Dee's girls

Hi,

We are Josie and Callie.  Dee just adopted us.  We are not agents but would like to be.  Callie is very good at escaping when we have floor time.

Slave Dee

Piggyfriends review a book.

Look what Slave received for her birthday. "A Guinea Pig Oliver Twist".

We don't know if it is OK for us to reproduce photos of this book but they are not very good pictures and, as we are advertising this book to possible purchasers, we hope that the lovely people who made the book will not mind.

Slave already has the Guinea Pig Nativity and Pride and Prejudice in this series so she was delighted when our pigsitter gave her this book for her birthday.

This is the story of Oliver Twist with all the characters played by guinea pigs. It has a shiny cover and nice shiny pages so we apologise for the fact that our photos reflect the flash but it is such a lovely book that we wanted to share it with you all.

Here are the characters all dressed up with wonderful clothes made especially for the book.

Slave read the book to us and she did laugh when she saw the little vignette of the ball and chain with 4 little chains for piggy feet.

Can you see it?

In detective stories on the television, we see police tape on the floor where the victim was found. Here, there is the shape of a fat guinea pig drawn with chalk. Don't worry readers - this is only a story and nopig gets hurt. Sorry about the reflection. We had several goes at taking this photo and this was the best ( or the least worst ).

Finally, here is a scene from the book. We love the little Victorian outfits.

Everyone who loves piggies should get a friend to buy them this book for their birthday or, with Christmas coming up, what a wonderful gift to place under the tree.

We can't wait for Bloomsbury Publishing to create another Guinea Pig book.

Bonfire Night. Mimi and Lulu aka the Diva Girls reporting.

In England, the 5th. November is Bonfire Night although the celebrations seem to go on forever, especially when, as is the case this year, the 5th. falls on the weekend.

People light noisy fireworks and burn huge bonfires and the family who live across the road from Piggyfriends are having a Firework Party right now.

That is why we are wearing two pairs of Slave's earmuffs as we do not like the noise.

We live in the country and have very few neighbours but we feel sorry for piggies who are having lots of fireworks let off all around them, especially those piggies who have to live outdoors. Our double glazed windows keep out a lot of the noise and Slave is playing some CDs so it is not too bad.

We did not live here last year at this time but some of the Piggyfriends remember this "Celebration" from previous years and they say that it will soon be over. Phew!

Slave is giving out tomato slices to make up for the disturbance. Yum yum!

Piggie calendars for 2017?

Dear readers,

In the past years we've done a yearly calendar and a card game with pigtures of piggies from this blog. This year I decided to not do a calendar, because it is a lot of work and it as also pretty late to get started now. But I always enjoyed supporting the shelters with the small profit we made from selling the calendars or card games.
So I would like to provide you with some other options. These are either small businesses enthusiastic about guinea pigs or shelters that make yearly calendars.

Found this pigture on Google, as far as
I know it is in none of the calendars below

We ordered this calendar of Mieps the guinea pig, she is a Dutch piggie, but her owner ships her calendar worldwide, please check their site for shipping costs. If you are in the Netherlands shopping will be at the end of November, for the rest of the world's it will at least be before the end of the year. There are two front cover designs to choose from, but if you want to order you have to be fairly quick, you can order until the 5th of November! Order here:
http://www.miepstheguineapig.com/shop/calendars/
Mieps can be found on instagram, her owner was going to see a possible friend for Mieps on monday, so exciting times ! https://www.instagram.com/miepstheguineapig

Every year Tammy of Cavy madness assembles a nice small desktop calendar with pigtures sent to her of piggies from around the world. These are fairly inexpensive little calendars, Tammy is in the USA so shipping is also good if you are in the US. As they are small I imagine shipping to other countries is also not too bad.
http://cavymadness.com/shop/calendars.html
Our reader Jocelyn's piggies Apollo and Dante wigglebottom are featured in the Cavy madness calendar of 2017!

In our quest for calendars we found an old post by Happy Cavy about calendars, it even mentioned our 2014 calendar. As it was old most calendars are no longer available but we were glad to see the Real Men Love Guinea Pigs calendar can still be ordered! This features Orange County Cavy Haven shelter male volunteers with guinea pigs, and you can decide when the start date of your calendar should be!
Order it here: http://www.cafepress.co.uk/occh.309469550

A couple of years ago we got a calendar from the UK- based Bobtails Guinea pig & rabbits rescue from one of our readers the Surrey squeakers, looks like they are making another desktop calendar this year:  http://www.bobtailsrescue.org.uk/news2.asp?newsID=332
They have a rabbit and a guinea pig version for sale via eBay.

