Foodball

Bo has a new hobby, she likes foodball! She likes it so much, she doesn't even eat the treats that fall out..
(the black things on the floor are treats, not poop)

Igor's PLAY - Houses

This wheek it is time for evaluating houses. Because there are so many different kinds of houses, I'll do this a bit differently. After an evaluation of houses in general, I will discuss the houses we have and award them with a rating expressed in golden guinea pig poos (1 bean for a really bad house, 10 beans for an absolutely awesome house).

What is it?
        Concept: Well what can I say… a house. A roof, walls and holes in it...
        Material: This can be practically anything. The houses I evaluated were made from wood, cardboard, plastic and grass. Auntie Guiny and her herd even have a little tent, which is made out of fabric.
        Application: This is very simple. Your slave places the house in your cage, you walk in and lo and behold!
        Do it yourself-factor?: This is pretty high, depending on the material you use. With a cardboard box even the little or the clumsy slaves can build you a cool house. Slaves that are a bit more skilful, can build a house out of wood. Do pay attention that you use materials that do not splinter and do not contain any harmful substances. Us guinea pigs like a house that can be ehm...altered.

Target audience?

Great for the relax cavy. Go inside and plant your furry behind in front of the entrance and you can lounge in complete privacy (also a good tip for the foodfocused guinea pig) If the house happens to have a flat roof, it is also very entertaining for the climber cavy. Climb on top and enjoy the view while wheeking your slave out of bed (or the couch..) Stressed cavies also appreciate a nice and safe house. It will offer a safe place in your cage from out of which you can observe the surroundings and build up confidence to go exploring later.

Dangerous?:

This depends on the house. Tell your slave not to buy or make a house that, when being gnawed on (and you know we cannot resist), are harmful to us. Also remove pointy ends sticking out. Your slave always needs to consider your safety when she buys you toys, because some piggy toy designers are just not the shiniest poos in the pigloo. Your slave should also pay attention to the holes in the house, they ought to be big enough. Most of us aspire to become a LAPS Pig one day, and getting stuck in the door opening or window is not very convenient. With cardboard this is not really an issue. Here, I actually prefer it when my slave makes the holes slightly too small because then I like it to decide (and alter) what the size of the window should be. Your slave should also remove tape and staples, especially around the edges.

Golden Poos?

        House 1: (Suus:) House number 1 is a bit small, but secretly aunt Guiny and auntie Lotje like it to be stuffed in the house together. (We call this position the Double PigMac... *snigger*). Jan the boar loved to sit on the roof of this house, he said it made him feel like he was the king of the cage.
Score: (Igor:) 7 Golden guinea pig poos
        House 2: (Yaya:) House number 2 is comfurrtably big, which is absolutly great when you are lying in it. The only downside is that when you are not allowed inside, there is so little cage space left. The roof also offers no climbing uses, but the window deserves points in favour. It is really nice to rest your little head when you are studying for your master's degree in piggin out (yes, very hard work indeed).
Score: (Igor:) 7,5 Golden guinea pig poos
        Houses 3, 4 and 8: (Suus:) These are made by Granny's boyfriend. He added a little bit of extra lovin' to these houses, which makes them extra special. They are all very tasty and have two exits. This comes in very handy when auntie Guiny snaps at you because she wants to lie in the house. With an extra door, there is always a way out...
Score: (Igor:) 7 Golden guinea pig poos
        House 5: (Igor:) This house looks really nice but looking back, this wasn't such a good design. Colored cardboard can be hard on the stomach. The size was nice though.
Score: (Igor:) 5 Golden guinea pig poos
        House 6: (Suus:) Wheeeeek, this was an excellent house! It had a big door (I'm a LAPS girl after all) and I could easily climb on the roof and spy on my slave. It had very edible, yummy cardboard.
Score: (Igor:) 8 Golden guinea pig poos
        House 7: (Yaya:) On the pigture you can see Granny's handsome boar Robbie peeking out of a pigloo. This is not an actual house, but us guinea pigs don't really understand the difference between a house and a toilet. (Just take a look inside our cage *evil grin*). Aunt Guiny refers to this house as The Blue Carriage. After an evening of running around in the living room, our slave had to very kindly beg our Lady Guinyvere (as she likes to call herself..) to proceed into The Blue Carriage. After which she was comfortably transported towards the cage (whereas us plain guinea pigs just had to climb into the cage ourselves). This is an advantage of the Pigloo, because it has a bottom, which makes it perfect for carrying around a guinea pig (be careful to cover the opening though. We are not really built for extreme sports liked base jumping.) I myself think the house is very tasty, but my slave won't allow me to eat it and has removed it from our cage. I guess she is right.. it was a bit hard on my belly.
Score: (Igor:) 5,5 Golden guinea pig poos
        House 9: (Guiny:) This tent is nice and big, it easily fits two of us, and we can even squeeze Woopy in there with us as a third. The bottom of the tent is very comfy, it's made of some kind of wooly stuff that is nice and soft. It can also be taken out (it's attached to the tentbottom with velcro, so your slave can easily take it out and wash it), which is very convenient for the slaves to clean it. The only problem with this tent is that it's made of fabric, which we can chew. I know who made the holes in our tent (right, Igor? *chatter*)..
Score: (Igor:) 6 Golden guinea pig poos
        Bahama shack: (Igor:) Yummy, greawft!... Vwery tastyf. Thoshe dfoorsf ougfwt to be a little biw biggerwsf...*chewchew*...*swallow*.
Score: (Igor:) 8 Golden guinea pig poos

