Things can be interesting when you are dealing with animals.
Despite however intelligent animals may be, it can be difficult to convey messages to them or to get them to understand certain things. Our pigs and piglets are no different. Many of you may already know that the pig @smailer purchased for us recently gave birth to nine little piglets. Fortunately, all nine have survived for more than a week already.
Last week, though, one of out piglets, named "Bo-bo," was stepped on by his mother. Apparently her hoof tore open the skin on one of his hind quarters. We did some quick repairs, but taking care of accidents is only part of the issue. Ideally, we should strive to be preventing them as well.
It is not all that uncommon for mama hogs to step on or even lay on their piglets. This can not only cause injury, but sometimes also death. Since nobody wants a dead piglet, we figured that we should have a "safe zone" for the piglets. The "safe zone" is somewhere that the piglets can enter but the mother cannot follow. It is a place that the piglets can avoid any potential harm that the mama pig may accidentally inflict upon them. Apparently this can be a fairly common practice in modern pig raising.
I used some heavy panels that some neighbors had from a hog farming operation that they had taken down. The piglets can fit under and through it, but the mom is just too big.
OUR BASIC PLAN
Our basic plan was to turn the pen that our mama pig was in into a pen with three different sections. It would have an area for just the mama, a place for just the piglets, and a place for the mama and the piglets to interact, like when it was feeding time. That way, when the mom had no intention of feeding the piglets, or when the piglets needed to nap or not be feeding, they could each head to their own areas. Sure, that was the goal, but how do you let animals know and understand that? How indeed, we had even made this part of the pen for them before Bo-bo was stepped on.
FIGURING IT OUT - ANOTHER HOG VLOG
SUCCESS!!!
As you may have seen in the video, something that was very encouraging happened!
I was blessed on day six of their lives that they had already figured it out on their own. When I came down at some point to check on them, it was apparently nap time. All nine of the little piglets were fast asleep in their safe zone, completely out of harm's way. They had figured it out!
When I made the modified pen for them nine days ago I had no idea if it would work or if they would actually use it. Thankfully, they are! Hopefully no other piglets will end up like Bo-bo now.
The other STEEM-powered hogs were also enjoying a nap together. They looked so cute like that. Also, it seems like another female may be pregnant... but we are not sure yet. We will keep you posted!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-piglets-figuring-it-out
Until next time…
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