So do you know of any other small businesses or shelters selling calendars? we would love to hear about them, if you send us a link (or put it in the comments below) we will add them to this list!

Mieke of undercover guinea pigs blog, slave to the guinygirlz and Bérke

We found another calendar made by the owners of the late Fuzzberta:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/490345929/mini-guinea-wall-calendar?ref=shop_home_feat_1
She was supercute, her owner now has a new fuzzy piggy named Jennifuzz. Turned Jennifuzz was pregnant and she had 3 adorable fuzzbabies, if you are on instagram give her a follow (or simply have a look following the link below) , the babies are so cute! https://www.instagram.com/fuzzberta/

Happy Halloween to our Readers

"What is all this about, Magnus," says Ivan Piggyfriend, " and where is Tyrion?" " Tyrion told us to go with Slave to have our photos taken but I am not sure why." Magnus replies.

"Keep still boys!" calls Tyrion. " Look at the camera!".

" Now say " Happy Halloween" and you can have some of that apple. " That's more like it," say the little boars.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE," they call. "Well done lads," says Tyrion, " you can come home now".

All the Piggyfriends join the boys in wishing all of our readers a fun Halloween. Lots of treats and no tricks.

Happy Halloween from the Peegies!

This year we are vikings! - Apollo (brown Abby), Dante Wigglebottom (black and white piggy), and Dmitri (black Abby who wasn't really into being a viking...and threw the viking cap off the set at one point.)

Happy 6th. Birthday Otto.

Hello everyone. This is Otto Piggyfriend ( aka Agent Mystery ) and it is my 6th. birthday today. To celebrate the occasion Slave gave me 6 of my favourite chicory leaves.

I think that this may be too much for one little piggy, so I am sharing them with my best friend, Angelina ( aka Agent Mouse ).

Maybe we should save some for Slave as it is her birthday too tomorrow. Right now, we need a nap.

Later on, we shared a big pile of grass that Slave brought home from her friend's farm.

We think that food is the very best present for a piggy.

Piggy A-Z: D for Do It Yourself (DIY): a fleece pillow

Some weeks ago I made a little photo tutorial on how to make a very simple guinea pig pillow. We bought one like this when we got Bérke, a couple of years ago. We could easily have made a pillow like this, and will show you how below, but we liked to support the shelter where we got Ber by buying the pillow.
Btw, on world animal day (4 October) it was  Berke's 5 birthday, so belated carrotbeers all around!

So what do you need to make a pillow for your guinea pig?

- Fleece fabric (one or two colors, more if you want it to be multi colored, but for this tutorial I will use two colors), preferably washed (so it has already shrunk if it does that)
- A sewing machine, or needle (and some handsewing skills)
- Thread

- Pins
- Teddy bear / Fibre filling
- Scissors
- Chalk (or something else you can use to mark your fabric)
- measuring device, like a ruler or measuring tape.

Decide how big you want your pillow to be,
add some seams (All round) to that number and
draw that rectangle on one of your fleece fabrics

Cut out the rectangle and put your cut-out rectangle on top
of your other piece of fleece fabric.

Pin the rectangle to the other colour fleece
and cut it out

Fleece has a wrong and a right side. In general
The fuzzy side is seen as the right side, and
the very smooth often slightly shiny side
is the wrong side of the fabric.
However feel free to use the side you like on the outside

Put the right sides together and pin. This means
the wrong sides (the sides you what on the inside
of the pillow) are on the outside.
Unless you want the seams on the outside then
you put wrong sides together and pin

Sew together 3 sides of the rectangle,
to make sure the treads stay in place
sew forward, a bit back and forward again,
at the beginning and end of your sewing. 

Most sewing machines have
a button to sew back.
Leave one shorter side open.
To turn in the corner,
put the needle through the layers of fabric,
 lift the foot and turn.
Put the foot down again and continue

If you want seams on the inside (!): Cut of the 
corners off the side you just sewn (as shown)

This makes for a more defined corner 
when you turn it inside out.

If you want the seams on the inside, turn inside out,
 otherwise don't turn. Stuff and pin closed.
Fold the seams inside if you want seams in the inside

Here it is pinned closed with seams folded inside

Sew the short side closed, again go forwards and
back at beginning and end of your sewing
This is how it looks sewn on one side

And the other side.

