Last Updated: 8/8/18

Photos and Videos
Story

Photos and Videos

Photos and videos are listed from oldest to newest. Videos include the word video and will take you to You Tube.

These photos are from the first day my mother got him, 3/14/11.
Brownie - his back
Brownie - his tummy

I tried to take more photos on 3/22/11. Brownie was not too cooperative, wiggling too much.
Brownie - his back
Brownie - the ringworm on his left ear and above his left eye
Brownie - running away from the paparazzi

These photos are from 4/20/11 when I was taking photos of Pigtopia, his new home.
Brownie - in the main downstairs area
Brownie - a pig's eye view of Brownie

Brownie in Pigtopia on 4/23/11.
Brownie on 4/23/11.

I took these photos on 5/12/11 of Brownie on the recliner, the night before Brownie's neuter surgery.
Brownie
Brownie

Brownie on 6/4/11. His eyes look red but they are brown and just reflecting in the flash. Abby's eyes though are red.

Abby and Brownie - on 6/6/11

Abby and Brownie - on 6/14/11.
Brownie on 6/14/11.

Abby and Brownie - on 6/24/11

Brownie on 9/24/11.

Brownie hiding in the back at the bottom as Avery comes down the ramp for the first time on 11/24/11.

Here are some photos of all three piggies on 11/26/11.
Abby, Brownie, and Avery - left to right
Brownie and Avery - left and right
Abby, Brownie, and Avery - top to bottom
Abby, Avery, and Brownie - left to right

Here are all of the guinea pigs on 1/7/12:
Avery (back), Abby (left), and Brownie (right)
Avery (back), Abby (left), and Brownie (right)
Abby (left), and Brownie (right)

Guinea pig sliding board video - my guinea pigs sliding down the ramp from their second floor to their first floor some time in February, 2012. They come down in the order of Avery/Lammie, Brownie, and Abby.

Abby (left), Avery (bottom), and Brownie (right) - on 2/28/12

Brownie on 7/28/13.

Brownie (hiding in the back) and Abby (front) on 8/2/14.

Story

My last guinea pigs Fritz and Kylie died on 3/11/06 and 11/13/04 respectively. One day, I wanted to have more guinea pigs since I missed them. I planned to renovate Sweetie's coroplast cage (she died 11/21/10) and get a few guinea pigs after my rabbits had passed on. Instead, when I came home on 3/14/11, my mother had a male guinea pig that she named Brownie. Brownie was a standard English short hair guinea pig (Agouti). He was all brown on the back with a good amount of white on his tummy. I estimated his age at 10 weeks. My cat, Tinkerbelle immediately began to keep vigil with him, sometimes sticking her feet in the top. He was scared at first but soon realized that she could not reach him. Only one thing is more important to a guinea pig than fear of predators and that is eating! Like all before him, he loved to eat.

He was in Fritz and Kylie's house at first but I planned to make them (had to get him a buddy as guinea pigs are not happy alone) a palace. The coroplast cage was 56" x 27" which is 10.5 square feet. I was going to make a second level with half that surface area for a total of 15.75 square feet. In comparison, the cage he was in at first, which was big by most people's standards, was 5.45 square feet.

We took Brownie to the vet the next day, 3/15/11. I figured he had ear mites as he was scratching his ears, probably had guinea pig mites and/or lice, a small wound above his left eye from perhaps a bite, and also had a sneeze (upper respiratory infection). The vet said he in fact did not have parasites which was great. He had a slight cold but was getting over it. The wound above his eye and also some in his ears and back might have been ringworm or a bacterial infection. The vet did a fungal culture which would take 10 days to get the results to find out if it was ringworm. In the mean time, since the wounds were bothering him, Brownie was put on 0.3 mL of Bactrim sulfatrim suspension twice a day for 10 days. Otherwise, the vet says he was very healthy! He was 1.1 pounds. The vet thought he was three months old, a bit older than I thought/hoped.

The internet makes it seem like neutering is super risky and that only a few select vets do it (despite most rescues requiring it) but our vet said he had done over 50 of them. I was surprised when I asked how many had had complications, and he said none! So, the plan was to do nothing until the culture came back, and Brownie was healthy. The vet said he neuters at four months. Once the plants are out of the cage in the basement, I would make a Pigtopia and introduce a couple of little sows to it. Once they were to the vet, healthy, and settled in, and Brownie was healthy and recovered (he would remain potentially fertile for a few weeks after surgery so it was a three week wait), then we can start to introduce them together. Brownie would thusly have to spend a few months alone but the rest of his life hopefully with his own little harem. That was the plan anyway.

I gave Brownie his first bath on 3/16/11. He was a little angel. My first (and only really) nickname for him was Pigbert. My mother called him BFF for Brownie Frisky Furry. I noticed on 3/21/11 that he had a new little sore on his nose in addition to the one by his eye and on the backs of both ears. This led me to believe that it was ringworm. I sure hoped that Tinkerbelle (cat) would not pick it up. She sat on top of the cage sticking her feet in for hours a day. Barney (cat) also visited Brownie. If people caught the ringworm, it would be a big problem but not one that I started.

Brownie's sores continued to not improve, and he got a few new ones. My mother called the vet on 3/24/11 to find out how the test was going. They said that fungus was growing but that they could not verify the species until the fungus spawned. They would not give him any medicine even though it was highly unlikely that it was not ringworm. That night, I moved his cage to the bathroom and cleaned and disinfected around where he had been. I had to throw away the great wooden guinea pig/rabbit houses in both cages because they cannot be disinfected. Brownie was lonely but it had to be that way until he was cured which could take a month once they hopefully finally got him some medicine! In the meantime, his joy came from food. The first thing he grabbed in the morning was the carrot which he pulled in to his plastic house (which I would also discard a few weeks in to his treatment). So, we wait.

