Monday, April 05, 2010

The Bunny-pig (New to Science)


We always had long haired guinea-pigs and they lived in a cage together with a big white male rabbit, Eccles, who was obviously in love with Mrs. Ingypig. They all lived together quite happily for several years and produced lots of baby guinea-pigs. The interesting thing about guinea-pigs is that they are born like popcorn. They just pop out and are miniature guinea-pigs ready to eat and everything. The mother has to take no care of them, whereas rabbits on the other hand are born with their eyes shut and no hair and in a sack that the mother has to remove. They need to nurse for several weeks, needing the mother’s full attention. One day the male guinea-pig died, leaving the rabbit and Mrs. Ingypig alone (at last!). They lived happily together for about a year when one morning I went out to feed them and found Mrs. Ingypig dead with three babies in sacks with their eyes closed and way to big for her to give birth to and a fourth half way born. I think it is scientifically impossible to cross a rabbit with a guinea-pig but it happened. If it had been the other way around they may have survived because a female rabbit would be big enough and would know how to care for the young, whereas the guinea-pig had no idea how to take off the sacks and nurse plus they were way too big for her body. Later we tried putting a male guinea-pig with a female rabbit for several years but there was no chemistry between them and that was the end of the bunny-pig. We almost had a new breed of animal but the circumstances never were right again.

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