Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Adoption News - - It's a Guinea Pig!!

There's absolutely NOTHING happening on the adoption front, so this will have to do for now...
Yep, we've added another member to our family! Her name is Gingersnap. Our animal lover, Sarah Jane, told us the only thing she wanted for her 10th birthday was a pet. Knowing how responsible she is, we started the conversation months ago and began researching different pet options....
  • Gecko or some other lizard - - uh, no to anything that requires live crickets!
  • Turtle or Frog - - Too smelly
  • Ferret - - too big, too expensive, too creepy
  • Dog - - one word: MAX
We found that Guinea Pigs are very social, like interaction with owners, eat Timothy Hay, Guinea Pig pellets, and fresh fruits and veggies (found a good use for the occasional tomatoes people give us!).

Biggest problem so far: we got a plain, wire cage....not thinking about the bedding that would fly everywhere when Ginger gets scared or excited. Our first solution was to make a cardboard wall around the bottom of the cage. Helped quite a bit, but we still sweep up bedding 2-3 times/day. Our next solution is that we're going to switch to fleece as bedding. I'm making kind of a pillowcase out of fleece, and we're cutting up an old mattress pad to put inside of it. Then, we can just vacuum up Ginger's poop (and, did you know you can potty train Guinea pigs?!) and throw the whole bed into the washing machine every few days! I'll post a picture when we get it done and let you know if it actually works!

3 comments:

Sean and Rachel Kerrigan said...

Thanks for your encouragement:) Hopefully we'll get some referrals here!!!

Dana said...

Well I guess "Ginger" will have to do for now!! She is cute, but not
much fun to shop for!!
When is this "director" going home?
He needs to get back to Ethiopia and get things moving!!
Here's hoping for a great big batch of referrals coming in soon!!
Dana

Anonymous said...

Hey Gretchen! Man it is amazing how old your girls are getting! Enjoy the Guinea Pig! I did the hamster thing and loved mine. Hey just so you know I have started blogging and I added your link to my page if that is ok with you. I am coming back there in January because my roommate is getting married so maybe I can swing by to see you guys. Hope all is going well.

Mark
markyakey.wordpress.com

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