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