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Well, I just love depositing our two pigs back in their nice clean cage and having them produce four poos within twenty seconds. Good effort lads.
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Mar 17, 2013 18:58
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:41 |
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Ours comes in densely packed bags, once enough's been taken out I just put a plastic food bag clip on the top which tends to do the job. Part of owning pigs is having loving hay everywhere, embrace it. Speaking of essential pig-owning processes, I cleaned Ozzy and Dio's perineal sacs for the first time the other day. Not nearly as horrendous as I thought it would be, but they're both young-ish.
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Jun 5, 2013 16:33
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I just gave my two pigs some fresh mint leaves for the first time. Their looks of initial confusion followed by furious chomping were amazing.
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Jul 1, 2013 17:46
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Our pigs get excited by rustling, the fridge door and the kettle boiling, because humans making coffee = morning = food time! Except when it doesn't! But we don't care! WHEEEEEEEEK!
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Nov 30, 2013 10:30
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I love them trying to three stooges their way through it. 
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Jan 8, 2014 08:51
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Last night I was giving our two pigs some lap time and all of a sudden they both decided to scuttle up my chest (I was lying on my back) and sat with their faces almost pressed into mine. It was a bit unnerving so I deposited them back on my lap but they zoomed straight back up. Were they expecting me to disgorge food or something? Have they finally decided they're cool with me? They've never really done anything like this before, they're about three years old but we only got them from the previous owners a year ago, and I don't know how much they were handled then.
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Mar 8, 2014 13:42
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Captain Invictus posted:That's adorable. There was a gentle "are you food?" nibble but that's par for the course. When my wife came back into the room Dio freaked and tried to hide under my chin.
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Mar 9, 2014 11:19
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You've only mentioned pellets and fresh food... is he also getting hay? Pigs need a more or less unlimited supply of hay as it's both a staple of their diet and keeps their teeth from growing too much. Our two boys probably have 70% hay, 20% mixed veggies and 10% pellets (they're useful to keep around just to insure against any deficiencies). As for the fresh food, I'd maybe switch to non-sweet veggies for a while - he may be a little too used to the sweet stuff if he gets it with every meal. Some pigs can be picky though, try a bit of everything and I'm sure you'll find something he prefers. Herbs are usually a big hit - ours go wild for basil, parsley and mint. Cleaning the anogenital cavity isn't that bad for young boars, just do it gently using a cotton bud with a bit of vaseline. This page has some pictures and decent instructions: http://www.guinealynx.info/impaction.html General pig-tip: we recently tried adding a very small amount of alcohol-free vanilla extract to the boys' water which has helped make their urine a little less pungent. A friend does the same for her mice so I think it's a general rodent thing.
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Apr 2, 2014 18:39
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Captain Invictus posted:Rodents do weird things with water bottles. My current batch of hamsters will knead the nozzle as if it's a teat. One of our pigs, uh, deep-throats the tube.
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May 19, 2014 19:22
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My limited experience with pigs is that they get quite attached to what they consider home, so the regular trips away might be a bit much for them. Ours got grumpy with their cage being shifted to the kitchen while we redecorated the living room.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:15
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No worries, it's not something we knew about before we got our boars and you're right that in other respects pigs would be a great choice for kids - they're relatively docile, don't sleep in the day and won't escape under the floorboards.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:09
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We've finally decided to give our two guinea pigs a bit more room and get them one of the C&C cages, and when it arrives I'm taking the opportunity to try toilet training them. Currently they have woodshavings for bedding, so I'm planning on switching to something else (fleece?) and filling a corner litter tray with woodshavings to encourage them to use it. Has anyone else had success with toilet training pigs? Is this a fool's errand?
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Jun 16, 2014 23:40
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Thanks for the responses! I experimented during floor time tonight and put a few paper towels down underneath their pigloo and sure enough they went back there every 10 minutes or so to wee or poo and chew the towels a bit. Nothing at all ended up outside the pigloo... until they both tried to get in at once and shoved it around a bit.  But I'm really impressed as apparently they're self toilet-trained and I never knew. I just assumed rodents = wee and poo all day err dayWhen the new cage gets here I'll try switching them over to fleece bedding (we use fleece for floor time so it's great that they seem averse to going on it if alternatives are available) and a litter tray, maybe a covered one if that will encourage them to go more.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:08
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That's amazing. You just need a trained mouse with a rifle in a watchtower. We've constructed the new cage for our pigs, unfortunately the toilet training hasn't gone so well. I got a large corner litter tray and filled it with their old bedding (throwing a few poops in to encourage them) and they pretty much ignored it and went wherever. I'm wondering if all the change was too much for them and have switched it for the paper towel lined poophaus we use during floortime. Hopefully I can use something familiar to get them used to going in a particular spot and then think about switching things up.
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Jun 22, 2014 07:50
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Condolences, hamgoons  We're away and our pigsitter sent us a message asking if she'd put enough hay in the cage.  Maybe a tiny bit more?
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Aug 27, 2014 18:50
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Pigs are herd animals and get stressed if they're on their own. Another pig (or pigs) provides a continual gentle reassurance of "maybe the condor won't eat me first". If you're going to mix sexes neutering / spaying is obviously a must, but I've been told that neutering doesn't really change pig behaviour at all.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:47
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Yeah pigs, we spent all this money on hay for you so go ahead and lie on it while eating the newspaper sticking out from under your bedding.
