Monday, December 25, 2017

Happy Christmas to our Readers


On behalf of all the Piggyfriends, Otto wishes you a very happy Christmas. We know that many of you have different holidays to us so we wish everyone a happy time whatever they celebrate. As you can see, Algernon Rat is here for the holidays.


My friend, Niamh, has joined me for this photo. Slave knew that I would still but Niamh disappeared amongst the tinsel before she would pose. Unfortunately we do not have an outtake as Slave had to put her camera down before rescuing her from the hearth, which is behind us in the pigture. Don't worry, the fire is not lit.

We hope that you all have a wonderful time with loads of yummy veggies. We were rewarded with parsley for posing for our photos.

If you have any holiday photos, we would love to see them.

Nollaig Shona Dhaiobh. Happy Christmas EVERYONE!

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Helping.

Mimi aka Agent Diva 1 is helping with the Christmas decorations.



Friday, December 22, 2017

Friday video: Success! (Binky learned to spin as well)

Een bericht gedeeld door Mieke (@pandameisje) op
Have a great wheekend! Hope you all have lots of veggies for christmas Raani, Binky and Cookie plus slave Mikey

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Thanksgiving Pigtures

The following pigtures of Apollo (brown piggy), Dmitri (mostly black piggy), and Dante Wigglebottom (white and black piggy) were taken for the Thanksgiving holiday back in November. Apollo has since passed on, but you can tell he was quite the ham in photo shoots!


Saturday, December 9, 2017

The Piggyfriends' grass is frozen!

Slave cuts fresh grass for us every day but this morning she came back in and said that it had frozen!

"She offered us these cauliflower leaves instead. Much as we love a cauli leaf it is not the same as a pile of fresh grass but I suppose it will have to do" says Saoirse Piggyfriend in between mouthfuls.

Carter grabs a piece of leaf and rushes to eat it in the privacy of a box before his friends can steal it. "I love cauli," says Carter, " and I am so glad that our friend, Roly, grows lots of it on his farm."

"Well, I suppose there is nothing for it but to join my friends, " says Aoife, " before they have cleared up the lot."

"Don't worry piggies, " says Slave. " I have a whole bagful of leaves for you and maybe the grass will have thawed tomorrow."

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Happy Birthday Louis Piggyfriend!

Hello Readers! Louis Piggyfriend here. It is my 6th. birthday today and Slave has given me my very favourite veggie. Sow thistle.





Do you like sow thistle? Slave grows it for us in her veggie garden but it finishes when the warm weather comes to an end. She kept this one growing under a cloche just for my birthday. Wasn't that kind of her?

It is so lovely and juicy that it deserves another photo.

After all that good food, I needed a nap.

"Happy Birthday Louis!" say the Piggyfriend herd.


Saturday, December 2, 2017

Friday video: how to train your guinea pig

To do a spin! Hope you are not getting fed up with all our spinning piggies videos. We are now trying to teach our boar Binky to spin as well. In this video we show you how to do it.


At first we thought Binky would not follow the vegetable at all. Raani and Cookie both spin clockwise. Binky would not do that. Then Piggy dad tried to make him follow the vegetable anti clockwise, as you can see in the video Binky can do that pretty well. Now I wonder does he not see the veg well when we try to make him spin clockwise, or does he just like to turn anti clockwise?

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

A Piggy A - Z. F for Fernando

A few of the Piggyfriends are not keen on having their photos taken. I am one of them. Slave tried to creep up on me and catch me unawares but I saw her coming and ran to hide in our wooden house. So she took our house and tunnel away.
Having nowhere to hide, I ran into the corner of our pen and sat with my brother, Martin, so you can see me, Fernando, on the right of this photo.

Here we are again so that you can see my other side. You saw me in the photos when we did the Taste Tests but I was more interested in investigating the new foods that day than watching sneaky photographers.


Friday, November 17, 2017

Friday video: more spinning...

Pig dad is trying to teach us the spin synchronized, he hasn't had much luck with us, though he does claim we can do it synchronized of camera...

A post shared by Mieke (@pandameisje) on


Have a great wheekend!
Spinners Raani and Cookie
And boar Binky

Monday, November 13, 2017

I had to go to the vet.

Niamh Piggyfriend here. A while ago I was not eating very well and Slave could see that my incisors were growing diagonally. A sure sign that there was a problem with my molars. She took me to see our Rodentologist, Lynn from Palace Piggies, and she trimmed my teeth but said that she thought that I might have a tooth root abscess. Eeek!!! Our retired Rodentologist was an expert with abscesses and could have dealt with this himself but Lynn said that I should go and see our vet.

While she waited for the abscess to appear, Slave had to syringe feed me. I was very good and did not mind this but eventually the day came when the trip to the vet was necessary.