They finally confirmed the ringworm on 3/28/11, and we got the medication on 3/29/11. He got 0.25 mL of 50 mg/mL (5%) griseofulvin once a day for three weeks. Then, he would be re- tested.

Brownie finished his medication on 4/19/11 after which I put him in Pigtopia which took me six hours to make! He loved it!

Brownie went to the vet on 4/21/11. The vet said there was no point in re-testing him since he had no sores from ringworm left. He had been shaking his head a lot so the vet checked his ear gunk under the microscope and saw nothing. Nonetheless, he gave him a dose of Revolution at my mother's request just in case. He would get another in two weeks. His weight was up to 1.55 pounds.

Pigbert was a lucky boy! I had off 4/27/11. When I walked in the room around 11 am, there was Tinkerbelle sitting right in the middle of Pigtopia with Pigbert a few inches behind. I took her out right away. Piggie was not even scared. It turns out that the lid above the single-level nest area collaped just enough for her to slip in there. I reinforced and rebuilt that area so that it should not happen again.

Brownie was neutered on 5/13/11 without incidence. Or rather, without incidence that day. A few days later, his left wound opened a little bit and bled but it stopped so I let that slide. That happened again a few days later, and I let it slide. Then, on 5/20/11, on his evening check, his penis was prolapsed. It was out and would not go in. I called the vet. The receptionist said he was out for the day but he instructed that I should use K-Y jelly to get it to go back in or go to the emergency vet since it would dry out and become infected. I went to the grocery store. When I got back, my mother had called and asked to speak to the vet who it turns out was there. She berated him because he said there would be no complications. He agreed that an emergency vet would not have a clue what to do. He offered a free re-check exam two days later. My mother and I were able to get his penis to go back in by covering it with the K-Y jelly and gently pushing on it. The next morning, it was still normal but, that night, it was out again. We got it back in again. I would take him to see the vet the next day to see if he had any ideas. He said to my mother that he had never heard of that problem with neuters but I found many cases where males had the prolapses exactly a week after the neuter, and it tends to recur. So much for no complications. Otherwise, he was very happy and very active. I think he had been pleasuring himself on the mattress pad, hence his prolapses. The neuter must somehow affect the muscles and increase their sex drive which seems counter intuitive. I hoped he would not spend all day jumping the two girls once he met them.

The vet saw Brownie at 11:20 am on 5/21/11. He said his privates look fine. They were where they belonged at the time. He said his healing was okay and that he had never heard of this problem as a result of neutering. I pressed him for an answer as to when I should worry. I told him I would contact him again if the prolapsing continued after another week. He said he did not expect it to happen again (of course, he did not expect the two times that it did). As of 5/23/11, he was right; it had not happened again. Ok, he was wrong. It happened again on the evening check on 5/25/11 and again 5/26/11.

Brownie's first girl friend, little Abby, arrived home on 5/27/11 but was quarantined first. Daisy did not arrive at the same time. It would have been better for the girls to be together. [Note: We never did get Daisy.]

Brownie and Abby were put together full time on 6/3/11. You can read more about it on Abby's Page. They were getting along well.

Brownie was a sweet boy. Unlike Abby, he had not tried to bite.

We got a third guinea pig on 11/19/11. Avery is a texel and would soon join Brownie and Abby. Brownie and Abby were aloof buddies. They never bothered each other but also never slept or laid next to each other. We would see how Avery would shake things up. Go to Avery's page to read about how they did together.

Update 10/11/13: Brownie was doing great! I never called him Brownie; he was Pigbert!

Around June of 2014, I noticed small lumps up and down Brownie's tummy. With so many things going on, and my thinking it was not something that was treatable, I did not get him to the vet until 8/28/14. The vet noticed that each lump corresponded to a lymph node. If he had an acute lymphoma, he would have already died but he showed no sign of illness. On the chance that he has a treatable internal bacterial infection, he told me to give Brownie liquid Baytril for 10 days to see if the lumps shrunk or not.

Well, the medicine ran out on 9/3/14 after only six days, the vet had said he gave me extra! Anyway, there was no change so it was probably not worth doing it longer.

I took all the pigs to the vet on 6/23/16 for check ups. Brownie was at 2.6 pounds. I thought I could still feel the enlarged lymph nodes but the vet declared them normal! Brownie drank and peed a lot for a few years but the vet would not really comment on that except to agree with me that if he had kidney failure, he would be dead by now. The helper said maybe his kidneys were good because he drank so much.

Brownie went with Abby and Lammie to the vet on 6/22/17 for a check up. He was down to 1149 grams. One of the lumps on his tummy, between his breasts, the vet said was a tumor. His enlarged lymph nodes seemed to be gone but the vet said this one lump was hard and not lymph-related. He said there was no point to aspirating it or determining what it was because Brownie was now too old to operate on him without risking his life from just the anesthesia. He was 6.5 years old and considered very old for a guinea pig. Otherwise, his health seemed pretty good, and his spunk was greater than that of the other pigs.

I took Lammie and Brownie to the vet on 6/19/18. Brownie had lost some weight. He was only 988 grams. Aside from that and not grooming himself any more, the vet said he was in good shape for seven years old!

Pigbert (aka Brownie) began acting strangely in early August of 2018, moving slower, breathing funny, eating less, and then going downhill quickly. I found him gone the morning of 8/5/18. He was seven years and seven months old, the oldest guinea pig that I have ever had. I had four guinea pigs nine months ago, and now I have only one. Good luck on the other side Pigbert!

Go to Pigtopia for photos and information on Brownie's home.

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