Book Review; Guinea Pig Pride and Prejudice

Last week we were contacted by Bloomsbury publishing to see if we would like to receive a copy of Guinea Pig Pride and Prejudice a new book they are launching we asked Mummy and she got all excited and said yes.

On Saturday the book arrived in the post as you can see from the pigtures below it was beautifully wrapped just like a present (we think it would make a great gift for piggy loving humans)

At bedtime mummy read the story to us its about piggies falling in love despite not liking each other at first.

Mummy loved the cute pigtures especially the cast list and we really liked the smart costumes (you can see some of our favourite shots below)

What we also liked was the message at the back of the book about supporting local shelters well that has our full backing and we are glad to see them get a mention as lots of humans have no idea the piggy rescues exist.

Now enjoy the pigtures and start planning which of your humans has been good enough to get a copy.

abscesses v. sebaceous cysts

Hello everyone, Otto Piggyfriend here.

First of all a warning. Mieke has added a photo of her late piggy, Toby, to this post. Poor little piggy had a nasty abscess and you can see him after it had been lanced. It looks nasty but it might be useful to see how it looks.

You'll remember recently reading the post about Agent F1 aka Jim's sebaceous cyst. It was on August 3rd. Well, at the very same time I had one too. Mine was on my back and Slave might not have noticed it under all my long hair ( in this pigture I have had a haircut but I usually look like a mop ) but the cyst appeared right in the middle of my parting. Like Jim, I had it attended to by an expert - in my case our Rodentologist.

Slave didn't take any photos of this as she forgot to take her camera along but if you look back at Jim's post, you'll see what it looked like. Our Rodentologist shaved off my coat around the cyst, made an incision in it and then squeezed out all the nasty looking contents. He says that piggy skin is like leather! Our Slave can do this herself but what she cannot do is remove the gland underneath. Without this, there is a chance that the cyst will come back. She watched very carefully as he cleaned the area up and then picked out the gland with a pair of tweezers. I was busy watching the squirrels racing up and down the tree outside our Rodentologist's home so I missed it all and never squealed once. After he had removed the gland, he packed the hole where the cyst had been with Dermisol cream ( this is antiseptic ) and I was given lots of parsley to eat, after which we came home. Slave kept an eye on it but it healed up very quickly and now there is nothing to be seen.

These cysts can appear in different places. Our Petunia once had one underneath near her leg.

An abscess is a much more serious matter. This contains a lot of nasty pus, which is toxic, smells horrible and needs careful removal. Rather than just a small lump, which gets bigger slowly, an abscess can come up overnight and can be huge. They are often around the neck area and, because of their position can cause a piggy trouble when trying to eat. Our Rodentologist lances them when they are ready, being very careful of the contents and usually keeps the piggy patient in the hospital until they are better as, although the pus has been removed, more keeps being produced and it fills up again. Constant draining is needed. Some vets will remove the encapsulated abscess under anaesthetic but our Rodentologist does not want to subject a piggy to anaesthesia unless absolutely necessary as it is so dangerous for us. Sometimes a drain is inserted to keep the hole open so more pus can come out or else the abscess can be lanced again as often as is necessary. It can take a long time for an abscess to clear up completely and sometimes there can be a second one behind the first and maybe a third in a chain.

We may need a lot of syringe feeding during this time until we can eat by ourselves again.

Sometimes piggies can get tooth root abscesses and these are very dangerous and hard to treat.

Toby (one of Mieke's late piggies) had an abscess in his cheek,
it might have been in this tooth root, it was very close at least.

Our Rodentologist does not give antibiotics as an abscess is separate from the rest of the body. The word comes from the Latin meaning that it is walled off.

If any of our readers have had experiences regarding cysts or abscesses, they might like to post about it. It is useful to share information and various treatments.

Rex piggies at Piggyfriends

We have been trawling the archives for pigtures of our Rex piggies past and present and would like to present a selection. Our Slave takes hundreds of pigtures and it has been a mammoth task to pick just a few of our friends.

Here are brothers Raffles and Rolo. When he got older Raffles' hair grew a bit longer so there may have been some Texel in their ancestry.

Next is our Daisy, who was a typical Rex and grew to be a large lady and was President of the LAPS club on the GPDD ( Large Ample Piggies Society ). She weighed over 3lbs in her prime. She also had a crest so qualifies in both sections.

