One morning in May I received a phone call from Greenfields rescue in Bracknell asking if I had space to help them following a call that they had received from a man living in Hanwell. He had bought 2 female guinea pigs from a large national pet store, after the second litter he realised that he had a male and a female. He got his original male neutered and went back to the store he bought them from and complained, he was told that they would take the babies from him and sell them in the store. He was also informed that it is impossible to correctly sex any guinea pig until they were 8 weeks old. Having now bought another 2 hutches for his guineas pigs he carefully checked his next litter when they reached 8 weeks old and removed all the boys from the girls.

Thinking that now he would have no more babies arriving he set about finding a few homes for a few of the 'excess' babies he had. Before too long he noted that all the females were getting wider again and assumed that her had wrongly sexed one of the males thinking it was a female. After these babies were born he then in desperation sought the help of Greenfields rescue. Following discussion with the owner of the pigs, the owner was surprised to find out that some male guinea pigs are sexually mature at 5 weeks and females can be mature around 7 weeks old, unfortunately the information that the large national pet store he has sought help from had been incorrect had resulted in this poor owner becoming rather overrun with guinea pigs. Donna and I visited this man and sexed all of the guinea pigs for the owner and took 26 piggies away to find them new homes.