Trouble In Paradise

It's certainly been an interesting few days here since I last blogged. There's been family politics all over the place. No, I've not been consigned to sleeping on the sofa; I am of course talking about our enclave of Cavia Porcellus.

Prior to adding the newer members of the herd, we believed that it would be possible to introduce smaller, younger GPs to the older ones. Whilst this has indeed been predominantly true, the effect on our first two GPs, namely Connor and Sam, has been slightly less than harmonious. To put it mildly, they can no longer be in even the same garden together without their teeth chattering like machine-guns.

Now, what could have brought on this behavioural transformation? We think it has something to do with the Peruvian GP, Jeeves. He has a rather confrontational attitude to the others and, whilst we realise that establishing the pecking order is normal, his tactics are akin to those employed by a dictator of a small third-world country. He drew blood from Connor and his scent gland has been used as a chemical weapon, sprayed everywhere indiscriminately, prompting us to air-out some of the fleeces that are used to keep them warm at night. This behaviour has seemingly upset the status-quo between the previously stalwart friends so we've had to separate Connor and Sam, with only one at a time being in any particular room or garden. Cris has tried to re-unite the pairing under more supervised conditions but, whilst Connor is seemingly amenable to the idea, Sam immediately starts chattering his teeth and lunging for Connor's rear-quarters.

Cue the internet search. Apparently, putting them in a situation where there's strength in numbers can be used to reinforce the bond between herd members. The recommendation is that taking them for a car journey might help as it will make them apprehensive with the end result being that hopefully that they will join together. The girls gathered the two warring factions and put them on the rear seat of the car (suitably secured I hasten to add) before we head out for our 'road trip'. Now, the last time I had to drive around town trying and calm some small little thing down was when my youngest daughter couldn't sleep. I had foolishly thought that those days were behind me until our newest family members arrived.

To cut a long story (relatively) short, it didn't work. Connor and Sam are still not the best of pals. We've now got everyone segregated into groups in an attempt to calm things down and bring peace and harmony back. Connor is living inside with the majority of the youngsters. Sam and Butch are outside in one of the big hutches and Jeeves unfortunately had to spend last night in solitary confinement in the other hutch whilst we attempt to sort out this mess. I think Cris wants to try some more tricks to get everything working again so I'll let you know how things progress. If you have any tried and tested techniques, now’s the time to shout out.  One thing's for sure though – I have a feeling that I'm going to have quite a few stories to share with you all.