massive development in the house of piggy eye view.

Not only are there now 9 piggies but they are all living together.
A couple of weeks ago I managed to persuade my husband to let us have one more piggy and he agreed. So me and my daughter's went to look at a mother daughter pair and named them bea and ivy. They went to live in the piggie house in the garden, painted pale blue. We bought it online and it is the best place for them to live.

A harem of piggies!

Dudley, otherwise known as 'Dudders' or 'Big D' now has a harem of piggies. He was paired up with little Pepper and now that they have bonded I decided to introduce him to Ruby and Sparkle. There was some initial squabbling but I held back from separating them as they were not hurting each other. There was a lot of chasing going on too but eventually they settled down and I think this could work out well too. Dudley seems to like both of the girl guineas and he has been sharing an igloo with them on the run. Miss Erin is none too pleased with this state of affairs as she is concerned that Dudley should only love Pepper and not be interested in anyone else! She makes him sound almost human!
Eventually the plan will be to add little Gary and Robbie to the mix and maybe little Teddy one day too. Dudley could end up with six girlie piggie friends!

A trip to the vet for little Teddy.

Although baby Teddy has been doing well we were a little concerned about one of Teddy's eyes. The day after Teddy was born Miss Olivia noticed that one of her eyes looked black and one looked blue. As time went on, the blue eye looked sore and seemed to stay closed and looked  a little red on the edges.  
I decided to take little Teddy, accompanied by mummy Robbie, to the vet for a check up. The vet placed some fluid in her eye and shone a very bright light into it. The conclusion was that she had probably sustained some trauma around the time of birth, most likely to have scratched it on a piece of hay. The eye showed signs of odema and that was making it look a blue colour. The vet prescribed some eye drops and was hopeful that it should heal and that any visual problem would be temporary. So now Teddy has drops four times a day into her eye with a lot of squealing and wheebing in protest! Robbie also got a post-natal check up and all is well.
The vet also had a sneaky look and decided that there was a very good chance that Teddy was likely to be............a girl!

Little Teddy suckling after a trip to the vet

Welcome to the world, Teddy piggie!

Imagine our total surprise this morning when Miss Olivia called out that there was an extra piggie in the cage today! At 08.38 we found a little piggie snuggled up with Robbie. I was expecting a newborn at the end of May or early June. Such a nice surprise.
We had no idea when the piggie was born so we waited and waited and waited to see if it was twins.
Eventually we consulted with the vet for advice who reassured us that as long as she seemed well we didn't have to worry. The baby was lively and climbing over Robbie and was soon suckling. There was no sign of a placenta so we can only assume that Robbie had already eaten it. So we waited and waited and waited. No second baby came.
Robbie seems to have taken to motherhood easily. She has been feeding her baby regularly and responding to her very tiny wheebs. She protects the pup if she thinks Gary is getting too close. Gary has been a very lovely auntie and so far there have been no problems. Within a few hours our little baby piggie was running around the cage. So cute to watch.
At the moment we do not know the sex of the pup but we have decided to call him/her Teddy. It suits either gender and it is such a cute name for a piggie. Now we are all hoping that our new piggie is a girl.........

Our first picture of baby Teddy

A snack after birth

So sweet little baby

Gorgeous Teddy suckling from Mummy Robbie

Our little Teddy wants to play!

Pregnant piggie!

Huge development in the house of Piggies' Eye View. Last night I had my suspicions that little Robbie was pregnant. She was becoming more and more irritable and it suddenly occurred to me that she was growing much faster than her female cagemate Gary. I was holding her on a lap pad and she was grumpy. When I touched her back hip she spun round as if to bite. I tried to calm her down and kept my hand on her back with my finger around her side when I thought I felt something move! Now as I am a midwife, I am used to fetal movements!
I felt fairly sure that she was pregnant but as this was an unplanned pregnancy and we got her as a baby with a female I knew she had not conceived in our care. We have had her since the 7th of April so she must have conceived 40 days ago at least. I told hubby of my suspicions (he was not amused) but kept it quiet from Miss Olivia and Miss Erin. They would only have been upset if she wasn't expecting.
So today I took her and Gary to the vet for a check up. Gary is definitely a girl and is not pregnant. Robbie is definitely a girl and IS pregnant. Her belly was shaved and she had an ultrasound scan. I saw two fetal hearts so we are having at least twins. She may even have triplets!!!! Robbie was so good for the vet. She tolerated being handled and scanned and did really well. So now we are expecting an arrival in the next three weeks.
I broke the news to hubby - not happy. I broke the news to the girls after school. They laughed and screamed and danced and then Miss Olivia got tearful when she realised that one in five guineas dies in childbirth! Such a midwife's child. Bless her. The vet actually reassured me that she should do alright in labour so I am hoping that she is right. The next concern was "Can we keep them all? Will daddy let us keep them?"