I had to have an Xray. Our vet put sandbags all around me so that I would not move and spoil the image.You can see it above. It is not a very clear picture but it is the best of several that Slave took. Our vet said that it shows that I have Osteomyelitis, which causes my teeth to grow wrongly into my jaw and this could have caused the abscess, which is visible in the full size Xray but not in this little photo. This does not look much like me does it? Where is my coat?

This is what I really look like. Here I am being weighed. I only just fit on the vet's little scale but the only other one that he has is for dogs and cats and does not register very well with a little guinea on it. I do not think that any of our big boars would fit on this little one.



The vet lanced my abscess and drained a lot of horrible pus out of it. Then he flushed out the cavity with antiseptic and saline. There is no photo of this event as Slave was holding me still whilst the vet performed the procedure. You would not want to see it anyway as it was nasty and smelly. I made a lot of noise about it but then I started making a noise before he put the scalpel in. The people in the waiting room could hear me.
 

We came home with Marbocyl antibiotics, a bag of saline and a lot of syringes. Slave had to flush out the abscess with the saline every day using the little hole that the vet had made and every week we went back to the vet for him to do it better. I started eating once the abscess had been lanced and Slave was very relieved about that. So was I.




After the abscess had gone flat, I thought that I was OK but then another one came up and we had to go back to the vet and start over. Here you can see our lovely vet examining me. His name is Etienne and he comes from Belgium. He has been the Piggyfriends' vet for nearly 20 years.





Finally the day came when Etienne said that I was all mended! Hooray! There is a possibility that I might get another one so paws crossed that this does not happen. I like going to see the vet but do not want another abscess.

Friday, November 10, 2017

Friday, November 3, 2017

Look what our Slave was given for her Birthday

It was our Slave's birthday on October 29th. and look what she received. "A Guinea Pig Romeo and Juliet".

This is the fourth in a series of real stories rewritten with guinea pigs as the characters. Slave already has the Guinea Pig Nativity, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist and now she has this one, Romeo and Juliet.

The books are full of wonderful photos of guinea pigs dressed up as the "people" in the stories with guinea pig sized props too.

She was also given this little plush piggy for her ever growing collection. This one is made by a company called Living Nature and best of all, when she squeezes him, he actually squeaks just like we do.
Isn't he sweet?

Here he is reading the lovely book. You can see one of the gorgeous piggy pigtures inside.

We hope that the publishers of the book do not mind us taking photos. We did the same when Slave had their other books and no one complained!

A word of warning. This well known tale does not have a happy ending but it is only a story after all and the piggy actors were all safe.

If any piggy person you know has a birthday coming up, they would love this book. Or it would make a perfect little Christmas gift.


Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Happy Hallowe'en Everyone!

Slave could not decide which of us would pose for our Hallowe'en pigture and Magnus, Agent Fluffypig, drew the short carrot.

" Slave picked me because I am orange, " says Magnus, " and she thinks that I look like a pumpkin! She could be right. "

Happy Hallowe'en to all of our readers. Stay safe.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Happy Seventh Birthday dear Otto.

Today is a very special day at Piggyfriends because our dear Otto is celebrating his seventh birthday and we have made his name out of veggies.





Our Slave was very lucky to be able to give him a home all those years ago. GPDD readers may have read his story before but it bears repeating as it enabled him to come to Piggyfriends. A colleague of her son's at the animal rescue where they worked sent her prize winning white Peruvian sow, at great expense, to a stud boar expecting for her to have a litter of white Peruvians. What she got were three little boars, of whom Otto was the whitest by far but he was born with a head tilt. None of them were suitable for showing so she had them all neutered and sent them to a piggy rescue.

Had she heard this story earlier our Slave would have taken all three home straight away and none of them would have had to be neutered. She found out where they had been sent and, very fortunately, our Rodentologists knew the lady who runs this piggy rescue and called her to say that a home was waiting for them. By this time, only Otto was left as his brothers had already been rehomed.

The piggy rescue lady brought Otto with her when she visited the Rodentologists herself and our Slave went to fetch him home
.
So after a roundabout journey, Otto came home.

He found a home with Portia, who had sadly lost her companion and over the years, he has been a kind and gentle friend to many sows who have come our way. When Undercover Piggies was started he became Agent Mystery as, when his coat needs a trim, it is hard to tell which way round he is and Slave has been known to put his veggies at the wrong end even now. He had a haircut before she took these photos so that you can see him properly.

"Happy Birthday dear Otto," says Slave. " You are my little star!"

" Thank you." says Otto," I know that it is your birthday too tomorrow so would you like to share my grass?"

Please join us in saying "Happy Birthday" to our dear friend Otto. We all love you very much.