Piggies of the month: Winky Team

Hurray! We are Piggies of the Month! You probably know who we are, but we're going to introduce ourselves anyway. We are a herd of three and we live in the Netherlands. It's a small country just between the UK and Germany. People think we eat lots of cheese and tulips, but we've never seen any of those. We live in a really big cage and we have many hobbies, including eating chicory, eating parlsey, and eating dandelions. When we're not eating, we sleep, deconstruct cardboard boxes or try to coax more food from our staff. Ow. And we're the pigs behind the Friday Video blogposts.

In the calendar you see Bo (the abby), Coco (the coronet) and Sjeuf (the sheltie). Unfortunately, Sjeuf is no longer with us. He passed away on Christmas morning, leaving us in quite a shock.

RIP Sjeuf

Coco and Bo always had a sister-like relationship. They quarreled quite a bit when Sjeuf was still alive (but when the J was not looking Bo would lovingly wash Coco's ears). But when Sjeuf passed away the quarreling got worse, so we decided that it was time to find a new boar to blame for everything.

Ties

So, after a mourning period, we went on a speed date with Ties in the Kuufke shelter. We quite fancied him and we took this tall dark and handsome man home with us. We actually dated Berke first. But WE didn't fancy him *cough* (and we're sticking to that story!). Ties is a very gentle man, and a gentleman and he tolerates almost everything. Barbering, cutting nails, baths, and all the other horrors J has in store for us. He is also extremely tall (27cm nose to tailbone) and heavy (1400 grams) which is very convenient when the girls are having a bit of a tiff. He just plunks his big body in between the girls and then they will forget what the fight was about. What is also very cool about Ties, is his resemblance with the illustrous agent Zeppelin. That hair is just awesome; our staff frequently tries to feed him veggies on the wrong end, which gives us more time to snag it away.

Bo. Always hungry.

Bo is not to be trifled with either. She came in a tiny hairy ball of energy, and nowadays she is a 1360 gr ball of energy (mainly in the butt area). Not to mention; still hairy. Regardless of her weight, she still is the fastest pig in the cage and she hold the record when it comes to eating veggies. She practically inhales the stuff. She is also very inquisitive. It may or may not be related to her love of food. But to be fair; Bo is a very adventurous girl and not afraid of anything.

Sleepy Coco

Coco had us worried this summer. It started with teeth problems, and a week after visiting the vet-dentist where she had the hooks on her molars removed, she was so weak that J had to syringe feed her. She lost a lot of weight (it went down to 750 grams) so off she went to the vet and became the most expensive pig in the Winky team history (lots of tests). The vet suspected artrosis and maybe dehydration. She actually advised us to put her down, but since miss feisty was still stealing chicory off Bo in the morning, our J wanted to give her a chance. So after an IV with fluids, a vitamin shot and armed with critical care, something to improve bowel movement and a painkiller, Coco and J came home. We're happy to report that after a week or so miss Diva was back to her old self. She still has to take the painkiller twice a day, but otherwise she is happy in between her diva tantrums, lunches and beauty sleep.

Pretty Coco

Friday Video: PETA President's ALS 'Ice Bucket Challenge' Response

Have a nice Wheekend!

Friday Video: Marmot Licks GoPro

People often mistake us for marmots (at least in the Netherlands) and we have to admit, they are pretty cute.


Have a nice Wheekend!

Agent Zeppelin: he does it again!

Which way is agent Zeppelin facing? Right, or down?

Get guessing!

Chaos at Piggyfriends Episode 3. Piggies getting messy.

" The girls have been gone a long time,"
says Gandalf.  " I'll go and look for them
when we've finished lunch,"
replies Tyrion.

" You can come out now, girls" says Tyrion.
"The man has gone to have his lunch.
Don't stay out here too long. It's very messy."

"Ooh, He's left some tools on the floor.
They look interesting. Take a photo, Lola."

" I'm hungry." says Lola. "Is that a carrot?
Oh......maybe not."

" I've found a cucumber" says Florence.

" Can I share?" asks Lola. 

"As you can see, Florence is busy eating
right now." says Lola. " So we'll report back
later. Tyrion is right. It is very messy out here.
We'll be needing a bath."

Friday Video: Make it Possible

Have a nice Wheekend!

Guinea pigs in paintings (in the low countries)

Slaves visited the newly re-opened Mauritshuis a while ago.
This is a museum gallery in the Hague in the Netherlands which has many portraits of Dutch and Flemish masters from the Dutch Golden Age. Masters in painting, not per se masters to Guinea pigs ;) One of the most famous paintings there is 'The girl with the pearl earring' by Johannes Vermeer.

It was there that their friend pointed out these Guinea pigs in a painting by Brueghel and Rubens depicting 'Adam and Eve in paradise'. There are many animals surrounding Adam and Eve, two of those are Guinea pigs! Brueghel and Rubens were totally right when depicting some of our kind, of course we were there in paradise!

Being the Guinea pig enthusiast as she is our slave (@pandameisje) was tweeting that Rubens and Brueghel were absolutely right in depicting guinea pigs in paradise! With this picture attached

We were totally surprised when we got a reply of Peter Paul Rubens (the painter himself, of course he no longer lives so his account is managed by someone acting in his name)

Tweet by Peter Paul Rubens informing us Guinea pigs were his friend Jan Brueghel (the elder)'s signature creatures!

So apparently Brueghel the elder used guinea pigs quite often. Of course this made our slave curious and she did some research online.

She found an article about the first archeological find of a guinea pig in the netherlands, mentioning Brueghel using guinea pigs in his paintings. In the first painting (The garden of eden with the fall of men) the guinea pigs looked really unrealistic, which was probably because Brueghel had used a stuffed and badly mounted guinea pig. Not sure what that means, but it sounds nasty... 

According to the article there were other painters from the low countries who painted guinea pigs. Both Rubens and Brueghel had acces to the menagerie of the archdukes of Brussels, where they probably saw their first live guinea pigs.

Slave also found this site which lists lots of paintings (many by Brueghel the elder) and other art works depicting guinea pigs.

Have you ever seen a painting with guinea pigs in it?

By the way, if you ever visit the Netherlands, slave says be sure to visit this museum, it is a good size and has loads of gorgeous and fairly well known paintings. And let us know if you need a piggy fix, we live in The Hague...

The Guinygirlz: Woopy, Daisy, Roos, and Bérke