Actually, 3 fat pigs. 3 VERY fat pigs! No, I'm not insulting anyone, nor am I giving a new twist to the 3 Little Pigs story. We actually have 3 morbidly obese pigs. Here's the story:
DH loves pigs. It's his favorite farm animal. I hate pigs and I'm actually afraid of them. I can handle a buck in rut with no problem. After all, he's a vegetarian and he's only being territorial about his does in heat. (City folk might refer to them as a billy goat and nannies, that is, before I inform them of the proper terms. But I digress.) The buck just wants to be sure no one steals his precious does from him. Knowing this, he's easy to deal with. He can be bought, after all. If I want to borrow a doe all it requires is some grain and, typical guy, he's then thinking about his stomach and doesn't even notice that he's missing a few of his beautiful ladies. But a pig is an omnivore which means it eats just about anything, meat included. An 800 pound sow that might look at me as lunch is a potential problem. We've had pigs in the past and if it weren't for my 2 English Shepherds watching my back I just might have been the main course several times. Pigs don't like me either, but I'll save that story for another time. Let's just say the feeling is mutual.
The last pig to claim residency here was the aforementioned 800 pound sow who pushed me from behind and knocked me over. Needless to say the dogs weren't approving of her treatment of me and chased her off with much barking, snarling and gnashing of teeth. The dogs did the snarling etc., the sow just ran for it after the first well placed bite to her hind legs. Surprisingly the dogs didn't leave a mark on her. We know this because we inspected her hide very closely after she was hanging from the tractor bucket a few days later (AFTER she was slaughtered of course). I have a motto on this farm - be nice or be tasty.
So we've been pigless for a few years. DH has been talking about getting pigs again. Knowing my fear of them he decided on a smaller, more docile breed called a Guinea Hog. The males get 300 pounds tops, the females somewhere in the 200 to 250 range. While he was looking for someone who sold this breed, an online friend offered to sell me her adult boar and 2 sows for very reasonable money. She thought the sows might be pregnant based on timing from their last litter. We agreed to buy them and picked them up last Saturday.
Here's what a Guinea Hog is SUPPOSED to look like:
Kind of a smallish chubby bear kind of thing. Not too big, short legs, definitely not as threatening as the usual big commercial pig. I was expecting to see something like that.
HOLY COW, or in this case HOLY FAT PIGS! One of the things my husband learned about this breed is that they're easy keepers and it's easy to overfeed them. Overfeed them? These hogs have gluttony
down to an art form! Here's what the hogs we got look like:
Bottom line (if you'll forgive the pun) is that I think there are at least 3 someones on this farm that are on a diet! I'll let you know how it goes.
Please leave a comment below. I love hearing from you.
Plan for Friday - give Talon, the horse, a bath and grooming to get him all prettied up for the 2 day riding clinic in VT Saturday and Sunday, also do some more trailer loading practice. Actual day - trailer him 1 1/2 hours away so vet can stitch up his face after he impaled himself on the horse trailer and slashed open the side of his jaw. He loaded beautifully earlier this week so I wanted to do more practice yesterday. He freaked! I remained relatively calm till I saw his face gushing blood, then I freaked! A very good friend came over with her big stock trailer (picture barn on wheels), assured me it wasn't that bad and he wasn't going to bleed to death, drove us to the vets and waited several hours with me till the vet could fit him in for emergency surgery to sedate him and stitch him up. I'm sure my friend had plans of her own on a beautiful Friday afternoon.
