The piglets are now 4 weeks old and growing well :) They're eating grower pellets which give them a majority of the nutrient a growing piglet needs aswell as fruit which we're scavanging from the road side apple trees and a trip to Mildura in the next few weeks will see us collecting esky fulls of grapes from the growers that deem them not suitable for the supermarkets. Need to find a stone fruit grower somewhere ;) I freeze the excess fruits so we've got plenty for the animals to munch on for atleast 4 months.
They get along well with the chooks, curling up with some of them at night in the same enclosure. I'm still hesitant to house them near the big pigs so they're still in the backyard. It's saving on mowing the weedy lawns lol

I've sold one, to a neighbour and trying to convince another neighbour she needs one lol. I've got the others advertised all over the place but no interest yet. We may just have to grow them out ourselves and sell them through the markets. We've got 6 months before that happens.

Until next time
~x~

Miss Pigsy gave birth to 11 piglets on Wednesday 16th at 11pm. We missed the birth but it seemed to be an easy labour for her and she did wonderfully well. 1 lil piglet was stillborn.

During the day on Thursday we had a few mishaps. Miss Pigsy, being so big and not used to little piglets running around and under her, accidently squished one. She then squished another 4 but we managed to save one, so from the 11 we were down to 6. Unfortunately i had to make the heartbreaking decision to take the remaining  piglets away from her. There were a few factors that made the decision easier. Miss Pigsy's milk was near non-exsistant. She was moving around a lot and wouldn't lay down for the piglets to feed, it was a very, very hot day, the man of the house wasn't home, the vet is 2 hours away. I did not make the decision lightly, i couldn't bear to lose anymore piglets so i took them and began the process of hand rearing. I trawlled the internet and found a lot of helpful information, i used info that has been repeated multiple times on all different websites. I felt reasonably confident i could help the piglets grow. I'd reared calves for many years so i had a basic understanding of what was right and wrong when it came to animals. They feed well from a bottle and the pink, squishy little piglets made it through that night with my help.

On the Saturday i persisted with them to get them to feed from a shallow dish as i'd read and been told by a few piggy people it's a better option. I was lucky the man of the house was home as i was very sleep deprived from the previous 2 nights and couldn't get the piglet to do what i wanted. Hubby said i was trying too hard lol. He left them to their own devices and sure enough, they got hungry and feed from the dish with no help. They then feed every 3 hours instead of hourly. We had them in a big cage with lots of hay and there they slept all night with their continued 3 hourly feeds.
Fast forward to today, they've been having weetbix mixed with their milk and it's making them fuller for longer. They sleep for 8 hours overnight. They're growing with no set backs whatsoever. I made the right decision on that Thursday and noone can tell me otherwise.

Miss Pigsy hasn't had any side effects from not having the piglets. She's eating, wallowing and looking ok although she does have a sad look about her as she knows she had piglets but doesn't know why they're not there now. The little milk she did have dried up quickly and thankfully she didn't suffer from mastitis.

So, there you have it. We survived our very 1st piglet birth. Would i do it all again, not in a hurry!

Until next time
~x~

There's nothing more refreshing on a 40 degree (Celsius) day then wallowing in a muddy hole, well, if you're a pig!

Mr Porky who's been with us for 4 months has finally realized there is nothing but goodness in a mud bath. I don't think his previous owners, who had him from birth (he's roughly 14 months old) ever gave him a mud bath or put a sprinkler on for him to get used to water. It's taken us quite a long time to get him used to it. I'm glad he is because with our shocking heat there's no other way to cool down.

Our little black piggy's  Jap and Sulky, have taken to water really well too. They're now 6 months old. I know, i said i was going to have them in the freezer by this month but we've been told they could grow a bit more and just before winter would be a good time for processing.

Miss Pigsy LOVES mud baths, more so now as she is 3 months, 2 weeks and 4 days pregnant :) She's due on the 17th of January but i'm hoping for her sake she births in the next day or 3. She doesn't do a lot these days apart from laying in her wallow. She's huge! I'll be sure to blog when she has her litter, here's hoping all goes smoothly for her.

Until next time
Keep cool
~x~