Thursday, April 9, 2015

pig problems - can they get homesick?!

"Peppa" arrived last week - well sort of. We have seen very little of Peppa. The pig's previous owner called herself the pig's grandmother and actually kissed it as Adam loaded the pig into the cage for the ride to our home. Upon arrival to its new surroundings the pig promptly ran into the electric fence and went ballistic. Eventually the pig discovered the pig shelter and buried itself under the straw. The next day we set out food and could hear some sort of whimpering/breathing coming from the lump of straw. The following day the food still sat there, untouched. This repeated the next day. Concerned I looked at the big lump of straw where the pig had buried itself and felt a lump creep up into my throat. This pig is homesick I thought. I know exactly how that pig feels because I had the same home-sick struggles while growing up:lack of appetite, listlessness, and you just feel like staying bed all day. I recognized all of the symptoms.
 We tried luring the pig out of the big lump of straw with some chocolate cake, but to no avail. Finally I took a shovel and started to gently poke around the straw. I nicked the pig and he jumped straight up with all four paws off of the ground. He let out a loud high-pitched squeal. My squeal was louder. My heart has never thumped so hard or irregular before.
I am not sure how long a pig can survive without eating but thankfully it has slowly started to meander its way out of the shelter to eat. This has been good timing because I was beginning to wonder if we needed to hook some sort of IV or feeding tube to it.
Peppa the pig would of been much better off if it had other pig company but that is another problem. There are no berkshire or tamworth piglets to buy in our area. Actually the whole province has a shortage of piglets. Apparently the winter was so harsh that the male pigs did not show any interest in the female pigs therefore lack of spring piglets.


The lump of straw we looked at for days before Peppa made a cautious appearance.




Peppa the Pig 

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