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

Friday video: Grooming

We found this supercute video of our friends the Cali Cavy Collective doing some post bath grooming... Humans get ready the ooh and ahh at all the cuteness ;)

Have great wheekend! The Guinygirlz and boar Berke

Piggy A-Z: D for donation made to the Excellent Adventure Sanctuary in Northampton!

As mom was a bit to early with the friday video yesterday (Maybe it was friday already in Australia?), we have some other news to share with you today!

A donation of 46.66 USD was made today to the excellent adventure sanctuary in Northampton, UK!

Thank you to everyone who bought a game and/or supplied a pigture, for making another donation possible!

Friday video: Pig stampede (Snapple commercial)

We had never seen this ' Pigs of Pamploma'  video before @happycavy shared this on twitter...

I don't care if it's 13 or 100 years old, @Snapple's "Pigs of Pamploma" video will always be a favorite: https://t.co/2KgTYO5YfF #guineapigs

— Happy Cavy (@happycavy) July 20, 2016

Have great Wheekend! The Guinygirlz: Peaches, Tijger, Raani and boar Berke

It is very HOT here today

Agent Mystery reporting.

It is very hot here today at Piggyfriends. The weatherman called it a mini heatwave. The minier the better as far as us piggies are concerned. He said that this weather had come up from Spain. We are glad that we don't live there.

Slave has lots of fans going to keep us all cool and she decided that all of the Peruvians should have a haircut.

First of all she gave us a shampoo. Here I am looking very bedraggled.

Slave cut a lot of my hair whilst I was in the bath and then, when I was nearly dry, she cut off my fringe. I don't look much like a Peruvian any more but I will be cooler without my long coat.

We do not have air conditioning as it is rarely hot in England and Slave has moved those of us who normally live in the conservatory into the dining room, where my home is and which is easier to keep cool. We are getting extra cucumbers as they are nice and juicy so the heatwave is not all bad.

More Agents in Training

Tyrion Piggyfriend here again. I thought that you might like to see some pigtures of our other Agents in Training, Mimi and Lulu. They have grown a lot since you last saw them and, although they are certainly big enough to go out on missions now, I hesitate to send them as they are extremely NOISY and would be useless at any work involving stealth. I call them my Diva Agents. They shout at anyone passing their home in the expectation of yet more food.

Mimi must have a little bit of Peruvian in her as her coat grows forward just like mine and she has this ridiculous rooster tail. Take a look at this.....

Lulu is good at reaching out for food without actually getting up. I cannot think where this might come in useful unless they are infiltrating a carrot farm. Here she is.......

My little cadets, Magnus and Ivan are quiet in comparison. They just make little squeaky noises as they bounce around our home.

A Piggy A-Z. D for Daktarin

After the excitement of voting for our favourite shelter, it is back to the Piggy A-Z.

Today it is D for Daktarin. When piggies have had dental work, sometimes their mouths are sore and this is where Daktarin comes in.

I am Louis Piggyfriend and I came here with overgrown molars so I need occasional trips to the Rodentologist who trims them.

I have put on weight since my arrival now that I can eat properly. Here is a tube of Daktarin. Slave squeezes a blob onto a cotton bud ( shown here ) and swabs it around my mouth. It stops my mouth feeling sore and it tastes good too.

I don't know if it available in other countries ( we live in England ) but I do hope so. Slave buys it at the pharmacy as it is made for humans.

Update on the Agents in Training

Hello readers. Tyrion Piggyfriend here. I thought that you might like to see how my students are getting on.

From the next pigture you can see how much they have grown. They actually look bigger than they really are in the pigture as their coats stand straight out whereas mine lies flat.

They are not as brave as they think they are as, when they saw Slave with her camera, they ran and hid! Ivan disappeared into a pile of hay so missed out on having his pigture in the blog but Magnus ran into the hay tube and he thinks that we can't see him.

