No one who has done this as long as we have can honestly say they haven’t had a few disasters. Large or small, they happen. A good breeder has been doing it long enough to be able to stay calm, but an individual who is new to pigs may need some help. That’s another function your breeder should be able to provide. We sell our pigs with unlimited lifetime support and we are always just a phone call or text away.

One Christmas a man came to pick up his baby. It cuddled into Tammy’s arms when she picked it up and held it because it knew her. But when we handed it to it’s new owner, the head came up and the mouth started gasping like a fish out of water. The man was alarmed and started to panic.  He was one of those people we have all run into who takes a bath in cologne or after shave. I could smell him 3 feet away. Pigs do not have good eyesight but they have an excellent sense of smell and some of the receptacles are located in the mouth. They literally “taste” the air. And this pig was clearly offended by the overpowering cologne!  How do you tell someone their pig thinks they stink? It isn’t easy to suggest he might be a little less liberal on his toiletries. She eventually got used to the smell and decided it wasn’t dangerous and went into his arms.

Another owner called to say they couldn’t find their pig and it wouldn’t come to them. When asked, they said they had gotten home and put it down on the floor of their 2 bedroom apartment. It ran off and they didn’t see it for the rest of the afternoon. When they did spot it, he was scooting under beds or behind chairs. Please read the article on bringing your pig home before you do the same thing. They were so mad that it didn’t just come to them and stated they were going to bring it back. No problem, but of course they couldn’t catch it. It took a while to explain to them that they just needed to put food and water down in a bathroom and wait for the pig to seek out the food. It eluded them for two days before they got it trapped in the bathroom and were able to catch it. This may well have been a case where the pig was smarter than the owner.

Finally there was the woman who called saying her pig was sick. We asked her why she thought that and she said because all it did was sleep. It was a newly weaned baby of only about 4 weeks old. It was from a large litter and the many children were pulling the mother down in weight despite huge feedings morning and night. As they were eating well, vet instructed us to wean the babies immediately. We kept the males for another week to make sure they were healed from neutering, but we let the females go home. Like all babies of any species, her young pig slept a lot. As it grew older it was much more active.