For the first 24 hours, the two current piglets (Lava and Shelly) were afraid of them. Truthfully, it was funny to see those two 12 week old pigs, obviously larger, run in terror from the little guys. Must have been a numbers thing....5 against 2. But by the next day they were all a happy herd. This is the first time I've introduced strange pigs to one another, so I found the group dynamics to be interesting. I wasn't sure if they would fight or not. Happily, no fights.
The pigs have a fairly large (about 50' by 100') grass filled pen to run in. They'll gradually munch it down as the weeks go by. But I don't intend the grass to be their sole food source. In fact, I'm hoping they don't eat it down too quickly. I need time to build another pasture or two for them so that I can rotate them between the pens. So I'm feeding them as much Mom's Famous Slop & Glop as they want three times a day.
So what's in the slop bucket this week? First of all, everything is processed through a grinder and cooked. Cracked corn. Taro leaves and corms. Sweet potato vines. Sweet potatoes. Bananas. Okinawan spinach. Pipinolas. Papayas. Eggs.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all these piglets. One will be going into the freezer early. It's a biter and aggressive with the other piglets. So that's an easy decision. But I'll let it grow a couple of weeks before sending that one to its fate, as long as it doesn't hurt or overly bully the others. I have a person who wants one of the females for breeding purposes, so one of the girls will be leaving shortly. Other than that, time will tell what comes of the others.
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