Trying out the new food.

"We are going to try out the new bag of food today." announces Niamh Piggyfriend. " Tyrion has sorted out some dishes and we are going to put one in each pen and see who likes it."

Otto tries it first as he is senior pig. " This is yummy, Niamh!" " I tried it and I liked it too," says Niamh, " but you don't want to see my pigture every day."

Here is Louis tucking in. He had a lot of tooth problems when he came to Piggyfriends and is picky about food but he likes this. All Slaves should know that you must never suddenly change our feed  so you can see that Louis has a dish of his usual mix as well as did we all.

Carter is always to the fore when food is on offer and here he is enjoying the new nibble but his girls were not interested in it. "Come and try this!" he says between mouthfuls.

" We cannot let Carter eat it all," say Saoirse and Aoife. " Oh, it is really nice." they agree.

Fernando is enjoying it but his brother, Martin is camera shy. He did join in later but ran and hid when we tried to take a photo.

And here is Casper completing the taste test.

"We tried everypig with the new food," says Niamh," but we are sure that you do not want to see that many pigtures. Everypig enjoyed it and when we have completed our test of the treats, we are going to write to Kirk and tell him about it."

Look out for our next post when we test one of the treat boxes.

We have a surprise parcel!

" Look guys!" calls Otto Piggyfriend. " The postman has brought this parcel and it is addressed to us!"

"See! It has our name on it. I wonder what is inside?" asks Otto as the Piggyfriends gather round to inspect the parcel.

"Let's open it" says Niamh. " I have the scissors." " Be careful with those Niamh," cautions Otto. "They are the ones that Slave uses to cut my hair and they are very sharp."

The Piggyfriends look on in amazement at all the goodies inside. "There is a letter from a nice man called Kirk, who works at Westland Horticultural." reads Niamh. " I've seen Slave using their compost. They are making food for small animals too now and this is a press release telling people all about their new products."

"There are boxes of treats with fruits, veggies and flowers." says Niamh. " We will all try these out and see which ones we like."

Niamh studies a care booklet that came in the package. " I am so pleased that they recommend that we eat grass and hay as those are our favourites. That is a nice photo of a piggy eating parsley." says Niamh.

" Let us try this bag of food first." suggests Niamh. " Go and round up some dishes and I will put some in each for us all to taste. Thank you Kirk."

The Piggyfriends will tell you about their taste testing in their next post.

Note to our readers. If you would like to know more about these foods, go to www.naturesfeast.co.uk, where you can read all about them.

B (Piggy A-Z): Introducing Agent Boo

Peaches has been on Agent weight (aka 1000 grammes / 1 kg) on and off during this year, but she has never been introduced as an agent. First time she reached Agent weight was already in march this year, and she went down in weight and reached agent weight again in April, June, July and November... So she as been going up and down, but it did not seem to affect her, and it never got really low, or high for that matter.

Anyway, she deserves an introduction as an Agent, as this has been long overdue, especially when looking at the first time she reached Agent weight.

So without much further ado I would like to introduce to you: Agent Boo!

Why Agent Boo? Well, I guess you are all not hardcore gamers, as I am also not, so it's a bit harder to explain. My boyfriend E referenced to Boo, the giant miniature space hamster, when talking about Peaches when we first got her. She was really hard to set up with the other piggies, as she would go from nice to psycho piggy in about a minute. Boo was the companion of a computer character (back in the old days) called Minsc in game the Baldur's Gate. Minsc would talk to Boo in the game, and shout things like 'Go for the eyes, Boo!' If you want to read more about Boo see this link.
Next to Peaches looking like a giant Hamster, the description Minsc would give Boo, did sound a bit like the ferocious Peaches we had at first.
Luckily nowadays Peaches a rather nice piggy, and she loves to cuddle with Roos, her biggest enemy at first.

Agent Boo, together with Agent Tortoise on the right

Hope you all have some lovely Christmas days,

Mieke

p.s. You can still order the Undercover guinea pigs card game, the first have been send already. More info in this post. All proceeds will go to a guinea pig shelter somewhere in the world, which you can nominate and vote for yourselves

Piggy Bathtime

Agent Minty reporting on Piggyfriends' Bathtime.

