i have piggies :D

[LackaDAISYcal]

:o

I brought not two, but THREE gorgeous little piggies home yesterday. They are from the same litter, so it would have been wrong to split them up leaving just one (well that's my excuse anyway). There are identical twins who are black and tan, and their sis who is mostly lilac with a tan splodge. Dad is an abyssinian, and mum a gorgeous himalayan. I am sooooo excited, much more than my DC are

They are so teeny tiny, and utterly terrified, poor things :(. I'm worried about them eating, but they seem to have polished off the pepper strips I left them last night and being tiny I don't suppose they will eat a huge amount.

What veg is best for them? I have in the fridge; broccoli, lettuce, pepper, cucumber, courgettes, mange-tout, baby corn, carrots and green beans.

And they have hay and piggy nuts in with them.

It's like having a newborn all over again :o

soooooooooooooo

Baby piglets are gorgeous. (my pigs had unexpected litters when I was a child, so we had newborns) They fit neatly in your hand -you might need to cup your other hand over your pig if they are the 'daring,flying leap variety' !

They will be very timid to begin with.Even if they have been handled before their new home is completely new -new smells, new noises, new voices. All they know is each other.
You'll find out who the bossy one is, who's the meek followers.See who is first at the food bowl and who pushes the other ones out of the way.

If you've got boys, you'll need to get them off to the cavy-savvy vet to have their Gentleman's Operation, otherwise they'll quite happily get their sister pregnant, then when they reach their terrible teens (about 6 months) there will be arguements between the boars, if there is competition for a female. (Our two boys are un neutered but they are pure like the Jonas Brothers- no girls)
Or are all your pigs girls? (Twins and a sister)

Food-wise: they like a selection , but be careful with lettuce. No iceberg, it's too watery.Other lettuce is ok.
We tend to give a leaf (cabbage), rocket, carrot, pepper, some fruit once or twice a week and parsley twice a week.
At the moment ours are scoffing grass and dandelions.

Check their droppings as well (they will be tiny!) -though with more than one you can't tell whose is whose. Check their bottoms are clean, runny bottoms might mean they are eating too much veg.I've had pigs with soft poohs (one of our boars does huge soft poohs at certain times, but never had one with proper diarrohea.)

Fresh water at least once a day (and maybe two bottles) fresh pellets daily -baby GPs sit in their bowl and of course, they pooh in it. Veg twice a day, and take all the bits they 'hide' in their bed for later.

Are your piglets inside or outside at the moment? If they are in, have you had the "Wheek Wheek" when the fridge is opened, or you chop something? Our boars used to grass me up when I was eating a late night bag of crisps.

Enjoy their baby stage, take lots of pics, you'll look back and think- were they ever that tiny?

Abasynnians tend to be smaller than the smooth coats.
I've had smooth, abasynnians and one peruvian (she was very high maintainence!).

The smooth coats were the original GP before they did all the fancy coat bredding. So they had more meat on them.

They're all girls. There was one brother, but he was earmarked for stud duties!

They've eaten all the pepper strips, and have had some brocolli today, but so far haven't ventured further than 6 inches from their bed box. I've been out all morning, and DH said they had a right old ding dong at one point. The bigger twin and the lilac were having a disagreement, and poor twin2 sat shaking in the corner! I guess they are vying for top pig position!

They are indoor in a 1m cage at the minute, but I am working on getting them a proper outdoor and indoor run. I can see them taking over our life and spare room very quickly.

Oh, and they've inherited mum's smooth coat; their brother was the only whorly one.

Just had a cuddle, and twin1 has obviously got the worst of the fight earlier and Is a bit scabby behind her ear :(

Should I do anything, or just keep an eye on it for now?

Probably as you say just a vying for position squabble. Give them some little boxes to hide in .but make sure they have 2 cutout doors (cardboard boxes are ideal) or a wide enough door so that a piglet can't be trapped by another one.

You could put the food bowl, veg bowl and water apart so that there is no crowding.
If they do have a squabble maybe flick some water droplets at them to break it up without harming them or a water spray gun, on soft spray to 'mist' them. Then make sure they are dried, they don't like water much.
They are bound to have little scraps though, it's all part of their pecking order.

(We always lift our GP1 first, he's the more bolshy one. There has only been one fight between ours and I'm inclinded to blame the coriander that they gorged themselves on. Our GP2 attacked his brother, but it was a one off.They have their indoor cage separated but fine with more space)

When they get bigger, they will need loads of room. There's lots of websites that give minimum measurements, but the bigger the better.
Lots of little boxes, tunnels, hay to burrow in. They love to be busy little creatures.