It's done now and can be given to your piggies!

As far as I know fleece can be washed (not too warm though!) And the filling is washable too, might be useful to check if you can wash the filling when buying it.

Enjoy, if your slaves make a pillow for you we would love to see them!

Slave Mikey, as requested by her Guinygirlz and Bérke to make this tutorial

Guinea Pigs React to Donald Trump

We could not resist this topical video...

Dangermice get a bath.

Our Slave decided that we needed a bath. We have to admit to not being the best behaved piggies in the house and we were really naughty when Slave tried to catch us. She had to resort to trapping us in pipes and transferring us to the big box that she uses to transport piggies upstairs to the bathroom.

We did not behave very well in the bath either and Slave said that it was like the Wall of Death as we raced around running away from the shower hose ( well, wouldn't you?) but she washed and lathered us much to our disgust.

After we had been shampooed and rinsed, we were put back in the box full of towels to dry off. Here we are.

Then we tried to escape by climbing on each other but Slave was watching and we did not get away.

All the Piggyfriends get treats when they are drying off but Slave decided that she deserved one more than we did so she had some chocolate. Not fair!

Then she CUT OUR NAILS! Eeek! Actually Casper was very good and sat still for this to be done so she relented and gave us a treat after all.

We had some Savoy cabbage that she had collected from her friend's farm this morning. We do look nice and white again so maybe we should not have made so much fuss. Maybe next time.......

Friday Video ClearScore Summer 2016 TV ad: Pineapple

Whee are a bit late posting this Friday video, but better late than never right?

See how we have grown!

This is a post from Magnus and Ivan Piggyfriend. Slave has been on holiday and her wonderful son has been pigsitting. When she got home, she was astonished at how much we had grown. She says that we get bigger by the minute so we thought that we would show you this pigture of us with our mentor, Tyrion.

That is him on the left, Ivan is in the middle and Magnus is on the right. We are enjoying a pile of grass from Slave's friend Roly's farm.

Does anyone have a pigture of their own piggy? We'd love to see them.

I was very brave today!

I am Fernando Piggyfriend and when I grow up I am going to be an Agent but in the meantime, look what happened to me today!

Slave says that I must have had a long haired piggy in my ancestry ( but I do not know as I came from a rescue ) and my coat grows long at the very back. It was getting tangled so she said that I needed a haircut.

I was grabbed from my wooden house, wrapped in a towel and look what she produced.

A pair of scissors bigger than me! Slave says that they are the very best pair for piggy haircuts and she should know but I was very apprehensive. It only took a moment and my rear end was as neat as can be.

Maybe haircuts are not to be feared but I envy my brother, Martin, whose fuzzy coat does not seem to grow.

Friday Video Deezer - Mating Season (2016 UK Ad 30sec)

Even if Egg adverts have decided to abandon guinea pigs we are pleased to say that other advertisers have not been so short sighted....

Friday video: Tijgers' progress

After quite some weeks of really slow eating and pulling faces by Tijger when eating, I was surprised to see this...

I'm really surprised (and happy) at the speed in which Tijger just devoured her chicory! In the last weeks she has been really slow and had to have two dentals to get her teeth corrected... #guineapig she also had a chiropractic treatment looks like that is starting to pay off...

Een video die is geplaatst door Mieke (@pandameisje) op 11 Sep 2016 om 11:44 PDT

This was last wheekend, our vet just checked her teeth on the friday before and said the teeth looked pretty good. It was then almost 3 weeks since her last dental correction. The previous 3 weeks after her dental correction looked a lot worse, her teeth had overgrown already causing her a lot of trouble eating food. This was also about 9 days after her first chiropractic treatment... at first I thought that the treatment hadn't helped her that much, but after hearing from our vet her teeth looked pretty good and then seeing this... Tijger eating at almost normal speed... I think the treatment might be working after all! *Fingers crossed*

Okay, so we have good news! Last wednesday we went to the vet again that does chiropractic treatments. He said her molars looked normal, and her jaw muscles were hardly causing any problems anymore. He is one of the 3 vets in the Netherlands to do these chiropractic treatments on guinea pigs. What he does is loosening her jaw muscles by manipulating them, because they were somehow locked and caused her to not be able to move her jaw from left to right. On our second visit he was really happy to find Tijger had much improved. He gave her another chiropractic treatment to loosen the jaw muscles again, then he said he did not think she needed another treatment, as she was doing so well!