Most of us Piggyfriends, with a few exceptions, do not mind having a bath. Otto absolutely loves it. In these pigtures, you can see me with my friend Copper in the bath and wrapped in warm towels to dry afterwards.

Slave baths us all in pairs so that we have someone to chat with whilst the shampoo is working. She makes sure that the bathroom is nice and warm and then carries a pair of us upstairs in a box. She unscrews the shower head from its hose and gets the water to the right temperature. Then we are placed in the bath and she uses the hose to make us wet all over. Then she uses the Vet Sect Repel shampoo and works it up into a lather all over our coats and into our ears. If anypig has a messy grease gland, they have a blob of Swarfega applied to it.

Then we sit in the bath and wait for four minutes. We can explore the plughole, push the hose around or roll the shampoo bottle along. Then Slave switches the water on again and we have a thorough rinse. After that we are wrapped in warm towels and placed in a box to dry. She gives us something to nibble while we wait - usually some yummy cucumber slices.

While she is bathing the next pair of piggies, she will change our towels several times so that we keep getting dry ones. By the time that the second pair of piggies has been wrapped in their towels, we are ready for a rub with yet another warm towel. Our box is left by a radiator if it is winter so that we carry on drying but in the summer we are usually dry enough to go back into our pen with some nice fresh hay.

Sometimes we get our nails trimmed at this time.

The long haired piggies usually need to be finished off with the hairdryer on a low setting. They also have haircuts when in the bath as Slave finds it easier to do this with a wet coat.

Some of us get bathed more often than others. White coated piggies like myself get messier than the darker ones and the long haired ones need more attention than the short coated ones but Slave does all of us at some time. In our damp climate in England, fungal spores abound and this lovely shampoo keeps us free of this nasty problem as well as killing off any bugs that might be in our coats.

Happy Birthday Agent Nervous

Our very own Agent Nervous is celebrating a big birthday, he is now 5 years old.

Being 5 means he qualifies to join the Senior Citizen Aging Miracle Pig Society also known as SCAMPS

Congratulations Agent Nervous!!!

Hammock Happiness Interrupted

Just when you are having a nice dream in your hammock... 

*zzzzzzzzz*

*zzzzzzzzzzzz*

Your staff sneaks up on you and takes a pigture.. 

FLASH!

Whut?

Got nom?

Sigh..

Sounds familiar?

Jimmy is a LAPS pig!

1383 grams!

Our friend Jimmy from the Gekke Flappies recently became a LAPS pig. Hurray! Go Jimmy, well done.

Piggyfriends' First Aid Kit

After my last blogpost, I jumped into the cavycopter to interview the Piggyfriends about their first aid kit. After a generous meal (I now have a secret crush on miss Penny, their slave) the Piggyfriends nominated Pandora aka Agent Avatar, to answer my questions as she is spokespig for the herd when they send messages to the GPDD.

Pandora aka Agent Avatar

(Sjeuf) Before we jump into the Piggyfriends' first aid kit, Pandora, can you tell me a bit more about the Piggyfriends?

(Pandora) Well, I need Slave's help with this one. She says that she had the very first Piggyfriends when she was a little girl ( a VERY long time ago ). The first one came from a litter born to the pet shop lady's Peruvian sow, Lima and the second was passed on to her from her spoilt brat cousin's dad, when the girl would not look after him. There were no piggy rescues in those far off days so I guess that he was the first rescued one. When Slave and her family moved here in 1987, she had six of her own plus the Little Visitors that came to live here during the times when her friend was overseas and also her sons' school piggies that boarded every weekend and holidays. There was plenty of room here to rescue more so she did.

Slave never counts us as she says that it reminds her of lost Piggyfriends. I can't count very high but there are between 20 and 30 of us. Slave says that once she had 35. There is always room for one more.

(Sjeuf) what are the most common piggy ailments?

