for the holidays? Sorry to hear about your pigs -- I hope it's only temporary!

Loth said...

It was that ferris wheel being delivered that caused me to take 15 minutes to get out of Waverley Station after dropping my husband off last Monday! I have been on it with the kids and was slightly spooked by how wobbly it was. But you have to pretend to be brave for the children. (Not going on it again though!)

Pam said...

I think that the fact that C isn't nibbled and the other two are points to a culprit. Or maybe not...