Cheers!
Professor Igor

World Animals' day: present Winkyteam style

Our mom was inspired by auntie Janneke's post with Coco and Bo in it,
and decided to make us a box of veggies, hay and pellets (in our case).
She used mainly the same concept as Auntie Janneke, cut the holes in the box,
filled the box with hay, chicory in small strips, freshly grown herbs (did we mention slave is starting our (ehm her?) own veggie garden?) and also added some of our appreciated pellets.
That is the kind we don't have in our cage at the moment, as mom says those pellets are not very good for us, but we love them anyway!

Here you can see a video of us investigating the box:

(if this doesn't work, you should be able to watch the video here: http://ustre.am/:1cbs4)
Be sure to watch the highlighted part where Daisy really gets into our present!

Here are some pigtures of us investigating as well....

What is this box?!?

Yum yum

Daisy getting into the box..

Daisy in the box, first picxk at the veggies.
The rest now eating from side bottom, as hay was sticking out there now...

Content wheeks,
The Guinygirlz: Agents wheeker, lily'explorer and lil'woop and Agent Valentino

World Animal Day; the Presents

Hi all!

Nomnomnom

We got a veggie surprise box for World Animal day! Below you can see how the box was made by our J.

First, cut a hole in a cardboard box

Next, fill up the box with hay and veggies.
J did this lasagna-style;
hay with layers of parsley and shredded carrot

Close the box (don't use tape or staples!)

Happy World Animal Day!

Go away! Guinea pig @ work

Wheekz!
Coco and Bo, the shredding, chewing and nomming piggies

Meet Undercover Agent 007GP

My friend Sammy invited me to become one of the Undercover Guinea Pigs. I thought that sounded like fun, so I decided maybe I would try it out. I chose Agent 007GP as my undercover name, since I am the 7th member of the Story Piggy herd. Also, since I have been told that I am such a smart and handsome guy, I guess my spy name fits me. My hobby is eating, and my favorite food is fresh hay. I love to play with it, bury myself in it, and, of course, eat it. I am a newly adopted member of the Story Piggies, so I am not quite sure what my favorite toy is yet, but I know that one of my favorites is my hay bowl. I love to head butt it around my cage and flip it over. I just can't leave it on my shelf with all of that good hay sitting in it. I have to bring it down to the floor of my cage where I can run through it, hide in it and play with it. When I am tired of that, I eat some and fall asleep on it so it will be right where I left it when I wake up. I have to get my beauty sleep so I will remain such a handsome boar. That way I will be able to live up to my spy name "007GP". I look forward to some exciting cases with the other Undercover Guinea Pigs.




Can you guess my real name?

Home Improvement

Today I'm gonna show you how to build your own wooden house (we had to throw away the previous one because something white and fluffy was growing inside)

The wooden panels

Hurray! First wall is up!

The door goes over here..

Checking the inside before the roof goes up

Tadaaaa!!

When you're finished you an use this house for shelter or as a lookout.

Wkz!
Agent Chanel

PLAY: Hammocks

In Memory of Agent I, we'd like to repeat all the PLAYs (Piggies Like Activities and Yummies) Professor Igor wrote before he became an undercover agent. Unfortunately all of the piggies in this PLAY have crossed the rainbow bridge by now.. But as former owner of these piggies I love looking at their pigtures.

PLAY 1: Hammocks

This wheek I evaluated hammocks for you guys. I must admit, hammocks turned out to be an extraordinary versatile and interesting study object.