Whilst I am here, I want to tell you that Slave recently went to the Summer Fair at our local rescue. I came from there, not as a rescue but from the gardener, who breeds a few piggies and enjoys showing them. Otto and Rafferty also came here from her as they were the wrong colour for showing and I was a little runt in need of a good home. At the rescue, she saw these giant guinea pigs and took a pigture.

They sat still for their photo unlike my little rascals.

And the winner is...

The Excellent Adventure Sanctuary (TEAS) in the UK!!
 Soon we will let you know what the amount of donation is, we just received 2 more orders for the card game (at time of writing this there are only 1-2 games left!)
Here are some more statistics of the vote:

Where did your votes come from (Geographical responses)

The vote results in a Pie chart

Votes on a timeline, as you can see at first Sharna's cavy sanctuary was in the lead,
but eventually TEAS took over..!

Congratulations to The Excellent Adventure Sanctuary in the UK!

Voting Closed - Vote for a shelter!

These are the nominees, click on their names to read a bit more about them:
TEAS, UK
Sharna's cavy sanctuary, AUS
Het Knaaghof, NL
Eastpeckham guinea pig rescue, UK

By selling our undercover guinea pig card games (btw there are still a few available) we made a little profit which we want to donate to a shelter somewhere in the world.

Please cast your vote for one of the shelters. The voting will be open for a week, you should be able to vote once a day, on monday 20 June I will count the votes.... So start voting!

Vote for you favorite shelter

TEAS, UK

Sharna's Cavy Sanctuary, AUS

Het Knaaghof, NL

Eastpeckham Guinea Pig Rescue, UK

online quiz maker

Friday video: Another shelter to vote for: Knaaghof, Rijswijk, The Netherlands

Our Peaches came from de Knaaghof, in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, which is not very far from our home. We would like to give the keyboard to Peaches as the spokespig who lived there.

A photo posted by Mieke (@pandameisje) on Jun 9, 2016 at 10:51am PDT

(Peaches) Hi all, Peaches here. I was found in a patch of nature with some of my friends. We were living in the wild there and I can tell you this can be tough with all the rain, wind, cold and other animals. Luckily we were captured and taken to the Knaaghof before the winter really kicked in (Note from slave, I was adopted from the Knaaghof in November 2014). There they took good care of us and healed us if needed.
The Knaaghof, in dutch it translates to something like the 'gnaw court', is mostly populated with bunnies. Unfortunately there are way more bunnies needing a home, then guinea pigs are other rodents... But when our Roos had to leave us (my cuddle buddy), slaves contacted the Knaaghof to find us a new friend, but they only had 4 guinea pigs and all boars at that time. As we already have Berke slave looked further and eventually found Raani. So I guess the point I am trying to make is that this place has mostly rabbits and if this cause wins, the money will probably be going to rabbits mostly (which is not perse a bad thing, just want you to know this)!
We were taken good care of, the place is clean and seems organised, volunteers that work there are nice and seem knowledgeable. The bunnies have a great setup you can see that below in the video. There is a big play area in between the cages at the edges of the area. Every so much time one or more of the bunnies hatches are opened to let the bunnies in the big play area. It looked great. Us guinea pigs have sort of a big cabinet which can be divided in smaller areas. When there are not to many piggies in the shelter they will get as big a set up as possible. I had a rather big patch to myself with a house that I loved... I still love houses I have to say.
The Knaaghof is part of the Dutch Animal protection, I guess it is like the RSPCA, so they do loads of good work for animals, not just for bunnies and rodents.
The Knaaghof itself is located near a school where kids can learn about animal care, and part of their activities can involve helping out at the Knaaghof.
I hope I have given you a bit of insight into the Knaaghof, unfortunately their website is all in Dutch, so probably not very understandable for most of our readers, that I why I choose to add the video below to give you an idea of the shelter. The video has the purpose of getting more sponsors for the animals there, so it has a bit of a sad music, but it gives a rather good impression of the place!

Another shelter to consider for your vote.