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Sep 6, 2014 19:14
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Off the top of my head I'd try to keep the cage layout as similar as possible when you clean it out, keeping key things like water bottles in the same place every time. I'd also try to remove or limit multi-level sections where he could fall and injure himself. Honestly I don't think it'll impact his quality of life that much - my (admittedly limited) experience with hams is they have fairly lovely eyesight anyway and rely far more on scent and touch when navigating. If he shows signs of discomfort or his behaviour changes dramatically I'd take him to get checked straight away as it could be whatever caused his blindness is doing other nasty things. Fingers crossed and I'm sure Runt will adapt just fine.
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Sep 9, 2014 10:14
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Yeah we have a pair of boars and (very occasionally) leave them overnight, they just need to be loaded up with tons of hay, pellets and fresh food beforehand. Guinea pigs are a bit more effort than hamsters (and I guess some other rodents?) but they are still pets on easy mode.
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Sep 30, 2014 20:58
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Xoidanor posted:I will never loving understand how it makes any sense from an evolutionary standpoint for pigs to have the vocal capabilities that they do. I've always assumed that their ability to breed as fast as tribbles means that any other selective pressure on pigs gets hosed into irrelevancy.
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Oct 7, 2014 16:11
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A foot at the most, pigs can't climb or jump very well at all. e: also the one time we left our old pig cage open one of them managed to clamber over the 4 inch high wall, discovered he was somewhere strange with nowhere to hide and no hay or vegetables, and promptly tried to get back in basically pigs are like this 
Party Boat fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 16:45
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Is that her belly or haunch at the top?
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Oct 13, 2014 18:39
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You know when they lift up a leg and look like they're adorably cleaning their bellies? That's them eating a poop, fresh from the butt.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:39
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I think there's a bit around 3 minutes in where you can briefly see all seven in the same shot (although one is cunningly the same colour as the bedding).
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Oct 31, 2014 14:10
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Wheeking is the standard HEY pay attention to (and feed) me noise, it means they're happy and excited. Scared or grumpy pigs make low rumbly sounds or chew their teeth at you.
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Feb 2, 2015 21:11
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Adult Sword Owner posted:("hey! hey human! its me! look at me! NOWHATAREYOUDOINGDONTPICKMEUP *runs*) This is 100% standard pig behaviour.
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Feb 2, 2015 23:52
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Captain Invictus posted:would actively try not to pee on people Truly the greatest ham that ever lived. RIP Max.
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Apr 15, 2015 20:56
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Rodents are incredibly efficient poop machines. At least I have a compost bin now so I feel like I'm getting some value from our peegs.
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Jun 22, 2015 10:43
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That sounds like a standard Curious Pig Noise, they're definitely not distressed or anything.
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Jul 12, 2015 21:31
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It can mean a few things, generally I treat it as an "I'm interested / excited!" noise. If he's pissed off you'll hear him make a low rumbly noise.
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Nov 28, 2015 09:04
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In general pigs' pouches only get really nasty as they get older and can't expel everything themselves as their muscles get weaker. It's not a problem in the wild because in the wild there's no such thing as an old pig.
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Nov 28, 2015 12:07
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republicant posted:BUT I did get pooped on. Welcome to pig ownership! 
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Nov 29, 2015 20:24
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Any pig-specific pellets should have enough vit c in that you don't need to give additional supplements. He'll probably have enough from the variety of veggies you give him tbh, they don't need much (though you can't give them too much so don't worry about that). e: and a (occasional) bit of orange should keep him topped off nicely!
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Dec 14, 2015 08:21
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Mint is fine for peegs and they love it. The first time I gave our two boys fresh mint their reaction was initial shock followed by FURIOUS CHOMPING.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:37
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As long as the water is kept in the fridge in a clean container I can't see any issues. Also if high calcium content in the water is unavoidable then you might want to counteract it by reducing dietary calcium elsewhere: no carrots, spinach, broccoli etc. If you feed him pellets check the ingredients for calcium carbonate.
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Dec 28, 2015 17:13
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Please post the 30-50oz feral hog
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Aug 6, 2019 13:00
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Rodent thread: the only thing mine generally did was be extremely scared of it
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Jul 26, 2020 08:30
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Our pigs always tested things with a chomp. They have really terrible eyesight for detail and a thought process that goes "predator? food? sex?" on a loop so we just were careful not to leave fingers in nibbling distance.
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Sep 4, 2020 22:26
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Pants Donkey posted:Had a scary week m, with the AC breaking during 90° weather. My pigs handled it well, I gave them a bag full of ice to cool off, topped their water off constantly, and just kept a close eye in them. Just a bit nerve-wracking When we had the pigs we used to keep a few small metal weight plates in the fridge / freezer and distribute them through the cage as little heat sinks. Probably not very efficient but they seemed happy with them
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Jun 27, 2021 19:07
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 03:41 |
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Jedit posted:Pigs are just so stupid and docile  Jedit posted:that I can't really like them 
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May 2, 2022 12:58
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