Tank is looking pretty darned big. her belly is so big it's almost dragging on the ground. She's a pretty tall sow, usually has 10-12" of ground clearance. I'm going to rub some bag balm on her tommorow. Walking around with her belly so low means that her udders get scraped by the grass and ground, and get red and tender.
You can see the grass hits her even when it's pretty short.
The pups are growing like weeds. They've discovered that sleeping in the hay is pretty darn warm and comfortable.
They weigh about 25lbs now, of an adult weight of about 60lbs, so we're halfway. They spend their day hunting fieldmice. Monster and Kat actually find the fieldmice and kill them. Monster eats them, but kat gives them to her pups who spend an hour or two tossing them around. They're interested in the live mice, just haven't figuried out the killing part yet.Kat, their mom, is showing more promise as a herding dog. She helped me recover a chicken today that got out of the coops -- ran in front of it, cut it off, and then herded it right back to me. I'm going to look for a herding trainer around here.
This is our boar. he's a handsome fellow, about 20 months old, and weighs around 500lbs. he's a berkshire boar. This is the animal that I am aware of when I'm working in their pasture. He'll sometimes see me on the other side of the pasture, and run all the way across. I'm pretty sure I can't outrun him. So while he's galloping at me I have to decide whether it's a backrub he's after, or if he's grumpy. So far he's been mostly itchy, but every now and then he'll come over and try to bite me. He's only half-interested in biting me -- he doesn't make any sort of followup, and I don't tolerate it, but it's a balancing act. I do not turn my back on this animal without having the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
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