[Gpdd] HEALTH: Bedding and Chirping

[milton.the_bold at virgin.net]

Hello all.I discovered last night that I have a second "chirper" - my new little pig, Shiner, chirped after being out in the playroom for a few hours (he isn't usually out that long but I was absorbed in doing christmas shopping for all my nieces and nephews!).  It was quite late at night by then and I think he wanted to go back to bed.  My (extremely docile) new but elderly bunny, Buddy, lives in the playroom in a big pen and normally retreats into it when there are pigs running around as they boss him about, but on this occasion he was sitting under my feet as I shopped and his big ears stood right on end as Shiner chirped.  Fortunately I was able to get a short tape recording of it.  I currently have two chirpers, Shiner and my elderly pig Captain Noodle.  I once read that it's rare for males to "chirp" but I have had at least three who have done it, usually quite regularly and when they are out late at night.  Whenever it happens, everyone else freezes and lies down.  It's very bizarre.  I think it may be because my house is usually totally silent late in the evening when they aren't making any noise - just me sitting reading or typing at the computer.  All the pigs who have "chirped" have usually been aggressive/hyperactive/badly behaved "alpha" pigs.  The more docile ones are too busy stuffing themselves to waste time doing bird impressions.I had to take Pepperpot to the vet this morning.  I had a feeling he wasn't feeling very well on Thursday night, but could find nothing wrong when I checked and he was eating, drinking ok.  He just seemed a bit down.  Then on Friday evening he refused some apple so I got him out and gave him a closer examination.  I gave him some basil leaves to eat and he chomped away on them, but I noticed he appeared to have something skewered on his lower incisors.  I thought it was a locus bean treat.  However I couldn't get it out and so took him to the vet this morning.  She burred it out (using a tool used to cut teeth) and said it was a bit of wood - he had been chewing on it and it had got stuck.  I'm mentioning this because it was a wood chip bedding usually used for horses, but which I had bought thinking it was wood shavings (my pets normally have hemcore, which is made out of hemp stem and can be composted straight after use, but Pepperpot is a messy drinker so needs something more absorbent).  I first used it on Wednesday and at the time was a bit wary because I realised it was chips and could be eaten.  At the time I just covered the chips with lots of hay, but Pepperpot's experience shows that it evidently was being eaten!  I had two bags of it, unfortunately, but I can use it to mulch over my vegetable patch this winter.  I wasn't very happy with it anyway, apart from the edibility of it, the wood chips had a very strong pine scent, much more so than the pine shavings which are kiln dried.  I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else was using wood chips.Milton and the Lads