[Gpdd] [HEALTH] <Jan will become a you-know-what-boar>

Janneke Staaks jannekestaaks at hotmail.com
Mon Mar 6 08:53:05 EST 2006


Hi all,
I just wanted to let you all know that my sweet boar Jan very likely will be 
castrated on wednesday, so please keep fingers and paws crossed. I know that 
many of you disapprove of cutting into a healthy animal, but i also think 
that everyone on this list is very respectful towards eachother and might 
understand my decision allthough they might not agree.
So, one the reasons why I'm having Jan castrated is because he keeps losing 
wheight. I just wheighed him last sunday and i was really shocked to find 
out that he almost lost 100 grams! My wheighing scale is a bit faulty, so i 
hope that's the problem but it doesn't sit well with me.A while ago I went 
to a vet and he suggested that jan is lovesick (he does spend most of his 
time drewling on the girls's bars). When I got him, he wheighed 1200 grams 
now he's down to 1000 grams, and he still is young, he should be growing.
Another reasons is Suus. I want everyone to have floortime and I bought a 
fence so that everyone can run and still be not pregnant. But suus is quite 
the athlete (sorry but part of me is actually proud of my little lump of 
muscles). She hops over the fence as if it's nothing (I do not have a 
measuring device but if i put my elbow on the ground next to it, it goes up 
to my wrist)you can hardly see her touch the fence. I am scared that one of 
the girls will get pregnant (yaya can do it too, but with a lot more 
effort). I do not want to part with Jan and I really want them to have 
floortime so i did a lot of research about castrations.
First of all, guinea pigs and hence castrations seem much more common in the 
netherlands than they are in the US (i don't know how it is in other 
countries). For example, an exotics vet is someone who is specialised in 
weird birds and reptiles. For a guinea pig you just go to a vet who is 
specialised in small animals.(when i just joined the list i was very 
surprised that many of you go to an exotics vet). I checked out some dutch 
forums and they just don't make a big fuss out of it.(to compare, they went 
nuts when i told them about my mothers piggie and her refusal to take him to 
the vet). But despite all of this i wanted the best vet i could find, so i 
made a career out of being a vet bully *evil grin*. I would just call them, 
ask about anesthetics, antibiotics etc. The weird thing about this is, that 
when i moved to where i live now, i just got the nearest general 
practitioner for myself and didn't think twice about it.
Finally I found a vet who is specialised in rodents, answered my questions 
with patience, and answered them correctly(not that many got it wrong 
though). Besides that, she has three guinea pigs herself and she says on her 
website that allthough many people have guinea pigs, she thinks that people 
should know more about them, because there still are a lot of 
misunderstandings. When I told her about Jan she also insisted that she 
would first check him out thoroughly to make sure that the losing of wheight 
isn't caused by another problem.So I think I trust her.
If Jan checks out to be a healthy, but lovesick boar on wednesday, he will 
be castrated. If not, he might temporarely move to my mothers house (still 
thinking about that) because she just has one boy, thus, company and veggies 
without hormones raging to get his strenght back.
Sorry this is so long but i just wanted to vent my ehm.. feelings. A very 
common reaction still is: "Do you know how many guinea pigs you can buy for 
that amount of money?" Response: "Do you know how much I spend on shoes... 
(a lot)...Don't you think his happiness is more important than my fashion 
sense?" What i also find very funny is that men, even when they do not like 
animals at all and even claim they hate them, suddenly go all sympathetic 
and concerned when they hear about the castration.I guess gender overrides 
species in this case ;-)
Grtz and Wkz
Janneke from the Winky Girls






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