#pet cavy

Guinea pigs. Google photos sort those kinds of photos into “zoo” category, which is hilarious.

This is my caviary. 120x90 cm hutches that can be divided in half if needed. Right now I am wintering only in three upper ones and I have around twenty guinea pigs. I cover the hatches and cavies have it nice and warm. During the spring, the extra space is needed for younglings!

This is Gilfie, my first cuy. Cuys are large breed of guinea pigs, Gilfie had over 1600 g and she was not the largest cuy around. Cuys are large, very shy and frequently they have way too many toes.  Gilfie had normal number of toes, and no crest, she was just nicely smooth-haired everywhere. She had many, many babies, chief among them her daughter Hemlina, which had two important daughters. The first produced a male that was the father of all almost the cavies in the caviary the year before. Second I mated with an ordinary guinea pig to get a gene for a colour in F1 generation and got two such females which each already have young with desired phenotype.  So, the majority of my guinea pigs have Gilfie somewhere in the family tree, one way or another. She is like a big matriarch.