The first guinea pig pups- last march litter is born

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akane

akane

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It has started. Iroiro had the first litter. 1 solid black and 1 golden agouti roan. Quick pic for tonight.

 
Those are newborns. GP pups are pretty amazing when they're born. They start eating solids immediately.
 
They still had umbilical cords when I took that pic.

I'm not sure I can part with the golden roan. I'm hoping the black is less cute when it grows up. :lol: <br /><br /> __________ Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:02 pm __________ <br /><br /> The roan isn't going to make it. When we got them out today she was lethargic and breathing hard. The cage wasn't bad but I cleaned it anyway to reduce respiratory irritants. That was an hour ago and I just found her sitting in the open getting cold. Her breaths sound fine but are labored. I'm guessing a heart condition. She's starting to feel cold and fluffing her fur so I'm just holding her and watching tv.
 
Another pair and they are only hours old. They aren't even sure how to use their hindlegs yet. The dark one is a golden agouti with a crest. The light one has no official color name. It is agouti harlequin with a pair of dilute genes (exact ones impossible to figure out) which makes it's 2 colors buff and lemon agouti.





I tried to get a vid cause you can't fully appreciate the cuteness without the little wheeky sounds and wobbling about but my camera is not good without flash. I just don't have enough light in this room even with everything on.
 
They may be rather messy animals to clean up after, they drink and pee many times more liquid than rabbits per day, but I missed the little wheekers. We always had them around. My husband hated our attempt to keep them in the condo though. It was a short lived ~6months before I sold them. I bought them as a tagged show quality breeding group and had a tagger and everything so I did get money back from that. These guys are just from free craigslist guinea pigs. The cavy show is coming up soon though. I'm debating a pair of dalmations. A modified roan pattern to have the roaning missing from spots on the body.
 
She became very uncomfortable and her breathing and heart rate were extremely fast. The force of her trying to breath was actually moving my hand a little. I decided to sedate her so she was not aware of what was happening and she died. I think her heart finally stopped. She probably would have died faster if I'd left her to get cold but I didn't want her to be in so much distress. I'm wondering why it happened. I've rarely had a pup born a normal size that didn't make it. Despite having litters constantly my entire childhood I can probably count the number of lost regular size pups (not runts) on one hand. They were a bit low in vit c during the first part of pregnancy or maybe the roan gene which is a lethal gene. 2 copies such as from roan x roan breeding is nearly a 100% death sentence. Usually you don't see side effects in animals with 1 copy of a lethal gene though. Dunno, can't make a very solid hypothesis from only 1 death.
 
As long as the black pup can chew on my laptop it does not cry about being alone. :? I guess it can't do damage. The other 2 pups are in a different pen. I'm thinking about condensing the 2 sows with pups and the one that also looks like it swallowed a lemon in to one cage and removing the male from that pen. The other male got put in a separate cage because of his broken teeth so there is no male in the 2nd pen and no other sow looks ready to pop.
 
Syberchick70":1n13lbaa said:
Those are newborns. GP pups are pretty amazing when they're born. They start eating solids immediately.
Click to expand...

akane: Do they suckle at any point? Or just hit the floor running? (so to speak) I know some animals are like that (mostly prey species), but they still suckle. :?
 
They get colostrum in the first few hours and they will nurse a bit for a few weeks but they can survive on only solid food within days. Guinea pig milk is very watery. The opposite of rabbits. It's more extra liquid than anything. It does help avoid dehydrated kits before they learn a water bottle if you aren't feeding tons of fresh greens and vegetables. Water intake has gone up sharply since the pups being born. Otherwise they stay with adults mostly just to learn how to survive and interact. If you put a sow, boar, and their pups out in an open yard or field they will make a train with the sow in front, the pups in a line, and the boar in the back. They run this way to avoid losing pups and communicate with noises the whole time. It's really interesting to watch.
 
akane":aolwg5id said:
They get colostrum in the first few hours and they will nurse a bit for a few weeks but they can survive on only solid food within days. Guinea pig milk is very watery. The opposite of rabbits. It's more extra liquid than anything. It does help avoid dehydrated kits before they learn a water bottle if you aren't feeding tons of fresh greens and vegetables. Water intake has gone up sharply since the pups being born. Otherwise they stay with adults mostly just to learn how to survive and interact. If you put a sow, boar, and their pups out in an open yard or field they will make a train with the sow in front, the pups in a line, and the boar in the back. They run this way to avoid losing pups and communicate with noises the whole time. It's really interesting to watch.
Click to expand...

Mother nature is AWESOME :p
 

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