Here is where you will find the small balls of fluff that get left behind, forgotten or neglected. Here you will see there stories of trial, tribulation and the want to live. These critters filled with hope come to the thicket seeking relief and shleter from a world that can so easily step on and never notice a 5 inch tall cavy! The guinea pigs that manage to waddle on here and tell their story in between eating grass and sleeping on pillows, will be available (unless stated) on our Adoptables page once they have been health checked and given some large doses of TLC!
If you have any questions about any of our guinea pigs, there medical treatment/conditions, availablility and backgrounds dont hesitate to contact us any time via email or give us a call between 8am and 8pm.
The Lovely Lenore
The first curious cavy to find shelter here for 2012 is Lenore, a 2 year old choc/cream slate texel sow who is unfortunatly an all too common case of typical neglect. The photo was taekn on arrival taken once her eyes were thoroughly cleaned of the gunk that was sealing them almost shut.
Lenore was found on a large property locked in a metal cage in full sun, she was without shade and her water was yellow. It was extremly obvious at first glance and smell of this poor girl that she was in very ill health with numerous issues needing immediate vet care, and as it always goes the owners played the ignorence card when I confronted them in regards to her health. The first and most obvious sign of pain and sickness was Lenore's alarmingly bulged out eyes, she was even having trouble blinking properly from the swelling. Next was the amount of discharge from her eyes along with there varying colors of red/blue/black and white, along with quite a nasty puncture to her cornia. Her bottom are was a mess cacked in runny stool with severe urine sculd combined with the beginings of a mange mite infection. This was also attributing to quite alot of bacterial build up within her gentital area causeing a nasty case of thrush, not to mention her onset mastitis.
Her coat was dry and her skin was covered in scabbing from mites and poor living conditions, the nails on her back feet were so long that she shuffled along on them in a strange painful fashion. Lenores belly and body condition confirmed to us she had just been over bred, in horrid conditions without the basics and left to her own devices within a cage of course. She found herwself at the vet clinic where her bulging eyes were diagnosed to be an infection caused by a severe abcess on her cornia previously thought to be a puncture. The infection behind the eyes was placing pressure on them thus causing them to protrude, the abcess is located in the middle of her eye making it extremly difficult to heal and the conjunctivitis was causing quite a lot of build up in her eyes hourly. Lenore was then tested to see if/how much her sight was compromised, from her behaviour and lack of reactions from visual cues we had a feeling that she had ver limited sight but unfortunatly it was confirmed she was completly in the dark.
Lenores back feet looked as though they had never been trimmed, they were extremly sore.
The three big issues concerning her eyes were surprisingly unrelated but were effecting one another, the conjuntivitis most often is caused by poor living conditions and overpopulation, the abcess was more than likely a result of a hay poke that was left untreated and infected allowing it to form. The blindness is due to the seperation of some of the connective nerves behind her eye as a result of some sort of physical trauma, like being dropped, kicked, hit, stepped on and so on. For us this was part one of the bad news in store for Lenore, the fact that she as some stage suffered some physical trauma possibly a result of her owners.
Lenore settling the night she came to live with us
At the moment Lenore is being treated with 2 seperate antibiotics along with eye ointment in an attempt to help her combat the various infections happening through out her body. Its hoped her abcess is not too far gone and will not get bigger, if it does the option is surgary which in her current state of health would be extremly risky. But in spite of all the neglect Lenore is the kindest soul with supreme patience, she has at no point in the poking and the proding ever made a peep of complaint. She is learning her cage arrangement well and seems to be a lover of cold watermelon on a hot QLD day!
Lenore is a prime example of the guinea pigs incredible ability to forgive and love no matter how dark it gets.
Gorgous Lenore will become a permanant resident here at the bramble fox.
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