Saturday, October 31, 2015

Happy Hallowe'en to all our Readers!

Otto Piggyfriend here ( aka Agent Mystery ). On behalf of all the Piggyfriends, I would like to wish you all a happy and safe Hallowe'en. We hope that you all get lots of treats - tricks are not necessary. More treats please Slave!

Friday, October 30, 2015

Spooky Halloween themed Friday video

We tried to find a creepy halloween-themed friday video...
Not sure we succeeded, let us know if you found any better ones;)

Monday, October 26, 2015

Abyssinians & A piggy A-Z: Tijger has abbytude!

Hi,

My name is Tijger (Tiger in Dutch) and I am an Abyssinian, so I fall in the A category. My mum and dad say I have 'Abbytude'. I am not sure what that is but it sounds cool, huh? I guess it means I am usually a very present piggy, curious and interested and I know what I wants.

If there are more abyssinians out there please join in! We need at least two more for the Go fish! game mummy is planning to make. Did she already tell you about this!?

Okay here's the plan:
As many of you know me mum used to gather pigtures and create a calendar of it every year. She wanted to try something else, and she also likes that near the end of the year they could sell the calendars and the profit that was made on this was sent to a guinea pig shelter somewhere in the world. A have never lived in a shelter, but I know my friends Peaches and Berke come from a shelter, and eventhough they were taken good care of in the shelter, they do really enjoy living with me now in their forever home! As many piggies are abandoned, money is always needed for these shelters.
This 'something else' turned into a Go Fish! card game, if you do not know the game, have a look here. We call it Kwartet in dutch (kwart meaning one/fourth), and the goal is to gather the most 'kwartets', which are 4 cards on a certain topic.
Up until now we have gotten a lot of entries for our go fish game, and Mom thinks we are ready to make a game... some quartets (see the Kwartet link above) might not be complete yet. We will let you know soon, if we need more and if you have a nice piggie pigture in one of the catagories needed send them in. Otherwise Auntie Penny (and maybe Stef or Jean) have owned so many piggies, I am sure we can complete the sets with their help.. ;)
We will order the Go fish/Kwartet games once we can make complete sets, and then they can be ordered with my slave. Like with the calendar she will make a form for you to sign up.
Once we have a nice profit I will ask you to nominate shelters and there will be a poll up on the blog to vote on your shelter.

Mum however has no clue how many games to order, so if you already know that you would like one, please comment below. Of course if it turns out you cannot get one in the end that is okay, but it would be nice to have some kind a indication how many people are interested...

We would like to have the games ready and send to their owners before christmas, so keep an eye out for posts about this if you are interested!

Nice to meet you all, I am nearing Agent weight (1 kilogram), so hopefully I can reveal my agent name soon,
Tijger of the Guinygirlz (Roos & Peaches and boar Berke)

Saturday, October 24, 2015

A Piggy A-Z - A is for Audrey


This story was sent to us by our reader Pat, Slave to the Prairie Pigs..........

These girls are Audrey ("A" for Audrey) and Doris, both long gone to the Bridge now, but years ago they were my third and fourth guinea pigs ever. Like many animals who have been through hard times together, they were absolutely devoted to each other.

And these two had definitely been through hard times. They ended up at my local SPCA shelter as part of an animal abuse case. Some horrible people had decided to "get rich quick" breeding rabbits in their garage, and things had gotten seriously out of hand. The poor rabbits were in terrible shape by the time the SPCA was alerted by the neighbours and many did not survive, but in the midst of this horror was a tiny cage with two guinea pigs in it. (Apparently, they were intended to be the beginning of a guinea pig breeding operation, but since they were both girls, that part of the "business" was not going well.)

They had to stay at the shelter for several months while the court case proceeded, but afterwards one of the shelter staff who had seen me coming in with donations of hay and pellets decided I would be the perfect pig parent for these two. I had only had my first two piggies, Daphne and Guinevere, less than a year and wasn't really intending to expand, but you couldn't hear Audrey and Doris' story without wanting to make sure the rest of their life was good, so they came home with me.