Tyrion Piggyfriend here again.  When I was at Palace Piggies collecting my new friends, Slave asked the girls if they knew of another worthy shelter for whom you could vote. They told us about East Peckham Guinea Pig Rescue, who helped them in a recent rescue of over 300 piggies. They told us about a lady who had dementia and insisted on putting all her piggies together regardless of sex and the resulting explosion of piggies needed all the help that they could get. They were all collected and distributed amongst any rescue that could help.

Palace Piggies and East Peckham have many pregnant piggies because of this.

East Peckham have a Facebook page, which you can look at.

https://www.facebook.com/eastpeckhamguineapigrescuepage/

And here is their web page.

http://eastpeckhamguineapigrescue.weebly.com/

They have a news page and here is a link to one page that tells a bit about this huge rescue from Bracknell. The poor piggies were just packed into various crates and boxes for collection and you can see a few pigtures of the victims here.

http://eastpeckhamguineapigrescue.weebly.com/10042016-bracknell-part2.html

I think that my new friends might have been part of this rescue but there were piggies everywhere. The rescues were overwhelmed by this piggy disaster and whomever you decide to vote for, anywhere in the world, will welcome the profit from our card game sale.

Kindergarten Agents. New agents in training

Tyrion Piggyfriend here. Readers of the GPDD will know that my dear friend, Gandalf aka Agent Wizard, passed away recently. I am not an Agent but was Gandalf's right paw pig and helped write up his reports as well as taking care of the other Piggyfriends when all the Agents are away on missions.

Gandalf looked after me when I arrived here as a tiny piglet so I was very lonely without him and our Slave decided to find me a new friend.

GPDDers can skip to the pigtures here as they know the story.

Slave took me to Palace Piggies as they had recently rescued over 300 piggies from a very sad situation and Slave felt sure that there would be a friend waiting for me there.

She found a little black and tan fuzzy babe whom she thought that I might like and we were introduced in the Palace Piggies playpen. This tiny babe ran around the pen and then settled down for a nap under my coat so we were ready to come home with him. Then Lynn and Liz, who run Palace Piggies, suggested that this babe might need a tiny friend to play with. Now our Slave has never wanted to have a trio of boars as it is rare for them to get on - we often have groups of sows but not boars - but against her better judgment, she went back to the adoption shed and came back with another babe - a tiny red ball of fuzz, who also ran around the playpen and settled down next to me. So, Slave agreed to take both the babes. Lynn and Liz said that she could always bring one back if a trio did not work out but anyone who knows our Slave will also know that she could never do that.

Now to the pigtures.....

Here we are in the carrier waiting to come home. The babes were named at Palace Piggies.You can just see Ivan, the black and tan one at the back and Magnus, the red one, is nearer the front. They both sat nicely beside me in the car coming back and we nibbled veggies.

When we got home, Slave put the babes into a tub to take this pigture. I think that Slave was persuaded to take the extra piggy as he looks very much like her Rolo from years ago - before there were any piggy Agents. She loves a red pig.

Here we are in what was Gandalf's and my pen just after we got home.

Here you can see how tiny Ivan is!

And here I am with Magnus, who is just a little bit bigger.

This is the last pigure - all of us together enjoying some grass.

Neither of the little boars shows any sign of dominance. We are all getting on well together at the moment but Slave is keeping a watchful eye out for when they grow. I miss Gandalf ( so does our Slave ) but these little fellows are keeping me company whilst I teach them how to be Agents when they get bigger. They have a lot of growing to do.

When we were at Palace Piggies, Slave asked Lynn and Liz if they knew of a worthy piggy rescue that I could nominate for the proceeds of the sale of our card game. We cannot nominate Palace Piggies as they were the winners a couple of years ago. I'll tell you who they suggested in my next post.

Friday video: Vote for Sharna's cavy sanctuary

Hi there,

Some time ago we asked for your nominations, and one of my nominations was Sharna's Cavy Sanctuary. The sanctuary is in Australia (Brisbane, I believe), and I do not know her in person. But she has been very active on social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, making me feel like I have an idea what she does for guinea pigs. She seems a nice lady who cares a lot about her rescues, but sometimes other people will not be so nice about what she is doing... I am not sure why though, as I have seen her try to get piggies back that went to someone who then did not want it anymore because they were not babies... I hope we can donate to her as she (as all shelters) can need a little help in feeding all those piggy mouths.

