Hello everyone --- I'm Jasper from the Prairie Pigs!
In the proud tradition of Peter Gurney's famous guinea pig, Free Range Fred, I am a free-range piggy too and spend most of the day running loose in the piggy room, visiting my friends and sampling the hay from their hay racks. (Actually it's the same as the hay in my own hay rack, but for some reason stolen hay always seems to taste better!)
When I first came to the Prairie Pigs, I had a touch of scurvy (the staff at the local Humane Society shelter didn't know how important it is to give guinea pigs Vitamin C) so my gums and teeth were sore and I just was not feeling well. Slave decided it might encourage me to eat and move around more if she left my cage door open, and even after the daily Vitamin C and regular servings of fresh veggies made me feel a lot better, I convinced her that this was a tradition we should keep alive !
Here I am, hanging out with my girlfriend, the beauteous Bonnie McSmithers. Isn't she gorgeous???
Now I'm over at Heathcliffe's cage, having a chat.
Of course, though I do love being "out and about", sometimes a piggy just wants to curl up in his very own hay box for a nice afternoon nap...
We thought that it was about time that we got back to the Piggy A-Z so here we go with I.
I is for Ivermectin, a wonderful medicine that kills mites, the bane of all piggies.
Our Slave buys this from our Rodentologists and it comes in the little dropper bottle, pictured above, which gives out a measured dose. We all get two drops of this every three months and it keeps mites away.
Sometimes piggies have come to Piggyfriends already suffering from mites and they have been given the two drops of Ivermectin followed by a second dose a fortnight later to kill off any eggs that might have hatched since the first dose. In very rare cases, a third dose can be given after another fortnight.
Slave keeps a chart with all of our names on it and she puts the dates when we are "Ivomeced" so that no pig is ever missed. We are all given a dose of Panacur at the same time and we will cover this when we get to P. We always get a treat afterwards especially if we are good piggies.
I is also for Isoflurane, the only safe anaesthetic for piggies but we do not have a photo of this. If anypig ever has to be given an anaesthetic, make sure that this is the one used by your vet.
Do any of our piggy readers have a name beginning with I? If so, we would love to see your pigture.
We were going to post this earlier but we wanted you to have plenty of time to meet new Guinygirl, Linn.
Slave's eldest son, our pigsitter, came to stay with us at Christmas and he gave her this calendar. It is full of lovely pigtures and is hanging where we can all see the pig of the month.
He also gave her this little book.
It is the next in the series of classic stories adapted by Bloomsbury Publishing to feature guinea pigs in the starring roles. This one is the piggy version of the Nutcracker ballet. We all know how graceful piggies are don't we? Don't we........? Say yes everyone.
We particularly love the Sugar Plum Fairy pictured above. Slave always calls us her little sugar plums and we thought that this was appropriate.
And here is the handsome Nutcracker prince. We hope that Bloomsbury do not mind us sharing these photos especially as they might encourage our readers to go out and buy a copy.
Hi everyone,
My name is Linn! I am a little over a year old.
My previous owners brought me to an animal shelter after my friends went over the rainbow bridge.
The animal shelter I came from is the 'dierenbescherming' slave thinks this is like the english RSPCA (=Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). There was one lone piggy in the shelter, the others already had friends, that was me, I am glad Cookie and Binky liked me enough to take me home with them.
You probably already know my new friends, Cookie and Binky. Unfortunately they had to say goodbye to their friend Raani just before halloween, she had a saddle back and quite some bladder stones in the 3,5 years of her life.
I really like my new boar friend Binky, we love to lie next to each other in the cage. He is very big compared to me... Here we are sharing a leaf of endive (just before I ran of with his leaf again ;)
Though big, he and Cookie did loose weight since they meet me, I think all that running after me has made them more active.
I am a very vocal piggy, which slave Mikey likes a lot. Raani was also a little chatterbox at times, so she is happy I am a chatterbox as well.
At first I was rather afraid of taking veggies from the slaves. But the others always run up to the front of their cage, so I had to see what they were doing. I came here on 7 December 2019, and I now come to get my piece of veg, though occasionally I will steal a piece from the others. Slaves are sure I know my name, because when they call it out they can see me reacting. So after a week or so I learned when they are calling my name it means they have a piece of vegetable waiting for me. By now I have also learned that pills are okay, they others were so enthusiastic so I just had to try that. Slaves are glad I take the pills now, they say it will come in handy when I actually need pills, not sure what they mean by that...
