On 6th June I received a call from Greencross Vets at Runaway Bay asking if I could take in two male guinea pigs who had been handed in by a lady who had found them in her front garden the night before.

I first met Rachael and her fiancee Kris about three years ago when they brought their two guinea pigs, Bobo and Mr Ini, to the shelter for boarding. I have looked after their piggies quite a few times since then.

The Gold Coast Guinea Pig Rescue Shelter has featured in an article in June's issue of the Paws & Claws e-magazine.

Every day is a busy day here at the shelter and I have fallen way behind in getting the Adoption stories on the website. My apologies to all adopters who are still waiting to see their story listed.

It's hard to believe but Cleo's babies are four weeks old and the cute little male will be going up to Deb Monks at Brisbane Bird and Exotics this week to be desexed. Keep an eye out for his adoption details on the GUINEA PIGS AVAILABLE page. We have quite a few young desexed piggies, both male and female, waiting to be adopted.

I am very sad tonight as one of my long term permanent residents - Rocky - has died. Rocky was such a special SPECIAL boy. He and four female companions found their way to the Ipswich pound in November 2008. They were then transported to the Animal Welfare League in Coombabah where they had a short stay before coming to the shelter. Right from the start my heart went out to them. They were absolutely terrified of humans and would screech in fear if you even looked at them.

Many of the shelter piggies received a shampoo and nail clipping today courtesy of Maggie Wasson and her friend Danielle. Maggie has been a foster carer for quite some time now and does a fantastic job looking after mums-to-be and then the babies when they come along. When she returns the babies at four weeks of age they are the fattest bubs you'll ever see! Both girls love looking after guinea pigs. Maggie has three of her own. A fourth, Candy, sadly passed away recently which left Maggie heartbroken.

Thankyou to everyone who has answerered the call to foster some of our shelter pigs. There's been a huge response, some people taking on not two but four of our beautiful piggies. Sarah from Cannon Hill is now caring for Thomas and Gerard, and Alvin and Stanley. All four of these adorable boys have been in the shelter for some time and they definitely deserve a holiday. If you would like to join the growing list of foster carers for our shelter please contact us

Sadly one of Cleo's babies only lived for two days. When I saw how feeble she looked I fed her with a syringe then put her back in with the others in the hope she would start feeding off her mum. I wasn't surprised when I found she had died during the night. I think I was more upset than Cleo! She was happily tending her two remaining babies and seemed  oblivious to the fact that her third baby had passed away.

The shelter is sending out a call for foster carers to help take care of the rapidly rising number of guinea pigs needing our help. In one day alone this Easter we had two surrender enquiries with 32 guinea pigs in total, some of them pregnant. If you are an experienced guinea pig owner and would like to help out, click here to find out more about our Foster Care Programme. THE PIGGIES URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP!!!

Cleo was surrendered a week ago very heavily pregnant and yesterday morning gave birth to three gorgeous little bubs. One of my young foster carers and her dad were visiting the shelter at the time and we were all privileged to see the birth as it unfolded. Cleo has had several litters in her life, in fact two 3 month old females from her last litter were surrendered with her and they are also pregnant - to their father Skipper who is a handsome boy but he won't ever be given the opportunity to be a father again! 

We are now the Queensland contact for The Pet Directory's NSW based Rabbit Sanctuary that provides a service for people moving into Queensland who can't take their rabbits.  The rabbits that are rescued, live in a bush setting with their own luxury cabins set under the gum trees in netted in fresh grass runs with toys and tunnels to play in.