Pregnant Robbie (left) taken on 8/5/2014

The fleece experiment.

So we have decided to experiment with fleece. I have used fleece liners in one cage, the one where the babies live and we will see how they get on. I ordered them from candE cosies and had them made to match the snuggle pouches in the Cool Britannia theme. We will wash them every few days and air dry and see how the piggies get on. Miss Olivia's pigs are still on sawdust at the moment which is very messy when she wants to get them out and also is an ongoing expense. If it works out for the little piggies then we will order pink fleece for her piggies too at approximately £25 for a 4x2 grid cage. It seems a lot but sawdust is £14 for a huge bag and we use so much of it.
Today I put all the piggies out in the run and gave the fleece a quick hoover and it looks just as lovely as when I laid it yesterday. No smell yet either so we will wait and see.


Smart new home.

Piggie bonding

Dudley and Pepper seem to be a great match. They are bonding together nicely. At first I was worried due to the size difference. She only weighs 600g and he is just over 1kg. He also spent the first few hours trying to climb on top of her but he seems to have calmed down now!
We are at the stage where she follows him everywhere, they share an igloo on the lawn and they are now sharing a piggie pouch in the hutch. You can just see her bottom end in the picture below. I keep updating the family we adopted Pepper from as their little boy was sad for her to go but as she was so lonely this seems a happy ending for her. As for Dudley, he will soon have a harem as we are planning to introduce him to all the other lady piggies.............

Bonding in the igloo and deciding which way to run!

Pepper, are you in there? Hiding behind Dudley!

More piggies than people!

So now there are six! Dudley has joined the crew. There was much excitement in the home when the girls came home from school. They didn't know that I had collected him and then suddenly saw him in the garden. This was followed by exuberant singing of 'More pigs than people, more pigs than people' in the house.

Dudley is a rescue piggie from the RSPCA and is approximately 11 months old. He is a tri-coloured long haired Peruvian and we are hoping that he will pair up with Pepper and become her mate. He has been neutered so there will be no babies!
Miss Erin named him after the character in the Harry Potter books, Dudley Dursley, known as the 'pig in a wig' which is actually a great description of him. He is going to take some trimming and grooming but that suits Miss Erin.
So far so good in the courtship department. They seem to be getting along ok and I am quietly confident that this could be a good match. At the moment we love watching him run about with all his hair trailing behind him and chasing Pepper around the run.


Dudley with his Elvis hair!

Kiss chase!

The way to a piggies' heart is through their stomach.

We've been given a bag of scraps! That's exciting in the house of five pigs. My friend Wendy brought a bag of veggie scraps to work. It included carrot scrapings which Gary couldn't eat quickly enough, some cauliflower stalks and everyone's favourite - broccoli stalks!
I guess I never really thought about how much it would cost to feed five, soon to be six pigs so any scrapings from charitable friends are gratefully received. The piggies loved them and eat them out of your hand and wheeb when you rustle the plastic. We love it, they love and it is definately the way to their hearts. Just look at Ruby and Sparkle tucking in.

Rain, rain go away. Little piggies want to play!

Oh this horrid weather. April showers are not good for little piggies. Little piggies want to be out in the garden where they can all be together to play. Our current situation is that Ruby & Sparkle live together, Gary & Robbie live next door and little Pepper is living alone until her mate comes home to us. If we try to put them together inside they fight a lot and it upsets everyone. Out in the garden they have room to roam free and to hide and escape each other more easily and, as it is no one's 'territory' they seem more content to share pigloo hidey-holes and tunnels.
We created them a run in our garden using two sets of an outdoor runs and joining them together. We had no grass at all so we did have to buy some turf and let it settle. Then we added some tunnels, some pigloos and some netting over the top to make them feel secure. They love being out there together but we need some sunshine now. Come on rain, go away, little piggies need to play!

