Woo! What-A-Night!

Everything was going crazy! Doors slamming, windows making creepy “woo” sounds, and lights were flicking on and off until it completely went out. No, no, our den isn’t haunted by silly poltergeist. A huge angry storm passed by and it was scaring us (piggies and human), Mochi especially.

Things went bad when Human gave us floor time so she could clean our cage. In the middle of cleaning – Boom! Something exploded outside and at the same time the lights, fans, and TV died. Keep calm human! Find a torch and avoid stepping on us while you’re at it.  She finally found one and tried to finish the cage cleaning job a.s.a.p. She went to our sacred place of clean towels and fleece, and realized that she has forgotten to harvest the supposedly dry towels and fleece that was left hanging outside days ago. Great job, human.

We spent the night on the floor with everything we need plus newspaper as bedding. It was really dark, only Human and we piggies were in the house. We could tell that Human has been reading ghost stories from creepypasta again; she spent the night beside our pen with the radio and torch on.

The sun finally rose, the whole floor was a mess, but good news! Our towels and fleece have dried.

Bwakaw!

Last night, our human/piggy representative, Human, attended the premiere of the Cinemalaya 2012 independent film entry, "Bwakaw". According to Human, Bwakaw is a story about an old man, Rene, and his best friend Bwakaw, a stray dog whom he adopted from the streets. Rene is obsessed with preparing for his death, spending most of his time fixing his will, ignoring those around him. He then changes his whole personality and image when he falls in love with a tricycle driver. -spoiler alert!- Things suddenly get serious when Bwakaw suffers from heat stroke, Rene takes his dog to the vet and discovers that Bwakaw has something more serious going on. Rene learns that Bwakaw is suffering from cancer, and only has a few days to live. More spoilers can be found in Cinemalaya's official website.

The film is a comedy drama that can be enjoyed by everyone. Human reported a few human cubs present in the audience which is fine, but if you do plan on taking the kids, we would rate the movie as SPG or PG-13 for strong language, but that's about it.

We encourage humans to see this wonderful film, it's very different from the usual human entertainment you get in our little island. Let us support these kinds of films! Support Princess (Bwakaw)! Catch Bwakaw while it's still showing during these dates:

July 25 6:30PM – Greenbelt 3 (Cinema 3)
July 26 3:30PM – Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (CCP Main Theater)
July 26 6:15PM – Bulwagang Pambansang Alagad Ng Sining (CCP MKP Hall)
July 28 1:30PM – Greenbelt 3 (Cinema 5)
July 28 6:15PM – Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater)
July 29 6:30PM – Greenbelt 3 (Cinema 5)

CCP sells regular and student tickets only for shows that are showing on that particular day. Tickets sell out fast! Better go there in the morning to avoid long lines and the heartbreak of learning that they ran out of seats for you. Wheek!

Dri Fit Fabric Instead of Fleece As Bedding

We got a very helpful tip from our fellow Piggy friend Mr. Potato, about using dri fit fabric instead of fleece since we live in a more humid climate compared to the piggies who first thought about using fleece. As much as we wanted to switch to dri fit, it's really hard to find. Mr. Potato found some at a fabric store near Shangri-La Makati, which was on sale (it was cheaper than fleece!). Too bad we didn't have time to go buy some. Not sure if it's still on sale or at least in stock, hope it is...

Dri fit fabric is the same stuff humans use for their sports attire; marathon singlets, basketball jerseys and shorts, soccer uniforms and almost everything related to all that. Dri fit fabric is designed to be light weight, breathable, and of course, dry. It's really great for our tropical climate, and it works just like fleece! Wash in detergent first before using to get the wicking effect. What's more amazing is that it dries faster than fleece, no more waiting over night to use the bedding again! Also great for those who hand wash their fleece, dri fit is very light! A feather compared to fleece.

Since we never get to buy our own batch of dri fit bedding, we did a trial thing using Human's singlet (shh... Don't tell her. No, actually go ahead, we don't really care). It wasn't wicking before, so we washed it with detergent, then voila! It's very soft and absorbent, we love it.

