We’re pretty into pets in our family. I hate to admit it, but we’ve had a lot over the years. I also realize that we aren’t the best “long-term” pet keepers. Some might even say we’re fickle in our pet tastes. We’ve had: cats, dogs, rats, sheep, chickens and fish.
This week we became the proud owners of two skinny pigs.
That’s guinea pigs to the rest of the world.
Marnix is a friend we’ve made here. He’s a wonderful Dutch man who started his own children’s home here: Macheo Children’s Home http://macheo.org/blog.php. They do some great things there for the children of Kenya. He’s also our source for guinea pigs. Apparently he was gifted with some for the kids a while back, and now has a colony? herd? tribe of almost 50. Yes, they breed like rabbits.
Anyhow, after making the guinea pigs a cage,
We went over the next evening to make the selections. We chose 2 females (no need for 50 guinea pigs here at Karibu unless we’re finding a way to market them as meat) and the kids cuddled them in the car and when we arrived home.
Lucy keeps choosing “Toby” as the name for her hamster (guinea pig), but that was the name of our Boston, so hers is still nameless.
Eli with "Hampstie"
The kids are doing pretty well with their new pets. We had to have a couple of lessons on how to pick up pets. The scoop technique rather than the claw in the ribs technique. Eli’s doing pretty well with it, although his petting looks a bit much like slapping. We’ll get there. Can’t be worse than the Kenyan boy at Macheo Children’s Centre dropping Lucy’s guinea pig from waist high onto the cement. We’re praying that her skinny pig isn’t delayed as a result.
a little skinny pig time
