Ancistrus dolichopterus eggs

It happened! For a couple of weeks now my male Ancistrus was swimming after the female so I kind of expected eggs from them. Still when the male wouldn't come out of his hidingplace in the piece of wood in the fishtank yesterday I wondered what he was doing. I decided to take a picture of him in it and what did I see on the picture? The space in the wood where he sat was filled with orange eggs! Of course I kept a close eye on him the rest of the day and when he decided to get out of his hidingplace for a minute I quickly made some pictures of the eggs. There are alot of them! I hope at least some will grow up.

The pictures:

Mommy and daddy fish (sorry for the filthy window....)

 First picture I took, see those eggs?

 And when he was away for a moment

 There dad is again, guarding his eggs.

The first white babies!

Today, right around the time the petting zoo closed, one of the white goats decided to give birth.

It was her first time so we were glad she started when we were still around, especially since the babies were not laying as they should with their paws and snout forward. Luckily both babies were alive and doing well!

They are two boys and both look exactly like their mommy, what do you think, aren't they cute?

They have arrived!!

For those of you who might have seen my weekly updates on Gina's pregnancy this surely will not come as a surprise since I am 2 days late with posting the next update. For those who follow my twitter account you all know the babies are born already!

Anyway, last thursday I wanted to get Gina out of the cage to make the new picture for the next update, she was in the small cottage inside the cage together with Jenna so I picked it out of the cage. The first strange thing I noticed was a piece of gold color where gray had to be on mommy Gina. Was it true, were there babies? I quickly took Jenna away from Gina and YES!! Next to Gina there were 2 healthy pretty babies! Unfortunally these two were not the only ones and 2 others had died probably while she gave birth, one of them was a extremely beautiful black and a little white baby and the other had three colors like the rest. I weighted them at 104 and 66 grams. Their picture is the last one I will post in this blog.

The two living were extreme beauties as well, all 4 of them were. They were weighed on the first day as well and ended up being 98 and 89 grams. Very nice if you ask me. Of course mom dropped alot of weight, ze went from almost 1300 to 891 grams and she still is losing a bit of weight. The babies are only gaining so they are really doing GREAT!! The two eat hay, bell pepper and chicory but they stay away from the normal food at this moment.

Now, I've been babbling about weights long enough and I guess you all are waiting for the pictures, right? Well, here they are!!

Baby number 1 (named Aiden as long as he stays here) was the baby of 98 grams, he weighs 112 today!

 Eating the hay that aunty Jenna dropped

Playing hayballtag with aunty Jenna

The second babyboy was the one who weighed 89 grams at birth and was 97 grams today! (Named Adam as long as he stays here)

 First sniff on aunty Jenna's piece of bell pepper

 And the first bite!!

Now some pictures of them together.

weekly updates on Gina #5

This is a very unexpected blog from my side. I really had expected that by now the baby guinea's would be born. Soon to be mommy Gina is still waiting for her babies to come and of course so am I!

As always I will start out with pictures of the previous weeks.

Remember this one? It was taken on the 12th of Januari when Gina was with me a couple of days.

 And a week later on the 19th

 On the 26th of Januari

 And then February came. This one was taken on the 2nd of February

 And this was last week.

And today, she didn't really look like she gained a lot of weight and she really didn't. I had her on the scale a moment before this picture was taken and she weighed 1202 grams today.

 And this was all for this week. Jenna wanted to say goodbye this time!

Probably the next blog will be about Gina's babies (unless she makes me wait another week...)

Weekly updates Gina #4

So, today it is 65 days ago since Gina went to spend some time with pretty boy Clay. That does mean that this is possibly the very last pregnancy update on little Gina! Before next thursday the babies can be born! Are you as exited to see them as I am?

Mommy Gina is spending most of her time laying down. She even drinks and eats while she is laying around in the cage. She also became a bit sweeter against her friend Jenna which is very good news for Jenna of course. They are often found together in the big bunnyhouse in the cage while she usually chased Jenna out of there every time she got in it.

As the previous weeks I will start with the old pictures before I add the one of today.

The first week I took a picture was on the 12th of Januari and she really didn't seem pregnant then.

 A week later on the 19th she did gain a bit of weight

 And a week after that on the 26th it did look like she was pregnant but only carrying the babies at one side.

 Then last week at the 2nd of Februari she was fatter at the other side as well

 And now, she is pretty big, don't you think?

 See you all next week or earlier if the babies are born before next Thursday!

Weekly updates Gina 3

So, it is possible this might be the last update before the little guinea's are born! But I think you'll hear from me again next week with update number 4. But let's first do update nr 3.

As always I will start with the previous weeks first.

This was Gina on the 12th of Januari

 This was one week later on the 19th

 Last week it seemed like she gained a lot of weight at one side only

 But this week the other side became bigger as well

 Now soon to be mommy Gina needs a rest.

See you all next week!