The Fate of the Injured Piglets
It’s been a hell of a month on the block since Phyllis gave birth. We’ve both been incredibly busy both at home and at work and fatigue has set in. I’ve been struggling mentally to keep going. I feel like I’m caught in a rip. I’m fighting to get back to my happy place but I feel like the more I’m doing the less I’m achieving. There’s an awful feeling of getting sucked under the weight of ‘To Do Lists’ and deadlines. For 2 weeks after Phyllis injured her piglets I cleaned and dressed wounds twice a day. At a week old the piglets were well and truly content to race around the paddock, to dig in the dirt under the trees and to wallow in mud. I observed this continual exposure to dirt and waited for infection to set in and for piglets to die.
The little girl with the broken leg learnt to run on 3 legs and kept up really well. In fact she often ran so fast she would trip and roly poly along the ground. I’d wince at the thought of the pain.
The whole thing was emotionally draining and Phyllis continued to be annoyed by my presence. 
Today I observe these piglets and I cannot tell you which piglet had the broken leg. After 3 weeks of holding her leg in the air she tentatively stretched it out straight and started to hobble around on all 4 legs. 3 days later the hobble was gone and we could not detect even a slight limp in any of the piglets.
I cannot recognise the piglet with the degloved foot either. The skin reformed, closed over the wound and after a week of having a bumpy looking foot I cannot tell you which piglet he was.
As for the piglet with the horrific degloving injury, the only way to recognise him is that he has a very small tag of skin and hair in his groin. For the first 2 weeks he did not seem to grow and yet his wound seemed to heal, shrinking and scabbing over. The flap of skin that had hung from his body shrank and curled over, forming the tag of skin in his groin. He kept rubbing off his scab and I kept putting on the antiseptic cream. It worked.
Since his injury he has literally grown new skin and hair over the wound. Absolutely Unf***ing believable is really the only way to describe it. I have witnessed the amazing healing powers of pigs before but this just blows me away. No one would look at this piglet and believe it had suffered such an horrific injury with virtually no visible sign of it 4 weeks later. No human could survive such an injury without stitches, skin grafts, drugs and all manner of human intervention. The recuperation would be long and the scars would be ugly and a permanent reminder of the accident.
If humans could regrow skin and stave off infection like pigs we would have limited use for hospitals and drugs. The power of pig healing is far superior to anything we humans possess. They seem to have an incredibly high pain threshold and a very strong survival instinct.
Quite frankly, had I not witnessed these events myself I would not believe them. How is it possible to regrow skin and hair and for it to all join up and leave no scar? This piglet also started to put on weight at 2 weeks of age and has caught up so well that he is virtually the same size as his siblings.
The Pig Plough
When we moved Joy and the piglets into the top orchard we did nothing to the long kikuyu grass. There just wasn’t time to cut it. Instead we focused on putting barriers around the orchard trees. Joy had successfully eaten 3 in the lower orchard and we didn’t want to lose any more.
I moved them on Saturday morning at breakfast time. Aaron was in KatiKati picking up a saddleback sow so I was on my own. No worries at mealtime though. At mealtime a pig loses its ability to think and reason. I held the breakfast buckets in my hands, swung open the gate, called out “Here piggie, piggie” and they bolted after me. The whole operation took less than a minute.
I left them to eat breakfast and then went back down to the shed and got a bucket of apples. Back up at Joy’s paddock I threw apples all over the paddock and the pigs took off around the orchard, snuffling through grass looking for them.
I came back about an hour later to check on them and was stunned to see Joy and piglets working hard to clear a large square of earth to one side. They’d completely dug out a large karamu I’d ummed and aahed over whether to save. It was dug up with all roots intact and dropped on the spot. I picked it up and went and replanted it in the duck paddock.
By lunchtime the pigs were all fast asleep on the bare earth they’d cleared. There really is nothing so efficient at clearing kikuyu grass than a pig. Not only do they eat the grass but they absolutely love digging up all the roots and runners. What the pigs managed to do in a couple of hours would take me so long I wouldn’t even bother. Even better, once they clear an outside sleeping area they love to clear around all the fencelines and trees before starting on anything else.
Joy and Apron Strings
What the hell is up with our girl Joy?! Her babies are almost 4 months old and big, fat, baby porkers. She should have weaned them at approx. 6 weeks of age but still she has not. Joy has lost far too much weight and cannot compete with her babies at meal time.
Last week she was looking almost gaunt. That was it. Enough was enough. The babies had to go. We were due to move Joy and the piglets in to the top orchard on the weekend and after a day together we would remove the boys and put them in with Stanley.
