Thank You
Coco61, SabreRose, Serendipity7000 and
cypher.
_______________
2nd – Lavender and Poppy
Today, I thought I would introduce you to my very first pets – they weren’t hamsters but Guinea-pigs!
In 2004, my parents decided to allow me and my brother to get our first pet. I wanted a hamster but I wasn’t allowed one instead my parents had thought about getting us a guinea-pig each. Later 2004, we adopted two guinea-pigs from a rescue centre – who we named Lavender and Poppy.
Poppy was Lavender’s foster mother. Poppy and Lavender’s mother had been brought into the rescue centre pregnant and they both experienced problems in labour – Poppy unfortunately lost all of her babies and Lavender’s mother sadly passed away leaving Lavender and her siblings without their Mum. The rescue decided to see whether Poppy would foster Lavender and siblings to raise them as her own – which she successfully did.
Lavender and Poppy were both such wonderful guinea-pigs they were very friendly and didn’t mind being handled, cuddled and stroked. Although they did have a habit of peeing on our laps, which we didn’t notice until we started to feel a warm sensation. They lived in their DIY hutch (built by my grandad) which we kept inside a heated playhouse – which kept them warm in the winter and during the summer month they spent the daytime in their outside run were they got to enjoy eating the grass – they were excellent lawn mowers. Both also thoroughly enjoyed their home-grown vegetables which my dad had specially grown for them – sometimes they would even turn their noses up to shop bought veg! They always knew exactly when it was their dinner time and they would wheek in excitement for their veg.
Lavender was my guinea-pig and she was a Red eyed white Abyssinian and Poppy was my brothers and she was a red eyed, brown and white American shorthair. Poppy was also blind in one eye – we adopted her like this but we still got her eye checked over by our local vet and they confirmed that everything was fine with the eye itself so it didn’t need to be removed.
Here are a few photos of both Lavender and Poppy (RIP) …