Today we completed our family with another bristly member. She remains un-named but I'm sure it won't take long for us to figure something out.
Lately Sheamus has been lonely. He has been relentless is trying to befriend Hoby, we come home and find him asleep against Hoby's enclosure. He'll stand in front of Hoby's cage bobbing his head from side to side as if playing a game of peek-a-boo, Hoby barks at him completely enraged, Sheamus thinks its a great game.
We decided on a girl, for a few reasons. Sheamus is castrated, I don't like the idea of breeding animals, other than the chickens that take matters into their own hands, I haven't ever bred anything, choosing instead to adopt, usually a rescued animal. All little boys get the chop, testosterone is a powerful hormone without the satisfaction they seek I'm sure they'd go mad. All our other inhabitants have the company of someone of the opposite sex - Ella and Tarka, Mabel and Lucifer etc. Also, to castrate a male pig they need to go under the knife, it isn't a simple docking ring procedure, I don't feel we have the facilities at the moment to ensure a happy recovery in a secluded area without dust. And because I'm working full time and travelling 2 hours to get to and from work I can't dedicate the time I think is needed to nurse a little fella back to his happy self, having just lost the family jewels.
The first point of contact was obviously the SPCA but there weren't any pigs available so we found a few people advertising in the Auckland and Waikato areas. The first place we tried was just down the road and, well, it made me feel sick. The property was very nice, beautiful gardens and house, nice paddocks, very little grass but the animals seemed content enough. And believe me there were plenty of animals, they were everywhere, every nook and cranny. It was a breeding factory. There were little piglets, goat kids, foals everywhere in pens and small holding paddocks. There was a goat with a plaster cast on its leg, a foal with a raw shoulder and scours a sow with a new litter of piglets. They seemed well enough taken care of but the place was over populated, terribly. The lady was a business woman, wanting a sale above all else. I walked away from there not wanting to buy into her scheme, I have had nightmares about that place ever since. Our second phone call was to a lady also down the road who admitted also to having an overpopulated property, I couldn't even bring myself to go there, instead we headed to a place in Huntly, the man was a farmer and his daughter had always wanted a pig, so she got Suzie a kunekune sow. When the daughter moved to Australia agreed to look after Suzie, the farmer already had a boar called Grunter the inevitable happened when Suzie and Grunter shared an amorous moment together. She'd had a total of two litters (if that's the correct term, I'm not sure). Her babies from February were still there and looked like alert well rounded little critters, the new babies too were all healthy looking. They grazed the farm or 50 acres and were in a paddock with adequate shade, plenty of grass and a trough full of the most revolting stinky slops I've ever smelled. There were black and white ones, black ones and orangutan orange ones, all cute as buttons. Our little girl caught my eye because she wandered up to the trough, spotted a bobbing orange in the trough, climbed into the stinky mess, bobbed for her prize and then when she had it in her tiny little mouth wandered off with it looking for a safe place to consume it. He siblings all huddled around mum and suckled and bickered with each other. The older litter occasionally came in for a visit and mum was very rough with them, tossing them out of the way like they were ragdolls amidst shrieks of dismay. The little girl mixed with her older siblings and happily ate her orange under the tree. When she'd finished she wandered back, I put my hand through the fence, she came straight up to me and chewed on my finger. We asked the farmer what gender she was, he picked her up (very unceremoniously by the front legs) and presented her belly to us. Grab her Sam, I instructed, poor Sam grabbed her and held her close, I held her little face in my hands and soothed her protests. She quickly stopped her screaming, little black eyes staring out from ginger eyelashes. Then I held her and she snuggled, no protests at all. Sam had his eye on a black male from the same litter but this little guy was very clingy to his mum and screamed continuously the whole time Sam held him, there was no consoling this little guy. We put the little girl back, she didn't run off instead she hung around. It was a done deal, sometimes you just feel a connection and I did with this little ginger....oh my, another ginger for the family!
We decided to take her there and then, I wrapped her in some hessian and plopped her on my lap, no sooner had we driven down the driveway she wriggled out of the hessian and duly plopped ON my lap, and arm, in my hair followed by a pee. We emergency wet wiped the mess which added to the rancid slops smell that was ingrained in her coat. Sam suggested we pop in to see Kimberlee and give her a hose down...the pig not Kimberlee! So we dropped in to see Kim and the family and used little James' paddling pool to give her a rinse, Kim brought out some animal shampoo and a few towels so we gave her a really good clean up.
On the way home she snuggled and slept. We even popped into Pokeno for an ice-cream, little piglet finished my ice-cream cone with gusto, maple walnut ice-cream left on her nose. After her impromptu meal she found a comfy spot looking up at me, head between my boobs and reached up to chew on my chin before falling asleep until we got home.
Sam really had to put his foot down to me as I pleaded for him to let me keep her in the house for the night. We settled on her staying in the halfway house which is Hoby's kennel which seems to house new arrivals because it is secure, in the middle of everything and snuggly and warm, it is also beside Sheamus' enclosure so they would be able to get acquainted through the fence. As soon as we pulled up, Sheamus came over chewing on a bone or a stone and frothing at the mouth, he was hungry and had missed our company that evening. When little girl grunted, Sheamus grunted a reply back, they 'talked' for about a minute, it was quite profound.
We settled both porcines into their lodgings, Sheamus looked through the fence at little girl but quickly moved to his feed bowl when Sam dished up a dinner of apples, cabbage and lettuce. Little girl grunted hungrily too so I fed her some apples which she relished. Once she'd finished I let her wander for a while on her own while I put the goats to bed. By this stage it was 9pm but the goats still wanted a cuddle so I obliged, it is really hard not to want to spend time with such cute, interactive little beings. Then, before I too went to bed I put the little girl into the kennel and she settled down for the night. Sam checked her half an hour later and she was asleep, so too was Shamey.
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