Friday Video: Guinygirlz new cage

Hi there,

 Auntie J is away and left us to the hard task of selecting a video.
We have had a new cage, build by our human Daddy E, for a while now. We are pretty sure we shared it already but we cannot find it on this blog...
So hope we are not annoying you with a repeat of this video of us entering the new cage for the first time... it is quite a long video, you don't have to watch it all if you don't want to ;)

 

 Some specifics:
- The cage is about 122cm by 125cm (around 48" by 49") and made out of wood, the kind that consists of layers pressed together with a shiny top and bottom.
- The see-through parts are pieces of plexiglass (hooby glass) from our old cage (see our old cage here)
- Roos has a perfect camouflage color for the sides of the cage (the wood is red brown, like Roos is).
- The back has a small ledge at the top, which can be opened, so our waterbottle and hayrack can be filled more easily. We like this, because it gives some idea of shelter when we get scared.
- The cage is on top of an 'H'-shaped stand which holds our boxes of pellets, hay, bedding.
- We had to get used to the wide open space, but now We looove the new cage!

 The Guinygirlz: Woopy, Lily, Daisy and Roos

The Surrey Squeakers Summer Crib

Oooh the Squeakers would love to see their new pen on the blog!

The whole pen has a sturdy wooden frame of treated wood, and the wire is strong 1" x 1/2" mesh, except for the roof which is 1/2" x 1/2" mesh. The company who made it kindly sent us some offcuts of mesh (at a very small price) to go all the way round the bottom edge to stop rats burrowing in. The pen is 6 feet tall, 9 feet deep and 12 feet wide and is big enough to take both the big hutches, one large shelter (for eating grass deliveries when it's raining), and 10 pigloo type houses. The Squeakers love it!

We love the Squeakers new pen although Mummy says we havent got room in our garden for one humphhhh

Guinygirlz DIY cage: Hobbyglass cage

Building a Hobby glass cage, owned by Agents Lily'explorer, Lil'woop, Agent Wheeker and Agent Valentino

Needed:
- 5 hobby glass sheets (for example: 2 50x50cm sheets for the sides, 3 150x150cm sheets for back, bottom and front. In the Netherlands Hobby glass is also know as plexi glass, it is not real glass, but hard plastic.
- 2 sizes (small and bigger) of corner strips (we used plastic)
- hard plastic glue

The following pictures show you what is in our cages. from bottom to top.
By the way we also have a top floor that is not really in the pictures, we'll ask slaves to write a post about that as well. The stairs in the pictures is used for getting to the top floor.

Our cage empty

A corner, picture taken so you can see the construction of smaller and bigger strips

Papers to soak up the fluids

Covered with drybed (shrank a bit in the washing machine)

Our improvisation brick staircase

the corner House

Willow 'twig' tunnel

Hanging Ikea 'hay' rack

Our Wooden hayrack

Our webcam (yes it's upside down ;)

Our netbook used for broadcasting us!

How to make:

- First: saw the corner strips to the right lengths. The biggest corner strips go on the outside of the cage. The smaller corner strips go on the inside of the cage. (see the picture on how we sawn our strips for the corners).

- Second :decide where to put which glass panel. Set them up in a way they are supported.

- third: start glueing the strips to the panels, first do the outsides, measure the space for the front panel, a small piece of glass panel will work for that, or use a smaller side panel. DO NOT leave the front panel in while waiting for the glue to dry when you want to be able to get the front panel out! Let the strips dry.

- fourth: glue the smaller strips on the inside of the cage. Again measure the space needed for the front panel and get the panel out before the glue dries!

- Fifth: After all the glue has completely dried, this does take quite a long time, look in the desciption of the glue how long it needs. You can put the panel in, and put the cage in place.


Some points of attention:

When glueing make sure you put something beneath the glued pieces, so you do not get glue on your floor, table or whatever you have the cage on while assembling.

This cage is fairly stable, but not good to keep it in the middle of a room. A wall or two for support are very welcome. Our cage is in a corner with the back and one side supported!


Hope this was helpful, if you have any questions let us know!

Our cage was made by mom and dad.

They want to make a step by step photo instruction for the next bigger cage they are planning to make for us...