Cosy spoilt piggies?

CandE Cosie Cool Britannia Snuggle Sack

 

 So are the baby piggies spoilt? I ordered them some snuggle sacks from a company I found on ebay. Miss Olivia had used them before and her piggies were very happy with their purchases. http://www.candecosies.co.uk/
Robbie and Gary are now the proud owners of two Cool Britainia snuggle sacks - a double size to share if they want and a single one too. This was the perfect choice of fabric for two piggies named after British music icons!
Do the piggies like them? I think a picture speaks a thousand words. Here they are in their snuggle sacks, my happy little piggies! Keep snoozing babies.

 

Gorgeous Gary

My sleepy Robbie

Making a piggie home

We built a double piggie home. After looking all over the internet we decided on using the C&C method - cubes and correx. The cubes came from ebay and were tie-wrapped together and the correx came from a local printer and was cut to size to form the base.
We made a 4x2 size cage in black for Ruby and Sparkle to live in and then added a 3X2 cage in white on the left of the picture for baby Gary and Robbie and we added a 2X1 loft to it. We are rather impressed with the space it gives them all and they can see each other but I think as we may opt to try fleece liners and reduce the sides of the correx so they can see more of each other in the future. I would like to think that in the future all four could live in the same space without fighting but I am not sure if this will be possible. Watch this space piggie fans.

The Easter Piggie

So while my children were 'blogging' today and I was at work, did the Easter bunny visit? Well, there was lots of chocolate in the house when I got home and then a little Easter piggie arrived! Her name is Pepper and she belonged to a friend but she is lonely and in need of some friends. I am hoping that she has come to the right house with four little piggies here already. We plan to get her a male mate to be her partner at the end of the month making half a dozen pigs in total. There will soon be more piggies than people in the house!

Happy Easter!!!!!!!

Wheeb, Wheeb, Wheeb, Wheeb. All four piggies say "hello and happy Easter."
 Unfortunately none of the piggies got Easter eggs, though personally I don't think they need one seeing as Ruby and  Sparkle are already so chubby. (It must be all the veggies).
Gary and Robbie are doing fine and were desperate for veggie time this morning. Gary and Robbie love there new 3x2 c&c cage with 1x2 loft. Have had to chase them down numerous times in the morning as there is no access to food and water, resulting in a couple of nips from an angry and agitated Robbie!
 Miss Olivia has had ruby and Sparkle for 2 months.
Back on the subject of cages, for some reason Gary and Robbie  can get up to the loft but not down. Anyone got any tips?

It all started with a hamster

So, how did a piggy blog start with a hamster? Miss Olivia had a lovely hamster called Thunder but he died. She was so sad and couldn't cope with the loss of her pet and the possibility that she would have to endure this loss again so soon. She wanted a new pet. She wanted a rabbit! I persuaded her that rabbits were not the best pets for small children and that a pair of guinea pigs or piggies as we call them would be better. She eventually agreed and on February the 20th she adopted a mother and her baby from our local RSPCA centre and called them Ruby and Sparkle.
We had experience with piggies and had an old lady piggie called Bella whom we had adopted five years before from a friend who could no longer take care of her. She was a lonely piggie so we hoped that they could all be friends.
Hubby built us a run in the garden by laying turf and using a small animal pen but the three lady piggies could not be friends. We divided the run in half and kept Bella on one side and Ruby and Sparkle on the other. This seemed to work well.
In April it was my birthday. By then I had fallen in love with Miss Olivia's piggies and all I wanted for my birthday was a pair of my own piggies. Thus Gary and Robbie (more lady piggies) joined us on that day but sadly Bella left us on that day. She died very suddenly in the evening just before we brought Gary and Robbie home. :-(
So now we have four little piggies who live under Miss Olivia's bed in a custom built cage. We love the piggies and have joked that we now need a piggie room. Oldest son Daniel is at university - would it be wrong to turn his room into a piggie room????? Now Miss Erin wants to adopt a pair. Maybe we will need that piggie room after all..............

Little Thunder R.I.P. little one