(Pandora) The worst piggy ailments must be skin problems, particularly mites but we are all protected by regular doses of Ivermectin and Panacur to kill mites and other parasites (tip: worming protocol). Sometimes piggies come in with mite infestations and they are very poorly. Fungal issues are also problem in cold, damp climates like ours in England as piggies originally came from the dry climate of South America.

(Sjeuf) What kind of medicine really really ought to be in the case?

(Pandora) Our Slave has a huge amount of piggy medicine in two overflowing boxes. I think that Ivermectin and Panacur are the most important drugs plus an antifungal and antiparasite shampoo. Slave has Vet Sect Repel. She has painkillers and human cold remedies, which suit piggies too. There are decongestants for bunged up noses plus a bottle of Septrin antibiotic - the best one for piggies. There is a bottle of tonic for when we need a pick me up and a human ladies' remedy for cystitis. There are meds for upset tummies and diarrhoea and Daktarin oral gel for sore mouths after dental work. She has eye drops and a cream to help wounds heal faster. She has Osteocare and a cream for mouth sores ( just in case ).

(Sjeuf) Lets talk tools! What do you really need, next to the drugs?

(Pandora) Tools? A good, sharp pair of nail clippers. Slave has a pair for human nails and she also uses these for overgrown incisors. Not for the faint hearted. Also a lot of 1ml. syringes with no needles for giving meds. With the ends cut off, these are for syringe feeding sick piggies too. Plus good sharp scissors for haircuts for our long haired friends. I don't need these. If she did not have the services of our wonderful Rodentologists, she would have a set of dental equipment too. Also there is a box of cotton buds for swabbing the Daktarin around little mouths.

(Sjeuf) Are there other essential items we've not mentioned yet and ought to be in the first aid kit?

(Pandora) Slave considers all of the contents to be essential but she says that you need to know what you are doing before giving meds.

(Sjeuf) So let's say I'm making a deluxe first aid kit, what else would you put into my kit?

(Pandora) Slave wouldn't be without a diuretic for heart conditions. She also recommends that every first aid kit should contain a copy of Peter Gurney's Piggy Potions. She is very keen on herbal remedies.

(Sjeuf) Wow, Pandora, that was really helpfull, thank you so much for having me here!

Dear readers, I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I did and got some ideas out of this. If you have any questions, post them below, I'm sure the Piggyfriends will be reading this and are willing to answer them.


Lots of wheeks!
Sjeuf

p.s. I added all the hyperlinks to the websites for extra information. Do correct me if I got it wrong or pasted a dead link into this post.
p.p.s. as stated in the sidebar, we are not vets and no rights can be claimed from this blogpost. If your guinea pig seems to be unwell, please seek out medical advise from a cavy-savy vet. Pigs can go downhill very fast.

New Years Resolutions

Tell your slaves not to worry about their weight (big butts are the best anyway) and replace their New Years resolutions with these resolutions for my health:

1. Weigh me frequently and keep track of my weight. We are very good at hiding our illnesses and a drop in weight usually is the first sign something is wrong

2. Check my fur every now and then. Are there bald patches? Creepy crawlies? Wet chin?

3. Trim my nails! I know I don't like it, but if you wait too long I'll get corkscrew nails, which can be very painfull.

So, this is our top 3. Which resolutions would you like to add?

Dr. Sjeuff

More Christmas Greetings from the Cali Collective

Merry Pigmas from the Cali Collective

Hello,


Agents Pirate, Magician, Godiva, Acorn and Mango want to wish everybody a very merry Pigmas! Wishing that everypiggy gets heaps of vegetables and cuddles this holiday season.

Merry Pigmas from the (uncooperative) Guinygirlz

I tried to get some nice Xmas pigtures of my little herd together but they weren't very cooperative...

I did get some nice shots from individual pigs so I'll post those

lil'Woop next to the christmas stable
(I like it because you can burn a candle in it, and it is nice an small)

Daisy in her cutest pose next to the christmas tree

Agent Wheeker

Agent Valentino

lil'Woop peeking out

Lily'explorer peeking over the christmas ornaments...

In the rest of the pigtures they were mostly wrecking the props...
Btw, this is the base of their new cage (will be a 1,22 by 1,22 meter cage :)

Life's hard sometimes for slaves with uncooperative pigs, but I hope you like these single shots!