I asked him if I could take a pigture of him and Tijger for the blog. This is the result.

Tijger was vandaag weer even bij @dierendoktershaarlem voor tweede #chiropractie behandeling. Goed nieuws t gaat stukken beter met d'r kaak en kiezen waren nog kort! #cavia #haarlem / good news Tijger was at vet again today for her second chiropractic treatment. Good news she has improved a lot and her molars were still normal (not overgrown)! #guineapig #chiropractor

Een foto die is geplaatst door Mieke (@pandameisje) op 14 Sep 2016 om 8:20 PDT

Doesn't she look happy? When I had first visited this vet, my boyfriend asked if Tijger screamed, and she didn't. It seems like this is not an annoying or painful treatment. She would just make some mild noises, while the vet worked. I am glad this has improved her teeth problem, as this definitely beats going to the vet for dental work every month! (Also proves to be a lot cheaper than having dental work done). Since last week she has kept her weight (she was down to 780 grammes), and even gained a bit! She is now over 800 grammes again, which is still not very big, but with the rate she keeps eating and gobbling stuff up I think she will get (much) heavier!

Have a great wheekend,
Mieke and the Guinygirlz: Peaches, Tijger, Raani and boar Berke

A Piggy A-Z. D is for Dermisol and Diva Pigs

Hello readers! We are Lulu and Mimi Piggyfriend. Agent leader Tyrion has finally allowed us, with misgivings, to be Agents. He calls us his Divas so that is what we are going to be known as - the Diva Agents 1 and 2. We are not sure which of us is 1 and which is 2. We are sisters and are easily confused.

He won't let us go out on a mission as he says that we are too noisy so we have been allowed to get as far as the sofa and we are going to tell you about Dermisol.

Slave does not have the box anymore so you cannot see the name but this is a tube of Dermisol. It is an antiseptic cream for use on wounds. She says that it is especially good for use on an abscess ( ooh nasty! ) and that it comes in a liquid form too. The liquid can be drawn up into a syringe, which can be inserted into a cavity. Sounds like useful stuff to have in our first aid kit.








"Hey Mimi, where do you think that you are going? If you can't sit still for a photoshoot then you are going to be Agent Diva 2 and I will be No.1" says Lulu.

"If being an Agent means that we get paid in chicory, then I am all for it," says Lulu. "Maybe we can even learn to be quiet and sneak up on humans."

"Slave is going on holiday next week so we have time to practice," says Lulu. " We might be able to take a picture of our pigsitter."

" How was that, Tyrion?" "Not bad for the first time," he replies, " but Mimi could do better at sitting still!"

"It is alright for you, Tyrion. You are a Peruvian and they always sit still".

Fattening food (mixes) for guinea pigs?

Hi all,

Our Tijger had been slowly losing weight due to teeth problems...   We are trying to find a solution but so far she had 2 dental corrections of her molars in the time frame of a month. Vet and slave are trying to find the cause and it seems to be a problem in a her jaw muscles... guinea pig jaws can make quite a lot of movements. Tijger can do back to front grinding and from right to left. But left to right is something she cannot do (well). Tijger and slave visited a vet an hours drive away who also does chiropractic treatments. He is one of three vets in The Netherlands who does this. He loosened her muscles, so she should be able to do left to right grinding again, but unfortunately we haven't seen (much) improvement.

She really wants to eat, and tries it all the time, getting extra pieces of veggies all the time (not fair!). Slave made a mix of bran and oatmeal mixed with hot water, which we seem to enjoy more than Tijger does... she also gets pellet mush. But our question, because we really like to keep Tijger in our herd and we are a bit worried, is do you know of any other fattening foods or mixes to feed her? Also tips on how to get her to eat that, she can eat by herself just really slowly, are welcome!

Slave is planning another trip to the vets: one to probably get her teeth filled down again and one for another treatment to loosen the muscles (we think it was called a locked jaw). In the meantime we really want her to fatten up!

Here'so a picture of Tijger looking happy, this was after dad shoving pieces of chicory down her throat!

Typical Tijger look... #guineapig

A photo posted by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Aug 27, 2016 at 2:35am PDT

The worried Guinygirlz: Peaches, Raani and boar Bérke

Friday video: Problems with eating and Therapy for piggies?

Hi all,

This will have a video, but I am mostly writing because I am curious if you ever heard of this or possibly even have experience with it....

