Today #35 went back to the main paddock from the hospital/nursery. She was looking strong and was to the point of hogging all the food and keeping the smaller pigs from eating so she earned a trip back to the normal world. There was some sweet justice in grabbing a pig that’s knocking everyone around and biting and putting her butt back in the paddock to fend for herself. I never have liked bullies.
#38 is a pig that is with all the young pigs, but she is way bigger than everyone else. At least 80 pounds and probably 100. At this size, you can’t just do what you want with the pig by hand. Unfortunately #38 has gotten the funk that the other little pigs have and she needed some medicine. The problem is, she’s just too big to grab and haul to the barn. Miguel and I decided to just hold her down in the regular paddock and treat her. Yeah, that sounds easier said than done. I was trying to work on apples so I didn’t want to get dirty. I prepared the medicine and told Miguel to grab to pig so I could give her an injection. Suddenly the lethargic pig was full of energy. Miguel rode her around a couple of laps before we finally were able to work together and get her on the ground. The good news is we were able to get some medicine into her and today she is bright eyed and curly tailed.
The rest of the pigs who are in the barn convalescing all look great except for 27, 29, 36, and 37. Actually 36 and 37 look fine but I want to keep them in observation for a few days longer to make sure they are ok. 27 and 29 need to fatten up a bit, they are looking a bit puny. Once some of the other pigs are out of there the remaining pigs will have more food than they can eat. This will let them quickly put on some body condition before we turn them back out into the regular paddock. If they don’t put on condition fast enough, we’ll just put them in with the next batch of 20 pigs. Kind of like holding them back a grade in elementary school. They go from being the runt to the big kid in class.