Day 8: Noise

Well it's official, Mouse has uttered her first 'wheek' and now won't stop. The noise of her and my 7 others is actually quite piercing but you've gotta love it! As soon as I wake up in the morning and they hear me move, it just takes one to start and the others soon join in. I have 3 separate groups in different rooms but they all unify for breakfast and teatime! Tomorrow I'll take a video so you can hear the noise I have to put up with!

Piggy hearing is amazingly good. No word of a lie, as soon as I put my key in the door they start. They sometimes even hear you walking down the hallway before even opening the door to my flat! My neighbours must think I'm barking. In fact I know they do because I'm frequently dragging a hay bale up the stairs, carrying animals in boxes down the stairs and generally looking knackered and covered in fur and hay. My postman once asked if I had a horse 'up there'.

Apart from the usual noise, I don't have anything else to report today. Mouse is so much happier in her big cage and getting more confident by the day. I'm struggling to get her to eat 'healthy' things though. After an initial bust of eating her greens she's now being fussy and just eating carrots and dried food. Both of which aren't great for her. Carrots are full of sugar starch and dried food doesn't promote good teeth ware. I'm conscious that so long as she's eating I should be happy but I really would like her to eat properly.

This often happens when an animal is fed one thing for a long time, getting them on to a proper, healthy diet is like getting blood out of a stone. Owners often use the excuse ''oh but they like it''. Well I like chips and cake but thankfully I don't live off it (well on certain days). Rabbits are notorious for being nightmares if they aren't used to eating hay (which should be 80-90% of their diet like piggies), it often takes months to wean them on to it. Thankfully, the one thing Mouse likes that is good for her is hay so I shouldn't complain really. That reminds me, Mouse's old, little cage has come in handy as a massive hay tray for my house rabbits...

Both guinea pigs & rabbits should have a diet mainly consisting of hay, with some green veg (pigs tend to tolerate a greater variety of veg than buns ie. peppers, baby sweetcorns) and if you choose a very small amount of good quality pelleted food max. one egg cup per day. Our exotic vets recommends no dried food as a rule. After years of feeding an egg cup of dried food I decided to take it away completely. They eat more hay and drink more water but that's the only difference, they certainly didn't waste away! Hopefully, this will mean better digestive & dental health for all. Oh and fewer vet bills? Well I can dream.

Here's a video of my pigs being, well, pigs.