Wheekz,

Woopy, Lily, Daisy and Chico

>

> Greetings my fellow secret Agents, Agent Lettuce here reporting on my crib. This is a smaller version of the pod I used to live in with my sister (R.I.P Agent Thumper). The most notable features are my beloved hut which I like to disguise with hay and my food bowls, 1 for dry food and 1 for wet food. Aunty Loosy puts lots of things in my pod, don't know why she bothers as I just ignore them. I get floortime every day and scamper about the bedroom, there are lots of things to explore and I like to gallop around as it annoys my Daddy.
> My pod is in Aunty Loosy's room, we have always lived in her room because we went to live with her when she was a student and our Uncle Ned was very nice but did tend to come home late at weekends and pick wah up. Boys are often silly, methinks.
> I also have a duvet (goose down from somewhere called Peter Jones) to cover my pod and keep me extra snug in winter!
>
> Agent Lettuce out
>
>

My Crib; Surrey Squeakers Winter Home

Stella would like to show you the Winter quarters of the Surrey Squeakers.

Here are two pictures of our shed. One shows the left hand side and the other shows the right. Slave wanted to stand further back and get it all in one photo, but there's a big tree in the way. It is an 8 foot by 6 foot wooden shed, with a window. You can see that there is some wire mesh in the doorway to stop us escaping when Slave opens the door. Hanging from the ceiling is our luxury heater. It has a fan which is on all the time, circulating the air nicely, and a heating element which comes on when necessary, to keep the shed at the chosen temperature. Slave usually chooses to set the thermostat at about 12 or 13 degrees, which we find very comfortable, and it's not too great a shock if we are suddenly brought out and placed in the outdoor pens! On the floor we have layers of newspaper, then a layer of towels, then lots of lovely hay. We also get extra hay in all our little houses and also in our new hay rack. (Thank you Secret Santas - Woopy, Chico, Lily and Daisy!). The shed is big enough for us to get up some speed when we are feeling energetic and we love being in it when it's cold, snowy or wet outside. As you can see in the pictures, breakfast veggies had just arrived, but Slave standing at the door with a camera was putting us off!

My crib: Where the Misfits live

We got an email from Jean, slave to the Misfits, this will be a photo report!
The cribs are mostly built by Andy, we hope to get a report later about how to build these misfits Cribs...

The nine  4 by 2 cages that Andy built.

Ned is in his condo cage

The middle section of the big condo cages that andy built is the top cage of adeline and amanda.

Lazarus lives in the bottom of the middle section of the big condo cages

Biff who lives next to Charles.

Charles in his cage.

A closer look at the middle section of the condo cages.

Notice that the middle cage has a red ribbon that Ringer won for the second biggest eyes at the Chicago piggie open house that He shows off on his water bottle! That is his cage! This will give you an idea of their housing. They have soft fleece that is changed every two days. (yes a lot of laundry) they get oxbow food and lots of Timothy hay. Each has a hut and clean water daily :) and they get a vitamin c tablet daily, as well as a veg plate in morning and a snack at nite at 9pm! Yes, they are spoiled. we have a kids plastic swimming pool for floor time as well. easy to clean out and they love it!

My Crib; Where the Piggyfriends Live

My Crib: Agent Minty gives a tour of Piggyfriends.


Here I am, Agent Minty, in my pen. This is typical of the pens at Piggyfriends, which have been made by our Slave. You can see that it is made out of wire panels and this is how it is set up. First of all, Slave puts a double piece of heavy gauge plastic on the floor to protect her carpets. She buys this from a garden centre and uses a lot of it in her work. It comes on a big roll and can be cut to shape with scissors.

On top of the plastic, she places rows of thick newspapers. These extend beyond the space that the pen will occupy so that we piggies cannot nibble the plastic. On top of this goes our pen. The pens are made from galvanised wire panels, one yard square, that she bought from the garden centre years ago. These last forever and can be cut to size with secateurs to fit the available space. The one that I share with my friend Copper is half the height of the original panel and this way Slave made two pens out of four wire panels.

When she has placed the pen on top of the newspapers, she puts another set of paper on top. This is for us to mess up and is changed daily but the underneath paper lasts a long time before the whole set up needs to be cleaned. The pen can then be folded and taken outside for a good brush.



You can see in the pigture how the panels are "sewn" together at the corners. Slave uses soft garden wire, which she threads through the corner squares from bottom to top. The wire ends are folded over and tucked in so that they are not sharp. It is easy for her to undo if she needs to extend a pen or change its shape.

Slave puts cardboard boxes in the pens. She gets these big ones from her farmer friend and, lined with more paper and hay, they last quite a long time before we tear them up too much. Then Slave finishes the tearing and they go in the garden compost bins with our considerable piles of poos to make new compost for growing even more veggies. Us piggies enjoy recycling boxes for such a good cause.



Here you can see Copper and me in our sleeping box. Slave asked us not to mess up our cage while she went to get new batteries for her camera but she was too slow.

