Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Good News!

Our friends at Piggy Bed Spreads are going to place a "donate" button on their site, and the donations will go straight to our PayPal account to take care of our guinea pigs!
I wanted to give everyone a breakdown of what we spend each week on the piggies, so that anyone who wants to know how the money is spent will be able to see it here. I went grocery shopping today so here is the amount we spend on produce:
Romaine lettuce...5 heads per week...9.95 (1.99 per head)
carrots, three 5 lb. bags...3 bags @ 2.99 each...8.97
one 3 lb. bag of apples...3.49 (approximately..depends on what's on sale)
3 cucumbers only if on sale, 3/1.98
We also spend about $17 every two weeks on a 50 lb. bag of Blue Seal guinea pig pellets, and about $13 every two weeks on pine bedding from our local feed store.
Obviously, the biggest initial expense with guinea pigs comes when you buy the cage and accessories, but once you have these things, the cost is relatively low to maintain the animals. The problem is, larger cages are more expensive (up to $120), and many people aren't willing to spend that kind of money, so the guinea pig(s) end up in cages that are too small. I've had many of these cages; whenever possible, I will "upgrade" guinea pigs to bigger cages and I get rid of the old ones. I have several cages set aside for emergencies, but they are all a decent size.
So, we may not be a "certified" nonprofit, but we are still and will always be nonprofit, even with our adoption fees. Any and all donations we receive will be used to get supplies for our guinea pigs...right now we have 27, with three new ones arriving soon. Details later! :)
And many thanks to Martha and Tim for getting our button set up!

1 comment:

  1. Good break down. We go to the store so often I never track it that well. We don't spend any on the bedding because we use blankets and towels, so we save a little there. I didn't have good luck with the Blue Seal food so we are back to walmart $7 per 10 lb bags.

    Glad you can still take some piggies in. We are getting rid of many this month, two went today. I'm so glad we have the c&c cages, they are great.

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