Violet

All by myself, don’t wanna live all by myself, anymore…

Violet’s Human contacted me when a sow she had taken in from a friend wasn’t reponding to being rehablitated and bonded with other guinea pigs. Previously Violet had lived with a sow where there had been much animosity and the situation escalated so much it got to point where the Human handed over Violet over to a friend who also had guineas.  The intention was to rehabilitate Violet and then rehome her. However after weeks of trying to bond Violet with several groups her new Human contacted me and asked for help, unfortunately it isn’t as black and white as just giving advice so I offered to take Violet in long term and, after working through her issues, to find her a new home.

Violet spent 7 days on her own in C+C caging next to my group (who have no issues and are a laid back bunch).

She had minimal handling from me, only a checkover daily, no cuddling etc. She’s also had a Melt and shampoo. That way she could adjust to the surroundings with nothing else to bother her.

She spent much of her time from day 2 onwards just stood up on the base of the cage watching the other guineas eat and sleep etc. They came over to have a look at her on day one but by day 2 they left her alone.

She had some time outside, I put a small run inside the big one so she was still with the group but couldn’t get with them. She moved ‘with’ them, as they moved up the run so did she, she seemed to follow one sow in particular. I put the others away and left Hope in the big run and opened the door of  Violet’s run, Hope went in and had a nosey and then hopped out again with Violet following her. They had about 5 minutes together (Violet doing lots of sniffing!) then I put them back in their pens (Violet on her own).

On SundayI took one of the C+C grids out, when Violet noticed it was gone she hopped over the plastic base and into the next pen. Rather sheepishly she had a look round. No one took any notice of her.
There was some ‘handbags at dawn’ with one of the rescue sows that is in there, (she also has problems socialising, or did, but has come on leaps and bounds), after a while they settled and went their seperate ways. When it had quietened down and they’d sorted their differences (no blood:) ) I took the other rescue sow out for a while. When I put her back she wasn’t interested in Violet. I was in the shed all afternoon so could keep an eye on them but there were no problems :) Violet stayed with the group that night, and is still with them. She hasn’t made any friends yet, really, though my boar seems to like her.

I’ll leave her there for a while until she starts to come out of herself then try her with other rescue pigs, that will be  the true test!  I can see her fear, and that needs to go.