I am not the best of friends with Cookie (yet), but she tolerates me most of the time. I do know she is safer then whatever is outside the cage and I tend to hide behind her or Binky whenever we get spooked by anything.
By now slave Mikey is pretty confident we get along well enough, ever since she found the three of us in and under our new hammock like this...
This was taken half an hour after the one above, we were still in the hammock. Cookie is with her back to us in the first pigture, if you can browse (press >) to the second pigture, you can see she was enjoying a bit of sunshine. Mom thinks Cookie might think she is a cat...
Hi everyone, it's me, Pavarotti from the Prairie Pigs! We all want to wish everyone a wonderful peaceful and happy holiday season. It's Boxing Day here in Canada and the silly humans are all out shopping, but we guinea pigs know how to really celebrate --- by eating cilantro out of boxes!
We received two piggy-themed Christmas cards this year (behind me in this photo). The lovely card on the right came from Auntie Penny, all the way from England, and when you open the one on the left, the guinea pig sings Jingle Bells. I`m known for my singing voice too, but I'm more of a tenor while the guinea pig who sings on the card sounds like a soprano (or maybe a chipmunk!).
Carter Piggyfriend here. On behalf of the Piggyfriend herd, I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas.
I hope that you all received lovely presents from your Slaves and that you are full of carrots and other good things. Now all of you be good piggies and let your Slaves have the rest of the day off after preparing Christmas feasts for the humans.
Slave Penny says Happy Christmas to all the readers too.
Nugget here. I've never been in a holiday photo without my brother Eddie
or my brother Stuart Little, but this year (not for long, my mom tells
me) I am a lone pig. Therefore I am here with my buddies Tommy the Elk
and, of course, Snoopy. We had fun posing together. I hope my mom and
dad put lots of goodies in my stocking, and I hope you get lots of
wonderful treats, too!
Martin Piggyfriend here. Slave is taking lots of Christmas pigtures ( there is no stopping her once she gets out her camera ) and she wanted me to pose with this huge reindeer.
How come Bonbon and Magnus got to pose with the pretty things from the boxes? This was a step too far so I ran and hid underneath it.
Slave's son is home for Christmas so he picked me up to show me that the reindeer was not really scary just BIG compared to a little piggy like me. Actually, up close, he looks rather friendly so.....
.....I agreed to sit next to him and this is the result.
After all that excitement, I flaked out for a nice nap. I was too tired even to tackle that chicory leaf ( but I did eat it later ).
"Look piggies! We have received a Christmas card," says Miss Marple Piggyfriend.
" And it has lovely piggies on the front. I will prop it up so that you can all see it."
Miss Marple shrewdly suspects that she has seen these piggies before and she is right.
She opens the card and detects that it has been sent by our friends the Surrey Squeakers.
" Thank you Squeakers," say all the Piggyfriends in unison " and thank you to Slave Stefanie too."
The Piggyfriends cannot help but notice that the Squeakers are eating grass, which is in short supply here at the moment as Slave's friend's farm is flooded due to the endless rain.
Here is another box of pretty Christmas things from the attic. Maguns is helping to unpack them.
" Mama Bonbon said that there might be carrots in the next box," says Magnus.
" I do not think that this is what she had in mind, Slave. This is a nice, jolly carrot and it is fuzzy and orange just like me but it is not what I was expecting."
" How about this one sweetie?" asks Slave. " Now that is more like it," says Magnus. " Thank you! I will share it with Martin."
Bounty loves his new girls. Our pigsitter came to visit and he held them on his lap so that Slave could take some better photos. Please excuse the tatty towels but Slave did not want him to end up with soggy trousers.
Here is Saffron
And here is Ebony.
Slave loves an agouti because they are a different colour underneath. You never see this so here she is in an undignified pose so that you can see her orange tum.
Our new girls have settled in really well and have discovered the radiator that runs along the back of the pen. They would rather nap here with Bounty than use their wooden house. Slave tried to take a photo of them all in a row but they saw the camera coming and scattered. Maybe next time!
