Piggies!

I'm having so much fun with my piggies every day. They are very serious about their food - or, slop, as we say in pig language. I approach the pen cautiously with my buckets as they line up and look at me as if to say, "Okay, Lady, put the food down and back away slowly and nobody will get hurt!" I use my shepherd's crook to pull the bowls closer to the fence so I don't have to climb over to get them. Once the boys have some food in their bellies I feel safer about getting in the pen with them. I like to feel their rubbery noses. Unfortunately, the BOCE kids have scared me with their pig stories about the uncle who had his forearm swallowed by a pig, etc. Scaring me was the intended affect I'm sure. After their liquid slop, water mixed with ground oats, corn, etc., the boys get a molasses covered corn treat called Fitting. Any meal scraps come later. I'll be sorry when I can't spend as much time with the boys come fall, school, sheep shows, and early darkness. The boys won't be with me too far into the winter. I've enjoyed spoiling them with treats and giving them the nicest piggie pasture I've ever seen pigs enjoy. They are only going to have one really bad day.