At first glance, Audrey seemed to be quiet and shy, but I soon realized she was the boss of the pair. When it was floor time, Doris was not allowed to leave the cage until Audrey left, and if Doris got impatient and tried to sneak out ahead, Audrey would herd her back in and make her stand in the corner until she apologized and admitted she had been wrong. Doris was much braver and more outgoing where people were concerned, but Audrey was definitely the talker. She had a distinctive and piercing voice and a very large vocabulary; she was my introduction into the wondrous diversity and creativity of piggy language, and was always the first to sound off if she heard a refrigerator door opening or me getting out of bed in the morning.

That has become one of my favourite things about pig-keeping --- listening to them talking to each other or giving me orders. I think people who have only one or two piggies are really missing out, because they never get to hear all the vocal variations you get with your own little herd.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Friday video: Piggie city dwellers

We liked this video, because it depicts the day in the life of a human, ehm Guinea pig...


Tuesday, October 13, 2015

A Piggies Reporting - Astrid & Hershey

Hello fellow piggies and piggy-slaves!

I'm Astrid, an Abyssinian, also an A-pig twice over like the gorgeous Angelina!  


This is my baby picture when slaves brought me home from the rescue at just 23 days old.  Aren't I cute? I am much heftier now - that's for sure! 

And these are two of my A-pig friends, lovely Agoutis Jaina & Hershey.  



This is my nanny-pig, Jaina.  She is known in these parts as Agent Peanut and, sadly, she passed away a few weeks ago.  We miss her a lot, but my other agouti friend Hershey keeps me company. Our piggy-dad has a weak spot for agoutis! 



This is me & Hershey celebrating our birthdays last November - I turned 1 and Hershey turned 3.  We look forward to celebrating our 2nd and 4th birthdays coming up in just a few weeks! 

Neither one of us believes in showing off our bellies, no matter how much the slaves beg us, but Hershey has a lovely burnt orange tummy.  It's just too gorgeous for the average viewer to handle, so we'll leave it that and protect you! 

We look forward to seeing other A-pig friends and others through the alphabet.  What a fun game! 

Sunday, October 11, 2015

A Piggy A-Z. A for Agouti.

We thought that we would start an A-Z of all things piggy and we want you all to join in.






I am ANGELINA Piggyfriend and I am an AGOUTI  so I am an "A" twice over!




Agoutis come in many colours but we all have a different colour underneath. ( Our Slave likes this pigture as it shows how round I am ). Our coat is ticked whereby the end of the hair is a different colour to the underneath. We look more like the original piggies that came from South America hundreds of years ago.

Do you have a piggy whose name begins with an A or do you have an ABYSSINIAN, an ALPACA or an AGOUTI?  If so, we would love you to contribute a pigture and a little story too if you wish.

Just look for the word Contribute at the top of our page ( under the photo of our esteemed leader ) and follow the instructions. It is so easy and we'd love to see you.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Friday Video: Hamster Jazz Band

Take note egg card, you should have kept with the guinea pig adverts who wants to see dolphins, keep it small and furry!!

Monday, October 5, 2015

Fuzzypeg before and after

When we posted pigtures of Alpacas the other week, Pat and the Prairie Pigs commented about the pigtures of Fuzzypeg before and after, which we shared with the readers of the GPDD at the time.

Some of you reading this now might not have seen these so we thought that we would show them again.

Fuzzypeg came to us from a home where the slave did not know how to care for long haired piggies. He came with Gandalf, whom you will have seen on this blog and he is a Coronet and was not in such bad shape as Fuzzypeg. He just needed a haircut round the back and had his nails clipped

Fuzzypeg's coat was totally matted and full of bits of hay so a lot had to be removed. As Pat said, there was enough taken off to knit a couple of guinea pigs.

Here you can see a whole bagful of surplus hair - as big again as Fuzzypeg himself.
Then he had a shampoo and had his curly nails cut. Here he is drying off.
And here he is enjoying a snack after all that pampering. As you can see he still has some of his curly coat left but minus the mats and tangles.