We tried purchasing the fabric online, but we keep finding companies that sold in whole sale (as in they sell them per ton), or probably we're looking at the wrong places. We're still very interested in purchasing some of these magical fabrics.

Pure Timothy Pellets

If you guys remember, we mentioned before about Princess Club Corp. selling pure timothy pellets. We had no idea what the ingredients were until we asked, and they replied to us that it's pure timothy in pellet form. So we looked it up to see if there are any information about feeding us pure grass pellets, even if it's originally meant for horses and boom! We stumbled upon this brand with the exact same information about the pure timothy pellets. What we found was this.

It all sounds nice, but one thing that makes us wonder; is it okay for us to consume it for the rest of our life? We piggies need more than just hay. Vitamin C wouldn't be a problem if we get it from our veggies everyday, syringe feeding us ascorbic acid be great too (just take it slow when starting). But what about our other vitamins? We have no idea what's really essential for us, so we compare analysis' from Hagen, Standlee, and the famous Oxbow, and KMS:

Standlee Timothy Pellets

Protein - Not Less Than 8%
Crude Fiber - Not More Than 35%Moisture - Not More Than 12% 

Crude Fat - Not Less Than 1.8% 

KMS Timothy Pellets

Crude Protein - (min)   14.00 %    
Crude Fat - (min)   2.5 %    
Crude Fiber - (min)   20.00 %    
Crude Fiber - (max)   25.00 %    
Vitamin A - (IU/KG)   30,000    
Vitamin D-3 - (ICU/KG)   1,000    
Vitamin C - (mg/kg)   1,000    
Calcium - (min)   0.7    
Phosphorus - (min)   0.4

Oxbow Cavy Cuisine

Crude Protein - min 14.00% 

Crude Fat - min 1.50% 
Crude Fiber - min 25.00% 
Crude Fiber - max 28.00% 
Calcium - min 0.35% 
Calcium - max 0.85% 
Phosphorus - min 0.25% 
Salt - min 0.50% 
Salt - max 1.00% 
Vitamin A, IU/lb min 13,000 
Vitamin C, mg/lb min 200

Hagen Guinea Pig Pellets

Protein - 18%

Oils and Fats - 2.5%

Fibre - 13%

Moisture - 12%

and so on..

So what does this tell us? We don't know, but we're sure that we need lots of fiber. Vitamins are also important stuff. We've noticed that out of the four pellets, the horse pellets have more fiber and less fats. Seems legit.

The timothy pellets sounds like they're worth a try! The only reasons why it's not recommended to feed piggies food meant for other animals is because of the nutritional needs. Sometimes feeds have toxic medicines in them, like some rabbit pellets, those could contain antibiotics which could be toxic to us. Pellets aren't even that important, it should be treated more of like a supplement while everything else needed is balanced out with veggies, or even better, fresh grass.

Unless we're completely convinced, why not? It's pure grass hay. All we have to do is balance all the vitamins we usually get in pellets with veggies. Plus the sun, we piggies need our vitamin D! So there, if only we're really convinced, we shall soon have these babies in our little piggy paws... I mean mouth.

Vitakraft Meadow Hay Review!

We didn't expect to get two new piggy products on the same day; we knew about the Carefresh, but the hay caught us by surprise. Feels just like Christmas... So we got this hay from Princess Club Corp., same people who sold us long stalked timothy hay. We received a text message about PCC having meadow/natural hay from Belgium, at first we thought it was the Versele-Laga type, turns out we have Vitakraft.

Knowing Vitakraft's product line filled with not so good guinea food and treats, we had low expectations when we saw the brand name "Vitakraft" on our bag of hay. Vitakraft sells a lot of hay varieties, the one we have is meadow hay, we have a feeling that it's hay possibly from the meadows. In the packaging it says that Vitakraft hay is taken from the Alpine mountains, sounds delicious. 

