Halloween on the Frosty Prairies

Charlotte and Emily were so excited to go trick or treating around the neighbourhood that they would not sit still for me to take pigtures until this morning.  Charlotte got the coveted dragon costume this year while Emily was a bumblebee.  They looked so cute!  

There is snow on the ground already here so I had to carry them in my pockets from house to house, but they had a wonderful time (though not all of the houses were prepared with veggies and I had to slip some carrots and cilantro to a few folks who were startled to see guinea pigs out doing the rounds). 

A fun time was had by all!

Happy Halloween!

Coke and Scottie here, ready to go out and gather some guinea-pig goodies for trick-or-wheek!

I, Coke, am standing in front of my special sign to wish everyone a fun night while finding excellent carrots, parsley, cucumber, hay, and so on. Isn't that what goes in our bags?

I, Scottie, am wondering about the things creeping up on me. It seems there are a lot of spider webs, a skeletal hand, and some ghosts themselves. However, I will be a good boy and share the festive bag with Coke, once we persuade the hand to leave!

Scottie and Coke Are Friends !!!

Coke here. You might remember that we recently lost Fitz, and of course Scottie and I were both very sad. Our mom had always hoped we'd live together as a trio but that never quite worked out, so we had shared our time with Fitz who graciously moved from cage to cage.

When Fitz passed away, our mom wasn't sure we'd ever get along. However, after several weeks, she re-introduced us on neutral territory, and things went pretty well.  Okay, that really means I decided to give Scottie a chance. It's possible that I might be, um, a little pushy from time to time.

One night I kept climbing the bars of my own house, and my mom thought I was telling her I wanted to be with Scottie. She was right! The rest is now history.

Here you will see us happily eating hay together, surrounded by our PVC tube (in front), various cozies, and so on. In the second photo I've decided to use a paper bag as a sleeping bag and am comfortably sacked out. (I need to ask my mom if that is a pun.)  Excuse my poop but I was trying to show that the bag was for my use and, well, a poop seemed logical.

We hope you can tell that Scottie and I are very pleased to be together!

More New Piggyfriends.

It has taken us a while to bring you up to date with our other new Piggyfriends. We need Slave's help to extract the camera card as it is too small and fiddly for our paws but she has been spending far too much time painting the outside of our house. Doesn't she realise that piggy announcements are far more important than painting? 

Anyway....here they are...

When Slave and her son were at Pooh Piglets rescue, they were putting Cobweb and Tamworth into their carrier to come home when Pauline said that she had two more boars needing a home. Slave always has an extra carrier in the car  "just in case" and it seldom comes home empty.

Pauline opened the hutch and they could see one piggy that Slave said looked just like our Caoimhe so out he came. He is the one on the right in the pigture. Then Pauline lifted out his brother, who is a Sheltie. 

As we said in our previous post, once Slave has picked up a piggy, they never go back into the hutch. These little boys are older than our other newbies but are not quite full grown.

After lots of cuddles and a free haircut for the Sheltie, they all came home.

This little fellow is the Sheltie and he has a nice brown stripe down the middle of his nose. Neither of them had names so Slave has called this one Benedict.

And here is the Caoimhe lookalike, whom she has named Dominic.

Here they are together. Slave thinks that our US readers will have another name for the Sheltie breed but she cannot remember what it is. Too much painting we say! He is like a Peruvian but his long hair grows back from his face instead of having a fringe. 

While we were typing this ( and it takes a long time with everypig trying to "help" ) she thought that the Shelties might be called Silkies in the US. Is that right? Maybe a reader will correct us.

As Pauline had several families waiting outside the piggy shed, she never got to hear their back story but they are safe now here at Piggyfriends and are eating everything in sight except for cucumber, which they ignore! More for the rest of the herd! Slave has lots of them growing in her greenhouse. Yum yum!

Welcome New Piggyfriends!

There are always a lot of wonderful piggies needing homes at Pooh Piglets Rescue in Haywards Heath, which is about a 45 minute drive from Piggyfriends.

Slave and her son went to see them last week and came home with these two little boars.

 

They are not related but Pauline, the lovely lady who runs this rescue, paired them up and when Slave and her son arrived, they were the first two that Pauline lifted out of their hutch and gave out one pig to each of them.

Having picked up a piggy, it is impossible to put him back ( according to Slave ) so these little guys came home with her.

Slave always takes a long time to choose names for us but she finally settled on Tamworth for the orange fellow on the left. Here he is again.

Slave told us that there is a breed of orange coloured farm pig called Tamworths. They are only babes but Tamworth is a couple of months older than......

.......Cobweb, the little white babe above. They are both what Slave calls "nearly Abbies" in that they have a few rosettes in their coats but not as many as a true Abby.

They are still a little nervous coming to a strange new home but Cobweb behaved better for our little photoshoot than Tamworth. See the outtake below......

If you would like to see two more additions to the Piggyfriend herd, watch this space!

And don't forget. If you live in the SE of England and have room for more piggies, give Pooh Piglets a call. You can read about the rescue on their Facebook page where you will find the phone number.

Happy May Day!

Hello Readers.

It is May Day today and I was supposed to be the Piggyfriends May Queen. Spring has been very late this year in England and Slave could not find any may flowers to make me a crown.

There are some tight buds on the may in our hedge but it will need a lot of sun to make them open. So she looked around the garden for some other flowers. There are many flowers out there like daffodils, hyacinths and bluebells but Slave told me that most flowers from bulbs are toxic so she picked these forget me nots for me just in case I decided to take a nibble.

Not quite what I was expecting but at least I had my photo taken. Perhaps I should say " Happy Forget Me Not Day" instead.

Lovely Rita Has a New Easter Bonnet!

Our favourite guinea pig fashion icon, Lovely Rita, has a new Easter bonnet!  Doesn't she look beautiful?  She is here representing the Prairie Pigs, to wish all of our friends far and wide a very happy Easter.

We can still see a lot of snow on the ground outside the piggy room window, but all the more reason for a piggy to supply her own colour by wearing a bonnet festooned with flowers!  At long last, the sun is beginning to feel stronger and we are looking forward to seeing the snow and ice melt so the grass (yum yum) can start to grow again.  Spring always comes along eventually, though sometimes she does seem to be taking her own sweet time...