My Pets: Aurea

Name: Aurea

Animal: Guinea Pig

Colour: Mixture of Dark brown, light brown, black and white.

Size: Small to medium size for a guinea pig

Breed: Believed to be Abyssinian

Gender: Female

Birthday: 26^th July 2009

Aurea is the first guinea pig I have owned who has long hair that sticks up in rosettes. She shares her hutch with her twin sister Gerty, who looks a lot like her, only her hair is slightly shorter and doesn’t stick up.

Aurea needs quite a lot of brushing and grooming due to her fairly long fur.

When Aurea was around 6 or 7 months old, we noticed that she appeared to have stopped growing and was considerably smaller than her companions. She also seemed not to be eating as much, so we took her to the vets to check that there was no under-lying problem. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong and thought that she could be the runt of the litter and that was why she was so small. To be on the safe side Aurea was given antibiotics for a week, and some liquid food for cavies that contained a lot of nutrients. Two months later and Aurea is eating normally and is almost the same size as her friends.