Agent I inspecting the hammock

I asked my slave to put up the hammock in my cage and have been studying it thoroughly. There was also a lot of photo material in the archives, I did not want to deprive you guys of that..

What is it?
Concept: Hammocks are little mats in which you can hang around. It is a square cloth, raised a little above the ground and you can lie comfortably in it.

Material: My hammock is made of fleece. Hmm..nice and soft. But it is also possible to find or make hammocks made out of other materials. Small towels..... pieces of fabric. Nowadays my slave usually makes a hammock with a bottom made out of fabric to which no sawdust will stick, and the top made of a softer fabric like fleece. Attached to the mat are cords which can be attached to the cage bars. These can be made of fabric, but there are also mats available that have little chains.

Application: Your slave should first set up your hammock. There are several ways of doing this. First of all, your slave can attach the hammock to the ceiling of the cage. My slave usually ties the hammock cords to the side cage bars or she ties them around the bottom part (knot underneath the cage, against the floor) and then puts the cage bars on top. Choose whatever you and your slave finds convenient and pending on the possibilities of your cage. The knot-around-the-cage-method is ideal for cages with a plastic top. But this will not work when the cords are too short. When the mat has been installed, us guineas can get to work. Climb on the hammock (that can be quite a challenge! :-D) and relax.. lie down like a true pig.. ehm did I just say that? I meant start studying for you masters degree in piggin' out.. But be careful of cage mates that will try to bounce you out of your hammock.

Top left: Suus, Top right: Yaya and Jan, Bottom left: Lotje,

Yaya and Guiny, Bottom right: Suus and Yaya

Variations

Other applications of a hammock include; a nice place to study under, or as food storage. Every guinea will appreciate an extra roof above his or her head. And eating from it, is quite a challenge. Imagine balancing while everyone in your cage is pushing and pulling, trying to nibble from the veggies or hay. Ah well.. a little cavy exercise, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Do it Yourself factor?

Top left: Lotje, all other pigtures: Suus

It is very convenient when your slave knows how to handle a sewing machine. Because if she can, it is just a matter of sewing a square rag and attach the cords to it. For the less gifted slaves, guest towels are ideal (tie shoelaces or something else to the corners and there you go). Slaves can also buy hammocks in a store. There is loads to be found on the internet and some pet stores sell hammocks. If you cannot find any, try looking for ferret toys, the ferret section usually contains some nice hammocks!

Variations
There are also hammocks with pockets in them. These are very comfurrtable. There's the oven mitt model, with an opening in the side But there is also a model with an opening in the middle. The one Lotje is showing on the pigture has boning in it, in order to keep it open. I really thought that was a useful addition, because balancing on the mat while you try to stick your head in an opening is hard enough already. Suus is a big fan of the bunk hammock (see pigture). But I have the impression that Suus is a rat inside a guinea pig body. In my opinion, the bunk hammock can be dangerous. Suus is a very good climber so she can manage, but this concept is not suitable for everypig and your slaves should consider this.

The hammock is a tool that is suitable for both the climbing guinea pig and the relaxing guinea pig. Your can pull the funniest pranks in a hammock (Suus: popcorning in a fleece hammock will launch you to greater heights, Squeeeaaaak!!). But above all, it is very suitable to study for a master's degree in imitating a fireplace rug. In other words, it's really perfect for guinea pigs who like to relax. When your slave puts some food in the hammock, it is also good for the munching guinea pig.

Top: Suus, Lotje and Jan the Boar, Bottom pigture,
from top left to bottom right: Jan, Lotje, Yaya, Guiny, Suus

Well, getting into a hammock requires some practise. I actually find it quite scary. Although I have to admit it's not really dangerous in our cage because I won't fall very far. Yaya used to eat the hammock cords. In the past this has lead to diarrhoea, so now our slave uses materials that are simply not edible (like metal chains) or aren't harmful (like sisal rope).

User experiences?
Suus: I am very pleased with our hammocks. I find it an ideal way to explore the surroundings, while bouncing in it. It keeps me fit, and I like to practice my climbing skills. But relaxing is also very nice. Though it could use a defense mechanism, that would enable me to not get pushed out of it by Yaya.. or accompanying earplugs.. because if I do not make space for Yaya she will start to whine really loudly..

Yaya: I think the hammocks should be made of a more edible material. The fleece is so heavy on my stomach. The material of which my lil' Bahama shack is made would do perfectly... hmmm... SLAVE!!!

Igor: Well this was my first PLAY report, if you have any user experiences, photo's or remarks, let me know!!

Wheeks and lots of Play-sure!
Professor Igor