Hey, I'm off duty!
My pigs are pretty used to a temperate climate; we don't get very hot, or very cold. Most of the year I'd guess we're at 40 degrees, so when it gets above 50, the pigs act like they're in a sauna.
My fields have various types of soils in them, and what the pigs like the best is this light grey mud. It's a very fine silt, and feels like oil in your hands. I think that the pigs love the feeling because they seek it out; the black boar is in the favorite mud wallow, and because he's pretty high status, he's in there alone. When he's done, other pigs will move in. He probably weighs 500lbs.
What? I'm laying here!
Stripe has decided she doesn't want to wait, and is out wading in this wallow. She's a medium sized sow, maybe 400, really a sweet girl. Nice Hampshire markings on her, too. Hampshire are all black with a white strip across the shoulders. Her stripe is wider than most, hence her name.
The pigs that it can't get too hot for are the piglets. The LOVE it when its hot. They don't have much insulating fat, and they're pretty skinny (read lots of surface area for mass) and no matter how hot it gets you'll find them out laying in the sun, soaking up as much of it as they can get. They're very fast and active at this age; about a week old.
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2 comments:
Pigs are so cute! I wish I could have a little piglet. I'm not allowed though. "Because they're gross and they get HUGE."
Any thoughts?
Well, you can always eat them before they get too big. They're delicious small, too.
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