You'll have lots of guinea cuddles to look forward to. (I had Mothers Day breakfast in bed with my DDs GP (GP1) cadging bits of toast crust from me)

Keep a check on her little baby ear, maybe bathe it with warm water.The can get abcesses from bites, but luckily I've not had that happen to any of my pigs.

We did have a mum/daughter (who were Himalayan) who didn't like a new sow (interloper) .She had a surprise baby sow (we didn't know she was pg).
We had to keep them as mum/daughter pairs until the oldest died, then they were fine.
IIRC the new sow got a bit of a ripped ear from the old girl

Do any of them have pink eyes? (Not so good eyesight with pinkies)

The lilac has pink eyes; she seems to be the boss so far.

They have eaten some broccoli and I've given them a bit of carrot and baby corn, and had another little cuddle. They don't appear to have eaten any dried food or hay, but they had some alfalfa hay things that DS1 bought and they've gone. I haven't seen them drink anything, but the water bottle seems a bit above their reach.

I might stick a bowl in for them. And is red cabbage ok?

Can't believe how much I'm fretting around them

And there are two boxes and a cardboard tunnel. They were in separate cubby holes when I went to give them their supper earlier.

I've popped home from work on my break, but have a few days off now to spend with my family them

Have to say your fridge contents are much healthier than mine Daisy! DS2 was sistraught he couldn't give his rabbits a carrot today

I give ours red cabbage, it gets eaten when they've eaten everything else.
Be careful with spinach and watercress though, it can cause kidney problems.

We usually give our pigs a choice of five or so fresh fruit/veg so that they have variety.
And when my fridge looks a bit bare, I cut fresh grass for them.

Our fridge salad drawer is full og guinea veg, I feel quite smug in the supermarket when I load up .DH and I are vegetarian so there is always something for them.

But when I did an Emergency Parsley Run on Boxing Day at 4pm, the checkout girl was a bit until I explained that my little hogs needed it. Any other sane person would have been sprawled out with the Morcombe and Wise Show and hot,sweet tea. Not me

Have a look on the thread "list of GP food" -that'll give you some ideas.

Oh, and I give my 2 a bowl of water (big shallow heavy dog bowl). The 2 water bottles I bought leaked and I couldn't work out how to make a vacuum seal.
They CBA with a hay rack either. "Mum, why should we walk all that way to the hay rack, when we can sit in the hay and eat it"
Even 'naice' hay (the herbagey stuff with marigold) didn't shift their lazy torsoes across the cage

:o Yorky. Only cos we buy it but neglect to eat it!

Thanks again 70 :) I can do parsley too, as I grow lots in the garden. Must remember to sow a few more patches of it for my girls.

They are settling in a bit better, the nuggets are disappearing and all the veg has gone, though they have just nibbled the baby corn kernels and left the cob. And it looks like the water bottle has gone down a bit.

Can't wait to spend a bit of time with them tomorrow!

mine go potty everytime ayone even stands near the fridge, never mind open it!

mine are big broccoli fans and go through hay like it is going out of fashion -can't wait until it warms up enough to get them back in their outside house, they are eating me out of house and home (I've got 3 too)

I swear them piggies have doubled in size since Tuesday :o

They are still pretty much in hiding, but I've had them out individually and two of them seem more relaxed. One of those was doing a strange quivering thing, but she seemed very relaxed.

I even took them out on the grass this afternoon as it was gorgeous here...they hid under their box the whole time!

Bought some spring greens for them today, it disappeared in about 15mins.

How much does a 5wk old put usually eat? I'm not sure how much I should give them

They will take a while to settle, they sound like they are finding their feet (or paws) at the moment.

I couldn't guess how much they'd eat (bear in mind they won't all eat the same) just try to make sure they've always got food, otherwise they might squabble.

I've got 2 adult boys, and they have their pellets,water and loads of hay.
Then salad/veg night and morning (less if they've been eating grass).
I use a plastic picnic plate and fill the middle part (that's about 5" square in the centre)

I bought some Burgess Excell Cubes today with Blackcurrant and Oregano (oooh) mainly to keep them busy.I'm going to trial them tonight.

Half of the fun of GPs is finding out what they like (they are greedy little creatures ) You'll know when a GP is ill when they stop eating.

In the summer try melon, watermelon, cucumber (ours love celery leaves) strawberries,tomato.