  

Surprisingly, it's not that bad compared to all the other hays we've had, this is by far the best. It's very stringy, soft, and more green compared to natural hay, which was getting dustier, more yellow, and became harder every time we purchased a new pack. Our PCC timothy hay smelled the strongest, it was really hard and stalky, and talk about dusty. We're not sure if dusty is the right word, but the leaves were falling off, crumbling, and it eventually turned into powder. Vitakraft hay smells like rasins, and it's really not that strong or dusty like, we had to bury our face in it to figure out what to compare the smell with. If we can recall, Natural Hay smelled musky, and our PCC hay didn't smell bad but it was just really strong, like dried strawberries right in your face.

It's also cheap, P250 per pack, each pack weighs 1kg. It's very light (if you're human), but we feel like our hay is going to last us for... a month. Two months since we bought two. No, we have a feeling it's going to last us probably more than that. We're too lazy to compute on what's more economical to buy. We're guessing that if you want more hay for less, go with Versele-Laga, but if you want a tiny bit more quality, go with Vitakraft. Versele-Laga isn't really low quality hay, we remember loving that stuff! The ones we've previously bought must be an old stock that's been sitting in the pet store for months, or even years. It all depends... Personally, we like buying or trying out different brands as long as they're piggy safe, it makes life fun.

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Timothy pellets!

We keep getting text messages from PCC about their new items for sale. Not that we're complaining. PCC's selling timothy pellets for P150 per 500 grams. Minimum order is five packs, but if you're interested in buying less than that, you could go buy it at their place, where? We don't know. Go ask. They're in Facebook and Sulit.

The pellets are from USA, the brand is called ASI Pellet, Ripon USA. We looked it up and we can't find enough information about it. All we know is that it's marketed for horses. Unless we know about the ingredients, we're staying skeptical. We know that it doesn't have vitamin C, but that could easily be supplemented by Lemon Cee, fresh grass, and veggies. We're just worried about the added vitamins and probably anti-biotics or whatevers mixed in it. Anyone willing to try it out, please do share info about it! Wheek.

Carefresh Review!

It's finally here! And it's smaller than we thought, we imagined it would be the same size as our Natural Hay package thing. So here it is.. Carefresh. So exciting. Let the review begin!


Carefresh is a brand known for its pet/environmentally safe and high quality pet bedding. Other than bedding they also produce small animal feeds. Carefresh is owned by Absorption Corp., a company dedicated in manufacturing products for the small pet industry. Although Carefresh is what they're popularly known for, the company also owns other brands such as Arm & Hammer and Biofresh (probably the new name for Carefresh, but more commercialized for lab animals).

There are different kinds of Carefresh beddings; natural, ultra, confetti, colors, and basic blend. What we have here is natural Carefresh, made from cellulose fiber, also known as natural fiber, any kind of material based on plants. For Carefresh, their natural fiber comes from wood pulp. Ultra is the same as natural except it's bleached, some consumers have reported that Ultra is the best among the other Carefresh products, it's made out of the same thing but Ultra is somehow softer. Colors is the same as ultra except it's colored. Confetti is a mixture of natural and colors. Basic blend is a mixture of natural and wood shavings. There are more types being made, with different mixtures, textures, and materials.

We bought our Carefresh Natural from Herpaholic (Pets Supply Depot, you can go find them on Facebook) for P500. The texture is very nice and soft much like cardboard. The smell... If you've ever lived in a box, especially in a balikbayan box, or at least stuck your whole head in one, that's exactly how Carefresh natural smells like. Wood pulp must be a fancy word for cardboard. A lot of humans have been praising this Carefresh natural, but there is also an equal amount of humans who dislike the product. Some claim that it's too dusty, it caused their master piggy, master chinchilla, master snake and the likes respiratory problems, and intestinal blockage due to bedding consumption. It even states in the package to feed snakes away from the bedding to prevent digestion problems. We do agree with those who don't like the bedding; the best part about the bedding is that it's soft, the cardboard smell isn't as strong as wood shavings but it's still irritating to the nose. Dustiness isn't that obvious but you can still sense that there is dust through the nose irritation we just mentioned. Mochi isn't a fan of it.

