Post by guinnymom25 on Oct 25, 2013 16:44:35 GMT
I've been posting here for the past week now...but haven't really told my story. I fell in love with gps 2 years ago...my kids were getting old enough to introduce pets into our home, we actually started with hamsters, the first one Peach, only lived for 3 months...we really don't know what happened, she was being fed, cage was being cleaned regularly, she had a wheel, etc...it had turned cold, my son's room where she was housed was the coldest being above the garage, so she may have caught a chill?? not sure, so we waited a month, and decided to go back and see about getting another one, we brought Daisy home and she lived for 5 months...again had no idea, as she was one to love to be in her ball and roll around with us all over the place...it was the saddest time for us...felt like we were doing something wrong?? Or that the pet store we purchased them from wasn't that great and they were already sick/diseased?? Anyway...I realized I wasn't willing to get another hamster and go through all that again, so I decided to start researching other small animals suitable for children (I really wanted a dog, but my ex who at the time was still with wouldn't hear of it) I hit the web and totally fell in love with guinea pigs...they are the cutest things! I went to the library and picked up books on them, I searched the internet for all the information I could find...and finally we hit the pet store (PetSmart) and found our first two sows - Pebbles and Nibbles, bought a store cage as I hadn't found out about C&C just yet. As I researched more, I found the guineapigcages.com web site where I discovered the C&C cage...so off we went and built our very own one using grids from Walmart and coro from Home Depot. As soon as we finished it, we ended up getting Molly our first Abby! And a feisty one at that! She definitely had abytude! LOL...we then expanded our cage yet again and brought Fefe home, then as we went to the pet store to pick up some supplies, of course couldn't resist checking out the babies that just arrived and...Holly was our last one back then (this was in 2011), had expanded the cage to be a 2x5 with a 2x2 loft, and since we didn't have any other animals at the time was fully open. The kids loved holding them, Pebbles even got to the point where she would lie on the couch beside my son. I started having really bad reactions at this time as well...breaking out in hives, having a horrible dry throat/cough...went to the doctors and after explaining things, he determined that I was allergic to the girls...what to do I asked him? He said best thing is to find them new homes....so, that's what I did, I gave all 5 to one individual who responded to my add, I gave her everything, the cage, the bedding, the toys, the food bowls for free...she told me she would keep in contact, that she would send pics etc, since my daughter was heart-broken...we got to see them once after and that was it, she never responded back to my emails or anything so I have no idea where or how they are...after some more research a few months later (after my separation, getting a puppy and a kitten...since I was on my own, I could finally get the pets I wanted) I discovered that I wasn't allergic to the pigs themselves but the type of hay I was using! talk about heartbreak, right?? Never act too quickly on anything is the lesson I learned. So, I knew I had to have gps back in my life again, their playfulness, their personalities, just made my day so much more brighter...So, in February of this year, we brought home Cookie and Caramel, Cocoa came in March, Charlie we "rescued" in August, and Gibson we found off of Kijiji as I started to read up on breeding and thought I would try it out...very conflicting facts/information on the web in regards to this, so am so excited to have found this forum. Okay...phew...long winded, hope you made it this far without falling asleep??
It's great to hear your story.
