PIGSTRAVAGANZA! Pignic 2013

We recently went to the PIGSTRAVAGANZA! Pignic in Maryland and had a great time. We had wanted to attend pignics previously, but things never quite worked out. As usual, we weren't fans of being in the car, and this was an especially long car ride for us. Once we got there, we realized that the humans had made a mistake and bought a playpen that was too small for the three of us. Luckily, a nice human couple decided to share their spacious playpen with us, using our small playpen as a divider.

If you're interested in attending a pignic too, then check the list of pignics at CavyMadness.com. (Also make sure you read their section on pignic etiquette at the bottom of the page.)

Aren't you two coming out? You both claim to be the dominant one!

"Tic Tac Poo?" I want to play!

For once, I don't have to go. Sorry, humans. I can't win you any prizes this time.

They have poop candies for sale. Maybe you could buy those and just drop them on the "tic tac poo" board?

Guinea pig shaped treats for humans. You know what would be even better? Human shaped treats for guinea pigs!

Hello, other piggies!

Can't remember the last time I saw other pigs (not counting on the internet).

That pig wishes he/she had a pigloo right about now!

Wow, another texel! She even kind of looks like me.

Do you smell like me, too?

Hey, those aren't guinea pigs. They're way too big. I think they might be capybaras.

Save some for the rest of us, Lola!

Oh, hello! Looks like we have a next-door neighbor now. What's your name? Custard? That's a nice name.

Human piglets attacking a poop piñata.

Don't hit that piggy piñata! It looks too cute to hit!

Lola, have you met Custard?

Looks like Custard is going to have some company.

Sniffing each other. The traditional guinea pig greeting.

Nice costumes. 

Another nice costume.

The crayons won the costume contest.

This hippy was very mellow about not winning.

Lola, are you still eating grass?

Now that everyone's out of hiding, let's all eat grass together.

By the way, we had our picture taken in costume. Broccoli actually got a chance to wear the famous guinea pig armor (minus the helmet). Click here to see it!

We give this pignic 5/5 stars!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Spaghetti Squash?

The humans love Italian food. We hear them talk about how good lasagna, pizza, and spaghetti are. Unfortunately, these are all things that guinea pigs can't eat, so we'll never know. That's okay, though, because there is a guinea pig equivalent to one of these foods. We're not talking about that "pizza" treat, by the way, which was full of bad stuff that we shouldn't eat. We're talking about spaghetti squash, which can be shredded to look like spaghetti.

To feed us spaghetti squash, wash the outside, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, throw them out, and then cut out bite-sized bits of the flesh for us. Don't feed us the skin. It should be fed to us raw. As a winter squash, spaghetti squash can be fed to us 2-4 times per week.

That's a spaghetti squash.

Forget shredding it into spaghetti strands! We're hungry NOW! Wheek wheek!

Tasty!

Spaghetti squash was pretty tasty at first, although our enthusiasm did start dying down towards the end. We'll give it 4/5 stars. (By the way, for another spaghetti-like food that we're allowed to eat, we recommend corn silk. Delicious!)

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Sakata Sweet Melon?

There is not a lot of information available on this particular melon. We were able to determine that it's in the same family as other melons that we can eat, such as honeydew and cantaloupe. Like other melons, this one is also high in sugar, so only feed it to us 1-2 times per week.

If you listen closely, you can hear our sounds of contentment.

As you probably guessed from the noises we made in this video, we give Sakata Sweet Melon 5/5 stars for being sweet and delicious!

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Crowberries?

Crowberries are not found here in the mid-Atlantic region where we live. They look a lot like small blueberries. You can find crowberries in Iceland, where they are called "Krækiberja," and in other Nordic countries. Crowberries are non-toxic, but should only be fed to us occasionally. (Our source wasn't specific, so we're going to recommend no more than once a week to be cautious.)

Everyone gather around! There's new food in the human's hand!

Yum!

Some people claim that crowberries "lack oomph" and are just "filler berries." We disagree, and give crowberries 5/5 stars!

Product Review: Petco Flip Top Water Bottle for Small Animals

We were having some problems with our old water bottle. We had to listen to our humans complain about how difficult it was to clean for a while now. On top of that, just recently, the water bottle started to leak. At first, the humans thought we were just drinking a lot of water because it's summer time, but then they noticed how wet the bottom of our cage was. Once they realized the problem, they went to the pet store and brought us back this thing:

That's different.

The new water bottle had a few different features from our old water bottle. First, there was the flip top:

That looks easy to fill and to clean. No more complaining, humans!

That was a good feature. However, there was also a not-so-good feature:

What the heck?

Unlike our old water bottle that had a metal ball at the end of the nozzle, this one had a little metal nub thing. We were curious and went to investigate, but couldn't figure out how to drink out of it!

I don't get it. How do we drink from that thing? This stinks!

Eventually, the humans realized that we were not going to be drinking out of this new bottle, forcing them to go back to the pet store and buy a new one of the old water bottle type. Unfortunately, we'll have to hear our humans complain about how hard the water bottle is to clean again, but at least we know how to drink out of it! Despite the cleverness of the flip top, we're going to have to give this product 1/5 stars, because what good is a water bottle if you can't drink out of it?

Product Review: Ecotrition Snak Shak Cube Hideaway

Today we're going to review Ecotrition Snak Shak Cube Small Animal Chew. We are big fans of Ecotrition's Snak Shak Natural Hideaway and Snak Shak Activity Log, so we expect that we'll like this as well.

Yay! New chew toy!

Chomp.

Chew.

The other Ecotrition Snak Shak products are designed to look like other things (like a log and a hut), but I'm not sure what this is supposed to be modeled after. But that's only a minor consideration compared to how fun it is to chew on, and whether there are any health concerns. There are the same health concerns here as with the other two Snak Shak products: the first ingredient is pine wood shavings, which isn't the best thing for us, but is probably fine for us in small amounts. We took off a star for that in the other two cases, which we'll also do here. But here's another difference: the log and the shack are just more fun to chew on. After only a few days with the log, you can notice the chewing damage to it. We've had this Snak Shak Cube for a few days now, and we'll still chew on it and experiment with crawling under it, but it's not a hit with us like the log and hut. We'll give it 3/5 stars.

Product Review: Kaytee All Natural Orchard Blends Digestive Health Hay for Small Animals

After doing research for our post on the best hay for guinea pigs, we became curious about all the different types of grass hay that are out there that we've never tried. So today, we're trying Kaytee Orchard Blends hay. It contains timothy hay, orchard grass hay, bermuda grass hay, and brome hay. Bermuda grass hay and brome grass hay are both new to us. I wonder if we'll like it?

Brome hay. That's new. Let's try it!

New hay! Yum!

Hooray, bermuda grass hay and brome grass hay!

Honestly, we don't know which piece is which type of hay, but it's all good. 5/5 stars!