So in the last month, we have visited our vet twice with Tijger. She is a feisty little girl, but she was getting even littler...
Turns out she had her molars forming a bridge over her tongue, making it very hard for her to eat. This was corrected 3 weeks ago, and again on yesterday. If we continue at this rate, it will mean monthly dental work session for Tijger (and very empty wallets for our slaves, but that is not the most important thing).
So our vet wants to find out what is causing this quick recurrence of overgrowing molars. Because she feels, like us, that monthly dental work is not a preferred treatment. She took x rays of Tijger's jaw and corrected her teeth yesterday. It seems to her there are no big problems in her jaw, and she did not see any infections or other irritations in Tijger's mouth. Her theory is that this problem could be caused by Tijger's jaw muscles, which could be locked or something, not enabling her to make all the necessary jaw movements. A possible treatment for this could be to get her to an osteopath for guinea pigs... Unfortunately here in the Netherlands, there are only 3 vets knowledgable and certified to do this. Fortunately the Netherlands is not a very big country and 2 of the 3 vets are within an hours drive from us...

So I am really curious, have any of you, our readers, ever heard of Osteopathy of chiropractic threatments for Guinea pigs? Or do you even have experience with this? We would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Our vet thinks there are 3 options: Do dental corrections probably every month,
See an osteopath to see if we can correct her problems by giving her chiropractic treatments,
or give up (and basically have her put to sleep, or let her suffer).

Tijger is about one and a half year old, and when she is not having teeth problems, she is feisty, smart and loves to eat. She really wants to eat as well, and keeps trying. Yesterday after the aneastethic seemed to have worn of, she was even rumbling at the others...She seems to be doing far too well to say goodbye to her already, in our opinion.

We found 2 videos of a guinea pig having trouble eating (it's kind of eerie how much alike the wear on that guinea pig's teeth(Zenna) look compared to Tijger's front teeth):
One of her eating very slowly, basically Tijger eating parsley looks pretty much the same


And a video of how she could eat again after two chiropractic treatments:


Love to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Have a good wheekend,
Slave Mikey and our Guinygirlz: Peaches, Tijger, Raani and boar Berke

New Piggyfriends!

You might remember that when Ivan and Magnus came to join us all at Piggyfriends, they were part of a huge rescue co-ordinated by Palace Piggies.

When our Slave looked at their website this week, she saw that the final two babes born to one of the rescued mums were up for adoption and decided to call and reserve them. Their pigtures can be see here - fourth row down.

http://www.palacepiggierescue.org/piggies-for-re-homing.html

The girls at Palace Piggies have named them Fernando and Martin.

Well now they are here with us and here are their pigtures. Fernando first.

And here is his brother, Martin.....

Slave does not know how they came by their names but will keep them, even though they are not the usual type of name that she gives us. Although they are brothers, they are not at all alike. Fernando looks as though he will grow to be a Sheltie and has a little crest but Martin has a fuzzy coat and curly whiskers so may well be part Texel. We shall see.

They are only 7 weeks old and understandably very nervous and Slave picked them up for their photoshoot as they prefer to hide in their little house at the moment. They are eating up all of their veggies except for cucumber but prefer to sneak out of their house under cover of darkness to clear their plate!

Please welcome these dear little fellows, Undercover Agents in the making!

Piggy A-Z: D for Dunya and Daisy

We used to have piggies with names starting with a D, so for our Piggy A-Z we got Dunya and Daisy!
Dunya was a lovely himalayan, and Daisy was a gorgeous round silver agouti US teddy.
We never had them together, but they were (more or less coincidentally) named after the main characters of a Dutch TV show named Dunya and Daisy. Only we liked the spelling for Daisy better, in the tv series it is Desi, read a bit more about the series here
As with many popular youth series they also had their own movie. Dunya and Desi is about two friends, Dunya is from Moroccan decent and Desi is a very dutch girl, the series shows differences in how they were raised and how that influences their friendship.

Here are some videos of Dunya and Daisy from a few years ago...

This a video of Dunya and her old cage mates Lotje and Guiny (my first group of piggies).
Look closely to see why Lotje seems so mean to Dunya...


And Daisy sleeping... Daisy is sleeping in the middle (see her ears flap?) other silver agouti is Lily. Woopy is lounging under the hay rack...


And Roos disturbs Daisy's slumber...


Have a great wheekend,
The guinygirlz Peaches, Tijger, Raani and boar Berke