Moral of this tale is that if you own a long haired piggy, keep up with the hairdressing. Of course, if you are reading this blog, you already know that!





Friday, October 2, 2015

Friday Video; This is a Merino Guinea Pig

Or is it really a cute ball of fluff?



In other news I am now 6 years and 6 months old go me!!

Friday, September 25, 2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Alpaca piggies for our card game

Hello piggies everywhere. We are wondering if there are any Alpaca piggies who would like to join in our project. Maybe a Slave has a pigture of an Alpaca who is reading this from the Rainbow Bridge. An Alpaca is a Rexed Peruvian. ie they have long coats which fall forward over their eyes and the coat is wavy. Our Slave always trims their fringes so that they can see out and we can see their lovely faces.

We will start this off with Piggyfriend Alpacas.

Here are Snickers on the left and her father, Leo. They belonged to Slave's friend and they used to board with us when she went away on holiday. Eventually they came to live with us full time.


 And here is our Fuzzypeg.





Our Slave knows that a member of the GPDD had an Alpaca who looked the image of our Fuzzypeg but she can't remember who he belonged to. She even has his photo in her vast collection of pigtures. If this Slave could get in touch and give her permission, we would love to add this photo.

Friday, September 11, 2015

Friday Video: Fun Treat for Piggies

We have had toilet roll tubes stuffed with hay and they are great fun especially when you hit your cage mates over the head with them **heehee** but we think adding fresh veggies will make them even more fun

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Crested piggie



Agent Cookie: Hi, I have a different colour crest. My pals on Twitter call it a pigwig. It's like having a polar cap, except on your head. Cookie x

New Smooth-haired entry

Hi all,

We got this entry on our twitter account @guinygirlz

Meet Piggie Pie as a "Pirate Piggy"!


Monday, August 31, 2015

Crested Piggies

We have had a few Crested Piggies here at Piggyfriends down the years and here are a selection.  Slave calls Crested Piggies " pigs with hats ".

First of all is our dear Gulliver, who grew to be a LAPS member ( Large and Ample Piggy Society ) as you can see in the pigture below. All the good views of him show him looking up at the photographer and this is the only one that we could find showing his crest.







Next you can see Halloween, named because he arrived here on October 31st. and here he is celebrating his special day. He was with us for 8 years, our oldest ever Piggyfriend.



Now you can see Sam enjoying his lunch.


And finally here is Amethyst, who loved to sleep on top of her box.





If any readers have pigtures of their Crested Piggies, please send them in, especially if you have an American Crested. Unlike our Piggyfriends, the American Crested has the crest in a different colour to the rest of the coats. We believe that these piggies have a white crest. The American Crested looks even more like they are wearing hats as the crest shows up so well against the rest of the coat.

If we get enough pigtures of both ordinary cresteds plus American cresteds we might be able to make up a set of both.

Watch out for our next set coming soon..............






Friday, August 28, 2015

Friday Video: Making the Piggy House

We are not actually sure what the title of this video is as it may be in German however we love the end result, enjoy!!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Book Review; Guinea Pig Pride and Prejudice

Last week we were contacted by Bloomsbury publishing to see if we would like to receive a copy of Guinea Pig Pride and Prejudice a new book they are launching we asked Mummy and she got all excited and said yes.

On Saturday the book arrived in the post as you can see from the pigtures below it was beautifully wrapped just like a present (we think it would make a great gift for piggy loving humans)

At bedtime mummy read the story to us its about piggies falling in love despite not liking each other at first.

Mummy loved the cute pigtures especially the cast list and we really liked the smart costumes (you can see some of our favourite shots below)

What we also liked was the message at the back of the book about supporting local shelters well that has our full backing and we are glad to see them get a mention as lots of humans have no idea the piggy rescues exist.

Now enjoy the pigtures and start planning which of your humans has been good enough to get a copy.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

abscesses v. sebaceous cysts






Hello everyone, Otto Piggyfriend here.

