Mother's Day.

Hello readers. We hope that you are all safe and well. Here in England today is Mother's Day and Slave's son, our pigsitter, would have taken her out for dinner but we understand that there is a nasty virus circulating amongst the humans and all the restaurants are closed. He is not even allowed to visit her.

Here at Piggyfriends, our only mother is Mama Bonbon so we are posting a photo of her enjoying a pile of grass with her daughters, Bella and Miss Marple. ( In that order in the photo. )

Bonbon has really got stuck into her grass and even has some on her head.

" We are sad that you cannot go out with Sean," says Mama Bonbon. " Would you like to share our grass?"

Take care everyone. Love from the Piggyfriends. xxx

Candle Lighting in Swannanoa, North Carolina

The Piggyville girls have sent us a report about their candle lighting ceremony.

The Piggyville girls lit a candle on March 9th. in memory of Peter Gurney and all of our dearly departed loved ones. They chose to place the candle next to a Peace Lily. The lily's bright green leaves and fragrant flowers symbolise the rebirth of the soul. The lily is also a symbol of peace and hope. May we all find comfort in celebrating the lives of the ones we love and have lost.

The girls decided that since Mum has such a short candle it would be better is they all sat for individual portraits.

Tilley, being the new piggy in the pen, was unfamiliar with the candle ceremony. She decided to strike her Sphinx pose.

Honeydew arrived at the candle lighting ceremony atop her favourite cozy.

Squirly prays for all the Piggyfriends and wishes everyone a good night.

Candle Lighting Day 2020

Every year the GPDD organises a Candle Lighting Day on March 9th. when their members and friends ( and anyone else who would like to join in ) light a candle at 8pm. in their respective time zones so that the light goes around the world in memory of friends both human and animal who are at the Rainbow Bridge. This is the date of Peter Gurney's birthday. He wrote many guinea pig books and had lots of piggies of his own.

"Would you like to light our candle this year Miss Bonbon as you were not here last year?" asks Slave.

" I am not sure that my little paws can manage that dangerous looking device," says Bonbon.

"That is alright," says Slave.  "I will switch it on for you. See!"

" That is better," says Bonbon. " I would not want to get too close and singe my whiskers."

 " Now sit nicely next to the candle," says Slave. " I will take your photo and send it to Audrey. She is going to collect the photos and put some of them on the GPDD home page for everyone to see."

We are lighting our candle in memory of a whole host of Piggyfriends past, our dogs, fish, birds and mice and most especially for our human Daddy Slave, who passed away last year. We are grateful to our pigsitter, Sean, who helps Mummy Slave by fetching hay bales and taking all of our soggy paper and hay to the tip, jobs which he used to do. We all miss him very much and try to cheer up our Slave every day.

We love snow days

Our friends, the Piggyville girls from North Carolina, have sent us a report about their snow day. Here in England we just have rain, rain and more rain so this makes a pleasant change.

" Hey girls!  Wake up." says Honeydew. " I think that I heard Mom say that today is a Snow Day. Aren't these Mom's snow wellies?"

"What is a Snow Day?" ask Squirly and Tilley. Honeydew explains that a Snow Day happens when children cannot go to school because there is too much snow on the roads. Just one inch of snow is enough to keep the school buses off the roads in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

" Do we go to school?" asks Tilley. " Of course not, "replies Squirly. " We stay at home and teach our humans how to come running every time we squeal or rattle the bars.Today we will try to teach them how to take a photo of us out in the snow."

The Piggyville girls ponder how they are going to go outside in the snow without any snow wellies.

" We are pampered piggies!! Our Mom made sure that our little feet did not get cold by putting us on vet bedding. We love Snow Days. Too bad all the snow had melted by the afternoon but we sure had fun watching Mom slip and slide whilst trying to take our pigtures."

A Guinea Pig A to Z - "J" is for Jasper !

Hello everyone --- I'm Jasper from the Prairie Pigs!  

In the proud tradition of Peter Gurney's famous guinea pig, Free Range Fred, I am a free-range piggy too and spend most of the day running loose in the piggy room, visiting my friends and sampling the hay from their hay racks.  (Actually it's the same as the hay in my own hay rack, but for some reason stolen hay always seems to taste better!)

When I first came to the Prairie Pigs, I had a touch of scurvy (the staff at the local Humane Society shelter didn't know how important it is to give guinea pigs Vitamin C) so my gums and teeth were sore and I just was not feeling well.  Slave decided it might encourage me to eat and move around more if she left my cage door open, and even after the daily Vitamin C and regular servings of fresh veggies made me feel a lot better, I convinced her that this was a tradition we should keep alive !

Here I am, hanging out with my girlfriend, the beauteous Bonnie McSmithers.  Isn't she gorgeous???

Now I'm over at Heathcliffe's cage, having a chat.

Of course, though I do love being "out and about", sometimes a piggy just wants to curl up in his very own hay box for a nice afternoon nap...

Happy Valentine's Day

                                                        Pig to love.

                                     
                                                       Pigs to love.

                                       
                                                          Lovely, lovely pigs to love.


Love your guinea pigs on Valentine's Day. Love them every day. Courtesy of Bon Bon, Miss Marple and Bella Piggyfriend.

A Piggy A-Z. I is for Ivermectin and Isoflurane.

We thought that it was about time that we got back to the Piggy A-Z so here we go with I.

I is for Ivermectin, a wonderful medicine that kills mites, the bane of all piggies.

Our Slave buys this from our Rodentologists and it comes in the little dropper bottle, pictured above, which gives out a measured dose. We all get two drops of this every three months and it keeps mites away.

Sometimes piggies have come to Piggyfriends already suffering from mites and they have been given the two drops of Ivermectin followed by a second dose a fortnight later to kill off any eggs that might have hatched since the first dose. In very rare cases, a third dose can be given after another fortnight.

Slave keeps a chart with all of our names on it and she puts the dates when we are "Ivomeced" so that no pig is ever missed. We are all given a dose of Panacur at the same time and we will cover this when we get to P. We always get a treat afterwards especially if we are good piggies.

I is also for Isoflurane, the only safe anaesthetic for piggies but we do not have a photo of this. If anypig ever has to be given an anaesthetic, make sure that this is the one used by your vet.

Do any of our piggy readers have a name beginning with I? If so, we would love to see your pigture.