From their website:

"We are a small family run, home based, guinea pig sanctuary .
​We believe education is the key to changing the future for guinea pigs everywhere.
​Our aim is to educate people wherever we can, whilst rescuing, rehabilitating and re homing happy, healthy and bonded guinea pigs.
We offer a sanctuary to guinea pigs that are not able to be rehomed, whether due to old age or re occurring illnesses.
We offer boarding and grooming services as well as food, hay and other piggy products including cages .
​We want to support you and your piggies .
​We are self funded and every single cent goes straight back into the sanctuary and the daily running costs for the guinea pigs in our care including vet bills.​"
"We have been helping guinea pigs for 2 years now and have learnt so much in the process and continue to learn more and more .
I kind of just fell into it, you could say i was a little lost at the time with the recent passing of my mum.
Once i saw the huge need for help in the area of re homing and rescuing guinea pigs, i couldn't turn my back .
Once my eyes were opened to the huge problem Australia wide (worldwide too), i couldn't be blissfully ignorant anymore.
Now i just have a burning passion inside for the little fluff balls.
They're amazing pets if you can get off on the right foot with them.
​With lots of contradicting products and information floating around, we like to make ourselves available to anyone with questions or help regarding their guinea pigs."

Here's video of (part of) her setup

#guineapigs #guineasofinstagram #guineapigsofig # #guineapigsofinstagram #guineapigsof_ig #guineapig #guineapigrescue #cavys #cavylover  #cavylove #piggylove #piggiesofinstagram #SharnasCavySanctuary #rescue #adopt #love #commit #sponsor  #rescue #guineapigrescuecentre #rescueguineapig #photooftheday #petoftheday #guineapigposts101 #guineapiglovers #guineapigstagram #animalrescue #rescueanimal  #brisbane #brisbanerescue #Australia

A video posted by Sharnas Cavy Sanctuary 💎 (@sharnas_cavy_sanctuary) on May 11, 2016 at 1:25am PDT

I enjoyed this video of a piggy jumping:

A video posted by Sharnas Cavy Sanctuary 💎 (@sharnas_cavy_sanctuary) on May 13, 2016 at 12:30am PDT

Happy friday!

Mikey and the Guinygirlz Peaches, Tijger and Raani and boar Berke.

p.s. If you still wish to nominate a shelter.... be fast in doing so by commenting here or in the original nomination post who you nominate and why.

New Agent-in-Training

Introducing Raani... our newest cage mate. She joined us after we had to say goodbye to Roos.

A photo posted by @jstaaks on Apr 9, 2016 at 12:27pm PDT

Why Raani? You might wonder. Those of you who speak Hindi, or any of the other languages where Raani actually means something, know Raani means Queen.
Our slaves have quite a long history of being owned by Rex and US teddy cavies, and with the loss of Roos (a US Teddy) they no longer had a curly fuzzy guinea pig to own them. We think this was one of the first times in their guinea pigs owning time that they were without a US teddy or Rex. So of course they had to change that, which explains how Raani came to be with us. Raani is a Rex, and in Latin (and probably some other languages) this is the word for 'King', as this did not seem that fitting for a sow we went for a translation of 'Queen'.

Raani was 6 weeks old and weighed 290 grammes when she joined us, now she is almost 14 weeks old and about half a kilo (500 grammes) in weight! She just keep munching and eating and thus putting on weight. Even when most of us had a pneumonia, or the snuffles at the least, she was fine (as checked by the vet. So far she seems to be a healthy piggy!

Just keep growing, just keep munching, #growing, #munching #guineapig Raani keeps on putting weight!

