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| The fitting pig is the middle one now sharing an enclosure with his brother and sister |
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| The big bully (although he is a nice pig away from his fitting brother) |
Saturday morning feeding time we found one the pigs from a group of five acting strangely. Confused and wandering around unstable on his legs. foaming at the mouth we new the tell tell signs we have experienced before. He had hit the electric fence and had a fit, which seems to make them more attracted to the electric fencing as they stumble around or worse fall into the wet mud. A lot easier to move around when small pigs do get very heavy and a kind of dead weight when having a seizure. He was overlooked by farmer J (his a bit stronger than me) as the others was fed.
Once the fitting had past then came the bullying as pigs seem to sense when one isn't quiet right and as in nature you get rid of the weakest. Our bully came in the size of the biggest male, chasing the black pig around the enclosure. The other three didn't seem to be bothered by their poorly brother.
So it meant not being able to leave them all together and to have a move around. Thankfully the bully came out of the enclosure first followed by the smallest pig of the siblings who is being bucket fed (too slow to eat enough when left to share from the troughs) he gets special treatment and an egg thrown in for breakfast and tea (which speeds up the eating process and stops him from getting bored with the cereal). Funny enough the big bully wont go anywhere near his bucket as although being the smallest he does give a nip if needed to the others.
The other three left in their enclosure are getting on fine and no more fits as yet. We are back to normal happy pigs, apart from the need for more feed buckets to be carried up the hill, another water container to be constantly filled, mud to be kicked away from the electric fence, post to banged in when they are up rooted and a pig sty to be mended due to pig destruction.
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