Sunday arrived and 2 ½ buckets of apple bribes later we were finally able to sneak the boys out the paddock and while Aaron continued to distract Joy with apples I enticed the boys around the house and part way down the drive with handfuls of feta. All was going well until the boys sniffed something in the grass, temporarily froze as if in fright and then turned and bolted back to where they had come from. What the…?! Meanwhile Joy had figured out her boys were gone and gone into another maternal rage and suddenly we had chaos again. I opened the gate to where Joy was and one of the boys ran in but the other 2 shot off around the side and raced up to the back fence. I opened the back gate and they shot in to where Joy was now waiting and then she seemed to race around mentally counting before mum and piglets all collapsed in the wallow.
Aaron and I were gobsmacked. This whole situation is completely insane. Aaron threw his hands in the air “I give up!” Joy would surely get sick and die if this carried on. We had to ensure Joy put on weight. And then I got an idea. In their new paddock Aaron had rolled in one of our large octagonal picnic tables for the piglets to lie under and Joy to scratch against. I suggested we try putting Joy’s trough on the seat and the piglets ones on the ground.
At dinner time we trialled it and we had success. While Con figured out he could stand on his back legs and partake of the food in Joy’s trough it proved to be too much of a strain and he eventually resorted to the easy on the ground trough system.
As long as Joy can get nearly a bucket of food into her each mealtime, we should be able to get her to put on weight. I wonder if she will ever cut those apron strings though…
Rings Do Not Belong in Pig Noses
Since Arthur has been alone in his own paddock, just over 4 weeks now, he has been listless. Occasionally he will grunt at the girls across the drive but last week I noticed a slightly disturbing habit. Arthur had started sleeping all day, only rising to eat. In turn his weight had suddenly shot up. He now seems absolutely enormous when I stand next to him.
He has a big paddock with lots of interest. What was the problem? And then I stood there and looked around his paddock and the problem suddenly became very clear. Other than the pond, there’s been no digging since Phyllis left. Arthur can only forage for roots and bugs when another pig helps him with the digging. Alone and unable to dig Arthur is bored. Very, very bored.
What the hell does a pig do when it can’t act on its desire to dig? Nothing, that’s what. A pig can do nothing and so it does nothing. It is the equivalent of putting a child in a sandpit with a bucket and spade and then tying his hands behind his back. My god, I curse that god forsaken ring every time I see the bloody thing. It was an enormous thing when he arrived but now Arthur is so big it is barely noticeable. Not to Arthur of course. It’s a permanent reminder to him. It’s not like putting a tongue stud in, where the inconvenience is only there for days. A nose ring equals permanent discomfort. It’s a barbaric practice and quite frankly, if you want to put a ring in a pig nose then you don’t deserve to own such a wonderful creature.
Who are these people with such pristine paddocks that they cannot cope with the thought of a little ploughing? It’s such a common practice here in good old Kiwi land that no one thinks twice. It should be banned. But that doesn’t help Arthur.
I keep trying to turn it to get to the hinge part of it but he flinches and pulls away. I have noticed it has started to rust inside his nose. I hope this means it will eventually break and fall out. It is unfortunately the only solution.
So anyway, Aaron suggested we try stimulating Arthur’s imagination and so he opened the gate to the bottom paddock so that Arthur can roam in and out at will. He regularly goes for walks around the paddock now and we have cut back the size of his meals. Aaron and I have also started walking with him and he seems to like it. He grunts constantly as he ambles along next to us. It is a shame we don’t have the money to properly fence Phyllis’ current paddock in 2, Then he could be on one side and the girls on the other and they could all keep each other company without the girls getting pregnant. I’m sure the piglets would also have great fun getting to know their dad.
The Return of the Glorious Ute
After one too many spills of cheese in the boot, a couple of flat tyres and a seriously bouncy suspension, Aaron finally decided he’d thrashed the Caldina one too many times.
He logged onto Trade me and for a week we scanned the listings for a ute. Finally we found a double cab, Ford Courier ute just out of Matakana. We bid, we got and $2,200 later we suddenly became a 3 car family.
I parked my Levin for the last time and took the keys of the Caldina. Now it’s my turn to list a car on Trade Me. I looked at the Levins on Trade Me and they’re all listed at ridiculously high prices. No one is selling my model for less than $3000. Dude, if I’d known they were worth something I might have cleaned her every now and then!
So anyway, I wasn’t expecting to get over $1000 so once I’ve finished cleaning her (you have no idea how hard it is to clean away 3 years of dirt!) I’ll list her for $1500 and hope for the best. It’ll be hard saying goodbye. Talk about reliable. But to be fair she’s no farm vehicle. She isn’t capable of carrying anything more supermarket shopping.
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