Slave Mieke

Igor's PLAY - FoodBall

....in the forward line we see Igor.. front right is Suus doing a give and go with midfield player Yaya and skillfully passes the ball to Igor the terrible.. Igor accepts the ball perfectly .. oooh.. he makes an overhead kick and.. WHEEEEEEEK!!!! IGOR SCORES A CARROTPELLET!!

What is it?

Concept:Playing Foodball is playing with a special ball with yummies inside.
Material: You need a foodball. This is a ball made of plastic with a little sliding window in it. With this little window you can determine the size of the hole. You also need something Yummie that will fit inside. We prefer to use pellets from a different brand than our daily pellets. They are tasty and healthy. There is also special candy for guinea pigs for sale that you can use. Allthough this is a possiblity, these snacks tend to be too salty and unhealthy. Usually you are allowed to have two of them (a day), but this is not very practical when you are foodballing with a whole team. Unfortunately veggies are also not suitable; they stick and can leave bits behind in the foodball that go bad.

Application: Your slave should put something tasty in the ball and then lay it on the floor. Then the game is on!! You push the ball with your nose which will make it start rolling. If you do this right, the pellets ought to fall out of the ball every now and then. I have to say, this is not easy! If there's no pig around to show you how, it can take a while before you understand how to play this game. Luckily, I learned from Suus and Yaya, who in their turn, learned from Auntie Guiny (who else ;-) ).

Do-it-yourself-factor?: Not that high; the ball has to be bought in a pet shop. But it is possible to make one yourself. Your slave has to buy a little plastic bottle in the supermarket and empty it. Then she can cut some holes in it with scissors. Add pellets and there you go! (your slave does have to make sure that we cannot hurt ourselves)
Variations: You can do this as a team or solo. Your slave can also put boxes on the floor so you can manoeuver the ball through.

Target audience?

This is certainly something for the intellectuel cavy. Auntie Guiny was always very good at getting the ball out of small corners when it got stuck. Because there are yummies inside, it is also very suitable for the food oriented guinea pigs. And because you also get some excerise it is also a challenge for the sporty cavies among you.

Dangerous?

No, not really. Although I must insist that supervision of your slave is neccesary, you'll never know what we'll come up with. And besides, it is also very entertaining to watch, especially for daddy slaves.

 
User experiences?

Suus: Really cool game! Although it helps if slaves make sure we do not run out of pellets. It is very challenging to get the pellets out of the ball before your team mates. By the way, I always play for the Netherlands.. I'm already wearing orange socks..
Yaya: When slave introduced the ball again I was the only one who could remember how to play Foodball! Hahhah.. Good huh? ;-)

(Igor): Well guinea pigs that's it for this wheek. I will go grab a carrot beer for the third half. *snigger*.. *stagger*.. Laaalala Blaaaaack pants, Ooorange shirt, thaaaaat is the Winky herd. Holahee dee holala...hooolahee dee hoo laalaalaa...*


Professor Igor


*This is actually the song (in adapted form) that the fans of a soccer club from a small dutch village sing to encourage their team. Our slaves were born in this village and accidentely, Igors furcolors match their gear

Merry Pigmas from Agents Firenze and Mystery

"Who is going to sit nicely for some Pigmas pigtures" said Slave." Not Agent Curly or Halloween because you two were in the last set of holiday pigtures".

Then she saw us two. Agent Firenze was having a nap but that did not prevent her from being picked up and surrounded by festive ornaments and having ribbons stuck in her hair. I don't think that she really minded. Well, it is a girly thing isn't it but then it was my turn.





Now, wearing a Santa hat is one thing but having poinsettias in my hair!! Doesn't Slave realise that under all of this coat I am a BOAR!! And then I got the ribbons too. Pigmas. Bah Humbug!

Don't worry - the poinsettias are artificial. Slave knows that real ones are poisonous.







Happy Pigmas everyone from all of the Piggyfriends, including me, Agent Mystery.

Merry Pigmas from Agents Tiny and Addytude

Merry Christmas to all secret agents from Flower!