First of all a warning. Mieke has added a photo of her late piggy, Toby, to this post. Poor little piggy had a nasty abscess and you can see him after it had been lanced. It looks nasty but it might be useful to see how it looks.

You'll remember recently reading the post about Agent F1 aka Jim's sebaceous cyst. It was on August 3rd. Well, at the very same time I had one too. Mine was on my back and Slave might not have noticed it under all my long hair ( in this pigture I have had a haircut but I usually look like a mop ) but the cyst appeared right in the middle of my parting. Like Jim, I had it attended to by an expert - in my case our Rodentologist.

Slave didn't take any photos of this as she forgot to take her camera along but if you look back at Jim's post, you'll see what it looked like. Our Rodentologist shaved off my coat around the cyst, made an incision in it and then squeezed out all the nasty looking contents. He says that piggy skin is like leather! Our Slave can do this herself but what she cannot do is remove the gland underneath. Without this, there is a chance that the cyst will come back. She watched very carefully as he cleaned the area up and then picked out the gland with a pair of tweezers. I was busy watching the squirrels racing up and down the tree outside our Rodentologist's home so I missed it all and never squealed once. After he had removed the gland, he packed the hole where the cyst had been with Dermisol cream ( this is antiseptic ) and I was given lots of parsley to eat, after which we came home. Slave kept an eye on it but it healed up very quickly and now there is nothing to be seen.

These cysts can appear in different places. Our Petunia once had one underneath near her leg.

An abscess is a much more serious matter. This contains a lot of nasty pus, which is toxic, smells horrible and needs careful removal. Rather than just a small lump, which gets bigger slowly, an abscess can come up overnight and can be huge. They are often around the neck area and, because of their position can cause a piggy trouble when trying to eat. Our Rodentologist lances them when they are ready, being very careful of the contents and usually keeps the piggy patient in the hospital until they are better as, although the pus has been removed, more keeps being produced and it fills up again. Constant draining is needed. Some vets will remove the encapsulated abscess under anaesthetic but our Rodentologist does not want to subject a piggy to anaesthesia unless absolutely necessary as it is so dangerous for us. Sometimes a drain is inserted to keep the hole open so more pus can come out or else the abscess can be lanced again as often as is necessary. It can take a long time for an abscess to clear up completely and sometimes there can be a second one behind the first and maybe a third in a chain.

We may need a lot of syringe feeding during this time until we can eat by ourselves again.

Sometimes piggies can get tooth root abscesses and these are very dangerous and hard to treat.

Toby (one of Mieke's late piggies) had an abscess in his cheek,
it might have been in this tooth root, it was very close at least.

Our Rodentologist does not give antibiotics as an abscess is separate from the rest of the body. The word comes from the Latin meaning that it is walled off.

If any of our readers have had experiences regarding cysts or abscesses, they might like to post about it. It is useful to share information and various treatments.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Rex piggies at Piggyfriends

We have been trawling the archives for pigtures of our Rex piggies past and present and would like to present a selection. Our Slave takes hundreds of pigtures and it has been a mammoth task to pick just a few of our friends.

Here are brothers Raffles and Rolo. When he got older Raffles' hair grew a bit longer so there may have been some Texel in their ancestry.
Next is our Daisy, who was a typical Rex and grew to be a large lady and was President of the LAPS club on the GPDD ( Large Ample Piggies Society ). She weighed over 3lbs in her prime. She also had a crest so qualifies in both sections.


Then we have Mayflower, one of four sisters born to rescued Ginger but the only one to have a Rex coat.





Here are sisters Crystal and Toffee.


And Polo ( Agent Minty ) demonstrating his allegiance to Slave's flag on St. Patrick's Day.
We can't leave out our dear Roscoe, Daisy's brother. Here he is sharing his 5th. birthday feast on the lawn with his best friend, Shadow.
And lastly, our two fat ladies, Agents 88, Sally and Susie, who are sisters.


These are not the only Rexes who have found their way to Piggyfriends but we don't want to monopolise the blog. Now, dear readers, please send us your pigtures of your Rex or US Teddy piggies. We want to see them all.