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