Then we have Mayflower, one of four sisters born to rescued Ginger but the only one to have a Rex coat.

Here are sisters Crystal and Toffee.

And Polo ( Agent Minty ) demonstrating his allegiance to Slave's flag on St. Patrick's Day.

We can't leave out our dear Roscoe, Daisy's brother. Here he is sharing his 5th. birthday feast on the lawn with his best friend, Shadow.

And lastly, our two fat ladies, Agents 88, Sally and Susie, who are sisters.

These are not the only Rexes who have found their way to Piggyfriends but we don't want to monopolise the blog. Now, dear readers, please send us your pigtures of your Rex or US Teddy piggies. We want to see them all.

Another smooth coated piggy

Agent Confetti here.  I'm late to the party, but if I count as a smooth-haired gp (I am also a crested), here is my photo.  As always, I am at your service.

I am 6!

Hello everypig and every Slave. Dorian Piggyfriend here ( aka Agent Silver Streak retired ).

It is my birthday and I am 6!

Instead of birthday candles, I have 6 cucumbers! Don't worry, I am not going to eat them all myself. I will share them with the rest of the Piggyfriends, two of whom you can just see behind me in the photo. Susie is watching me from the front of her pen and Rafferty is asleep in the corner of his. I expect that Susie wants my lettuce as this is her favourite veggie.

Observant readers will notice that my cucumbers still have their wrappers and if I were to nibble the plastic film it would be dangerous so I suspect that is why Slave gave me this lettuce to keep me away from it whilst she took my photo. She didn't want to unwrap all the cucumbers at once as they will keep better when wrapped up. Not that they need to keep long with all these hungry piggies.

I have been a Piggyfriend since I was a tiny piglet and I don't remember any other life. Now I have piglets living next door as the Dangermice ( Casper and Cosmo ) are in the next pen and they are growing fast. They will soon be as big as me as I am not a large piggy. I have a touch of arthritis in my back legs but Slave gives me Potter's Tabritis and this helps a lot. For any Slaves trying to buy this for their piggies, the name has changed to Potter's Joint Pain Relief. My Slave had trouble buying this recently but Mr. Slave found some in a tiny herbal shop in a nearby town. I don't know why it should be hard to find as it is so good. Half a tablet a day keeps me going and it is yummy too.

You might like to see an out-take. Here it is. Slave didn't need to take 10 photos when she chose the first one anyway! I got bored and wandered off to talk to Rafferty.

US Teddies and Rexes

Our next type of piggie coats, will actually be two types of hair that are very similar. I was lucky enough to own both of this type, so I can show you.

I had and have both Rexes and US Teddies, at first hand it seems there is not a big difference between the two types, but there are some distinct differences.
Rexes have a curly belly, their whiskers are not straight but curly and their fur is usually a lot more coarse then that of a US teddy.
US teddies in comparison have no curly hair on their bellies, their whiskers are straight and their fur is really soft.

Both types have hair that stands out and is slightly curly, if it would grow longer (as is the case with Tessels) they would have nice curls. Both seem to have pretty dense coats, and in my experience they are more prone to having dry skin and fur problems like a fungal infection.

Usually both can get pretty big compared to piggies with other hair types, our current US Teddy Roos for example is at least 2 cm longer then the rest and in general she is just big (without seeming fat). Of course there are always exceptions our Woopy (first pigture below) was always very petite and never weighed at lot more than 1 kilo.

Woopy, a Rex piggy

Daisy, a US Teddy

Woopy's nose,
here you can see her slightly curled whiskers

Chico, in this pigture you can see fairly well that his whiskers
are straight, which makes him a US teddy

Lotje, our first Rex sow, she had the cutest curly belly

I will find a pigture of our US teddies Lily and Roos, I haven't been able to either upload a pigture of them (at the moment) or I just can't find a pigture that does them justice. I will post them soon, when I do manage to upload and find proper pigtures!

Btw, if you still have smooth-haired piggies to enter, go ahead and send them in! 

Also if you want to suggest another type, do so in the comments.

Mieke

Another smooth-haired piggy!

Meet our sleeping beauty Tyson Stanley, he is now the ruling boar of the Gekke Flappies household and has no less then 2 gorgeous sows.
That he even has the time to take a nap...

If you also have a smooth-haired piggy that would like to be in our card game, please keep sending them in! We will soon start a new type of hair/coat...