You can see another pen next door. There are pens all around two rooms and we all have neighbours with whom to chat. You might notice the extra high panel between our pen and the right hand one. This is because sows live in that one and Slave thinks that we might jump over. Chance would be a fine thing. Have you seen the size of us? Jumping is the last thing on our minds.




Here is another view of the Piggyfriends' pens. The one next to us ( you can just see us in our box ) is really a poultry crate. Slave used to put it on her table when she did the RSPCA Pet Days as it has a secure lid and kept prying hands from grabbing piggies but it makes a lovely crib too. The lid is folded back and is set up just like our other pens.



We all love our cardboard boxes and here is another demonstration of their use from Agent Thorntons and Agent Venezia. They will soon need a new one.



Now we are in the second piggy room, which is really Slave's dining room but, as it is a big L shaped room, piggies have taken over half the space. Two of the pens in here are made with wooden frames to the wire panels. These are bigger pens with hinged sides and can be folded flat for taking outside in the summer as exercise pens. They have folding lids but these are only used outside to keep the sun off. They are set up in exactly the same way. Slave has just cleaned them out and the black pipes are still on the carpet waiting to put back for piggies to run through. We also enjoy tearing up the cardboard middles of kitchen rolls. Slave puts hay in these just like we have seen chez Ghost and the Hamster.

You can see our carriers stacked up in the background.




This pigture shows a freshly cleaned out pen. That's Agent Big Red having a nap in a box. Slave collects wine and spirit boxes from the supermarket and these make excellent places for sleeping, jumping on and tearing up. She follows the person putting out wine bottles on the shelves and begs for the empty boxes. They know that she is eccentric. This pen also has one of our plastic stools for hiding in. We like these as they have four holes to run through.



And here is the same pen full of hungry piggies.



Some of us have pigloos. Here is Elliott in his.



We also have a smaller home. This cage is too small as a piggy home. It was given to Slave by a client and she keeps it as a quarantine cage for a newcomer or if one of us is ill and needs to be kept in another room. Dorian is demonstrating it and has a little stool as a hidey.

What views do we have? We can all see the piggies on either side of us and those across the rooms. My room has a view of the garden where we can see the Piggyfriends' flag and the greenhouses where Copper's and my favourite tomatoes grow. We can also see the kitchen where the veggies are washed. The piggies in the dining room get the first view of Slave in the morning so can start the wheeking before us. Their windows face the road so they can see Slave's car pulling up.

I hope that you have enjoyed this tour of Piggyfrends. From Agent Minty on behalf of the Piggyfriends herd.

My Crib: Where do I live?

Hi there,

We think it is time for a new series, as we have shown you lots of available veggies around here now
in the 'Veggie of the Wheek' series. Of course if you have any suggestions or entries in that category you are very welcome to send in your posts or emails...

Our new series will be My crib, and for this we will need your pigticipation!
Some of your slaves might know the My crib tv programme which we think is on MTV, with celebrities who show your slaves their homes.
Of course, we can do the same and show you our cage!
So you are all invited to send us pigtures and some info about your cages, like what's your bedding, interior of your cage, favorite toy in it, maybe your view...
If you have a Do-It-Yourself cage, we are very interested how it was made. Then we can also do a series about C&C and other DIY cages.

Well, for the kick off we will show you our cage made by mommy and daddy.

Well, this is our crib! We have a cage with drybed (like vetbed) on the floor, which is nice and soft. We usually have an assortment of houses, soft baskets, tunnels and/or cuddle cups in it. At the moment we have two hammocks, which are nice to hang in!
Things that are always in our cage are the wooden hayrack (we sent one to our friends the Surrey Squeakers, us being their secret santas), and a hanging hayrack, which actually comes from the kitchen department at Ikea (thanks, auntie Janneke for that idea ;), water bottles (three actually!) and of course our selections of pellets (three kinds as well). Are we spoiled or what!?
Latest addition to our cage is the extra floor, with a very cool brick staircase our mom built

All of the girlz know how to use this, but Chico would rather stay safely on the ground level...

Our cage was made by our mom and dad, and is made out of hobby glass (in holland also known as Plexiglass), glued together with white plastic corner strips. The front glass can easily be lifted out of it for cleaning. It measures 150x50x50 cm (approx. 59x19.7x19.7 inch). Mom and dad are planning on making a bigger one, but they been talking about that since getting Lily and Daisy, and they've been here for half a year now, so that could take some time... We will ask mom to devote a post to the construction of our cage in a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) section.

Wheekz,
the Guinygirlz and Agent Valentino