It's Triplets!

There couldn't have been a more perfect time for one of our Guniea Pigs to have babies! 

Just this week, Eagle has been working on his "Life Cycle" unit in Science!

This was not something we planned to coincide with his lesson, it just happened that way.  While we missed the birth of these babies, we caught the show so soon after it started that when we caught our first glimpse of the babies they had not yet been entirely cleaned by their momma and one of them even still had her full umbilical cord and sac attached.

Two of the babies seemed to be in danger at first one of them was very limp and lifeless and they were both cold.  They had wandered away into their own little corner of the cage but we promptly put them both back with momma and they ended up just fine.

We have raised 5 guinea pigs over the course of the last 7 years and while we were on our cruise the last of our herd had died.  We just couldn't live without that piggy kind of love in our house for very long and in no time we had adopted 7 new cavy's.  We had every intention of breeding our new herd and we got very young females for this reason, but one of our females unexpectedly came to us already pregnant.  We were so upset and worried about her because she was far too young to safely breed.  Our plan was to breed her in December, when she was old enough to do so.

Things don't always happen as planned and instead of pairing her for mating this week...she delivered instead!  She gave birth to three healthy babies! 

While it's really too soon to tell, it appears she has two boys and one girl.  We are fairly certain that we will not breed this poor girl again, as we feel like she has been through enough already!  She came through it all like a champ and she is such an awesome mommy!

What an amazing experience it has been for my children to watch over her and take care of her during her pregnancy...learning what she needed to ensure a healthy pregnancy and always making sure she had everything she needed...getting to hold her and feel her babies moving and now watching her as nature takes it's course and she cares for her young.  It's amazing how she just "knows" everything to do, from cutting their umbilical cords to constantly grooming them and keeping them clean and feeding them.  My kids were all so full of excitement, concern and curiousity and luckily homeschooling offers no time restraints on learning...so at sometime after midnight, my Kindergartener sat contendedly holding one of our new babies!

The boys were reserved before they were born!  Their new owner is so excited and we hope that the boys will be ready to go home just in time for Christmas!  Parting with them will be tough, as everyone is growing attached to them already. 

We are so glad that we decided to take this journey!  Cardinal very much wants to be a vet and we are thrilled to have the capability of feeding into her passion of her love for animals!  Soon she will be shadowing a vet, working with service animals as a volunteer and entering into program at our local animal shelter and in the meantime, she will be breeding, raising and possibly showing her guinea pigs...learning all she can along the way!