A photo posted by Mieke (@pandameisje) on May 23, 2016 at 1:02pm PDT

The other Guinygirlz: Peaches and Tijger and boar Bérke

Piggy A-Z C is for Charity: Vote for TEAS

What is TEAS?
The Excellent Adventure Sanctuary (TEAS) was established in 2011, to provide permanent care for guinea pigs with additional needs, chiefly dental. We are lucky to have two exceptional vets nearby, who are both knowledgeable and skilled in guinea pig dentistry, with many success stories to their names. It is for this reason that we exist, as the only dental sanctuary in the country.

We are currently HMRC registered, in the process of applying for registered charity status. It has always been important to us to be registered as we wanted everything we do to be official and transparent, rather than just be a ‘back yard’ operation.



Where are we located?
Contrary to popular belief, TEAS is not a large, multi-staffed centre.
The charity is run predominantly by Debbie from her modest, semi detached house in East Hunsbury, Northampton, which is where all the hard work happens. Additional permanent places and supportive care are provided from another modest, semi detached house in West Hunsbury, Northampton.

Who runs TEAS?
There are currently four individuals who form the board and are involved in the decision making at TEAS, two of whom work directly with the pigs. The day to day running of the charity and care is carried out primarily by Debbie Postles, who
accommodates the majority of the residents at her home. Emma and Andrew Hartley currently have nine permanent residents at their home. Steve Turner is the TEAS Sanctuary Treasurer.

What do we do?
As well as providing care for poorly piggies, the board members of TEAS also have to make time for full time, paid employment

No mention of TEAS would be complete without mentioning the Lethals.
A Lethal is usually the product of breeding where both parents have the Roan gene. The result in 25% of offspring is a Lethal which usually suffers blindness, deafness and often has dental issues. There can also be other physicsl issues.
TEAS was founded on looking after Lethals and currenly has 10 Lethals as permanent Residents.
With loving care they can enjoy as long as any normal Guinea Pig.



Stanley came to the Sanctuary from The Littlest Rescue in Bristol, who had rescued several
lethal pigs. Stanley was sent to TEAS because of the specialist veterinary treatment he is likely to need.
Stanley lives with Albert and Basil.



SOME SANCTUARY SUCCESS STORIES
Permanent Residents
Archie - Archie came to the Sanctuary from Cavy Corner. The vet in Doncaster had said he had lost the swallow reflex and he was booked in to be pts. He was brought to see Simon as a last ditch attempt to get help for him, and he began to make progress. Archie lived a wonderful life, but needed ongoing dental care. He survived two abscesses, but his health began to fail over Easter and he was pts. This was almost two years to the day he had been booked in for euthanasia in Doncaster.

Kevin - Kevin was brought to the Sanctuary after being found with his brother Perry in a back garden and taken to BARC. He was in a dreadful state and weighed just 365g. After just three dental treatments from Simon he was fully recovered and is now a strong, healthy piggie, weighing 1.1 kg.


Temporary Residents
Skye - Skye travelled from Wrexham to the Sanctuary to enable her to receive treatment from Simon and the supportive care the Sanctuary offers. She made steady progress and returned home within three weeks.

Cornflake - Cornflake travelled from Exeter. He was a very poorly boy when he arrived but after the first dental treatment he began to eat for himself, and after two more treatments he was ready to return home.

Rose - Rose travelled from Cardiff. She had just started to develop a head tilt in addition to her dental issues and by the time she arrived at the Sanctuary her eye was also starting to bulge. She was immediately seen by Simon who diagnosed a retrobulbar abscess and he feared she may lose her eye. He added lubrication and stitched the affected eye closed and treated her dental issues. Rose needed three further dental treatments and the swift action to close the eye meant her eye was saved. She returned home after spending 6 weeks at the Sanctuary.

Henry Piggyfriend finds his namesake

I have not been desginated as an Agent but I thought that I would share this pigture.

This big, noisy machine comes along every morning to clear up the hay that our Slave drops on the carpet when she cleans out our pens and look it has the same name as me! It seems very happy with its job so maybe we should throw more hay about to keep it busy. It eats hay just like we do.