If we had to chose between our homemade bedding and Carefresh... Homemade FTW! Because of the smell, dust, and price. The only nice thing about Carefresh is the softness, but I bet my piggy butt that we can also make our homemade Carefresh just as soft. Watch out!

Homemade Carefresh in Progress...

 -We apologize for the lack of pictures in this post due to FB and blogger, in relation to posting pics using URLs-

It's actually more than it seems, the bag we used is a very narrow and tall paper bag. We used it because we think it's pretty. We could have finished making this 3-4 days ago, but we kind of missed a few steps. We didn't know that we were suppose to squeeze out the water first, as in one hand full at a time. What we did here was put all the paper in a net bag and squeezed the whole thing then hung it up to let it dry. Just yesterday we learned about the squeezing the water part so we realized the no-no we just made. After we did that, the drying process turned out to be faster. We also should have rinsed more to wash the ink away. We'll probably do that with our next batch, here we used one whole text book (really old and of no use anymore), the paper was a little thick so next time we'll use newspaper to see the difference.

Can't wait for our Carefresh to arrive this Tuesday! Then we can do some comparing, a review, and a step by step how to on homemade Carefresh. Joy!

Litter Training and Wheat Grass Seeds!

-We apologize for the lack of pictures in this post due to technical errors with FB and Blogger in relation to posting pics using URLs-

O hai piggy friends! Sorry we haven't been updating as we usually do, we've been busy little piggies. Since our cage is bigger now, we're working double time trying to poop everywhere. Human has also been busy doing... Human stuff. But that doesn't mean we forgot all about her! No.

Recently we've been doing some litter training! It's working great with Mochi, but not so good with Loki and I. One thing we've learned is that we piggies naturally like peeing in one area, if you check under our fleece (if you're using fleece) only one part of the towel is stained. Aha... So "training" us to pee in a plastic pan is no problemo, we'll happily go wee-wee there. Pooping is another story and the tricky part of litter training, if not impossible. As piggies, we cannot control our pooping, if we have to go, WE. HAVE. TO. GO. We don't really understand how the few guinea pigs out there do it, but this is probably why people suggest to put hay near or on the pan because who doesn't like pooping at the same place they eat?

We're still unsure what litter to use, at first we thought about wooden pellets but if you think about it, it's just like wood shavings but in pellet form. Almost all the down sides of wood shavings are still present in wood pellets like the possible strong smells and feet irritation. In addition, wood pellets turn dusty when wet, it's very heavy, and not to mention more expensive than shavings (based from where we live). So far we've found four "brands" of wooden pellets... We actually forgot the names; one is commercialized for "small pets", one for cats, one we can't read because it's written in another human language, and last can be purchased at Polo Club.

Currently we're now using shredded paper, before it was toilet paper. It's not really the best, but it shall do for now! The problem with both is that it smells. That's all. We already ordered Carefresh from Herpaholic, we'll get it by Tuesday! Can't wait! It cost P500, no idea how big it's suppose to be and how long it will last. We've also made some homemade Carefresh! We're going to compare our homemade with the real stuff just to see what's up.

And chadaaa! We bought wheat grass seeds! We purchased it at Sulit.com.ph, from this friendly human who has found his way into our "favorite humans" list. Very easy to talk to and delivery was fast and cheap, this is a huge compliment after our recent and first experience with the 2 week delay from a certain courier... So we bought a kilo for P500. They're just seeds with instructions, we haven't done anything yet with our seeds other than take pictures of it. We just got it now, and we haven't really thought about the soil and tray part. We're trying to see if buying seeds can save us more money than buying a pack of wheat grass from the grocery. So, yeah that's what's been happening around our piggy nest. Litter, seeds, and Mochi-Mochi.