Piggy of the Night

Nightwheek is the daughter of Regina and Robin Hood. She was from our first American litter, and our second litter overall. She did not have any siblings, but was born with Dangerous Beans present, so she posed as almost a sister to her. She is a brown-ish color with red eyes, and a similar pattern to her father, Robin.

Nightwheek with her owner

\Night wheek is a very sweet piggy, but does not like being picked up. However, she loves being cuddled and if you pet her she will purr. She loves carrots and will wheek every night when her owner comes in with treats- and she always wheeks in disappointment if she does not get her nightly snack. She sometimes hangs out with the other girls from my caviary, and is very nice to them. She isn't the best partner for a show Texel, though- she will nibble their fur!

Texels Always Come in Trios

We received our third trio of Texels in the middle of June. The breeder who we had previously bought pigs from started having health issues and was downsizing. She was offering some of her best quality guinea pigs, including a lot of Texels. We went to a show in Spencer, Massachusetts on June 15 to pick them up. 

The first cavy we bought was a Chocolate, Orange, and White Sow whom we named Nativefox's Seabreeze as her show name, and Belle as her barn name. She is very sweet, although she was, and still is, very scared.

Seabreeze

The second was Dreamwalker, a senior boar of the same pattern as Belle. He sired many litters for his breeder and is about a year and a  half old. He is also very good at posing, as he has gone to many shows.

Dreamwalker

The third piggy was a birthday surprise for me from my parents. Mom knew that I loved red eyed guinea pigs (even though they creep her out). The breeder happened to have a PEW (pink eyed white) whom she was going to keep but couldn't, as she was having health problems, as mentioned before. So my mother bought the PEW, but only told me that she had purchased Seabreeze and Dreamwalker. (She also didn't tell me the price of the guinea pigs....who knew someone could buy three guinea pigs for 150 dollars?) We named him Choking Hazard as his show name, or Captain Hook as his barn name, but normally we just call him PEW.

Choking Hazard

My First Litter

"Mom, Izzy, you guys might want to come down here..."
"Rapunzel?"
"Yup."

 Big Savings, Junior
My sister had come upstairs from handling her bunnies (her website is here) and told me and Mom to come down. She led us to Rapunzel's cage. I peered in. Inside the cage were three tiny pups. Rapunzel was still cleaning them up, but it seemed like she had gotten distracted, and one of the babies was having trouble breathing. Mom did not waste any time in taking the baby out of the cage and cleaning out its nose.

Dangerous Beans, Junior
Thankfully, the baby started breathing and all of the pups did great.
The next day, I held each of the babies for a while. There was one Broken Orange and White one, one Tortoiseshell and White one, and a Broken tricolor Black, White, and Cream. They were all Texels, and currently they are juniors by age, and some of them are intermediates by weight.

Feedsfour, Junior

Zippy Little Piggy

"Remember, Izzy, this time you can only get one, not three."

In mid-March, we needed a boar to breed with Regina. We ended up going back to the same breeder that we got the girls from, who happened to be the 4-H leader. we walked in and greeted everyone in the club. Soon i got to see the three boars, each almost as tiny as Rapunzel was. There were two with red eyes and one beautiful silver.

Robin Hood, full grown

I ended up buying one of the red eyed ones, who I named Robin Hood, who was Regina's boyfriend in Once Upon A Time. He is an American Broken Lilac/Beige, but he is shown in Any Other Marked (AOM) because of the red eyes. He was very zippy when I got him, however, and when I opened the cage, he ran right to the front and jumped out. Thankfully, he got calmer as he got older and now he is just as gentle as the other cavies. He is the daddy of the baby sow aforementioned here.

Not One, But Three

"Rapunzel needs a friend," my mom said. "Or two friends..." I countered.

We were both wrong.

Mom had sent me to a 4-H Meeting in early December, hoping for me to come back with an American sow so that Rapunzel would not be lonely. When I got to the meeting, the 4-H leader had a cage with three baby sows in it. One had red eyes and white and red splotches of fur, and the other two were also AOMs, but looked almost like TSWs.

Emma, full grown

Later in the evening, I waited outside while my sister texted our parents. I had begged her to ask them if I could take all three. The breeder said that she would allow it, as long as my parents were okay with it.

Snow White, full grown
Because I have awesome parents, I was given permission to take home all three. I named the TSW-like AOMs  Snow White and Emma (shown in the pictures above), and the red-eyed one Regina, after the evil queen from Once Upon A Time because my mom said that the red eyes made her look evil. Regina is now the mother of  one baby sow.

Rumpelstiltskin and Mr. Gold

At the same time we bought Rapunzel, we also bought two almost identical broken boars. I named them after two characters from the show Once Upon A Time. In the show, Rumpelstiltskin and Mr. Gold are two different versions of the same person. Both versions look almost the same, with a few minor differences, just like my guinea pigs. Nativefox's Mr. Gold is Broken White and Red, and Nativefox's Rumpelstiltskin is Cream and White.

Mr. Gold
Both Rumple and Gold are Texels. They are probably brothers, although we aren't completely sure, as we do not have their pedigrees. Mr. Gold is the father of the three pups mentioned in Rapunzel's

introduction.

Rumpelstiltskin

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair

Nativefox's Absolut Wonder (that's her show name, get barn name is Rapunzel) was a tiny baby when I bought her. She could fit in the palm of your hand and be perfectly comfortable. She grew and grew, and eventually made senior weight.

Rapunzel is a Texel, which means she has long, curly hair- just like Rapunzel from the fairy tales. She is extremely sweet, and is friends with most of the other sows in the caviary. She is a Tortoiseshell and White Senior Sow. She is also the mother of three beautiful pups.

I Only Want One...

My mother and sister walked in the door. "Come on, Izzy." they said. "Come meet the new rabbit! And the pig..." I followed them into the basement, not believing that they would bring a pig home from the Nutmeg Rabbit Show- or that my father would let them. But when they opened the two travel cages they had brought down, I first saw an English Angora rabbit, and then....

A Guinea Pig.

Scout.

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Kline's Scout was my first guinea pig. He is an Abyssinian, which means he has rosettes and ridges. We named him Scout because my dad has an orange dog of the same name. We eventually nicknamed him the very creative name of "Pig." He was the start of my caviary.

Scout is a very sweet pig, although as he got older he stopped getting along with some of the other boars. He is also very loud, and if he hears a bag crinkle he will wheek because he thinks that it is carrots or some other treat. He lives in the first floor of our house, unlike the other guinea pigs, who live in the basement. Because of this, he is always the first one to get a carrot at treat time.