[Gpdd] HEALTH: Baby Truffles to stay at the vet's

[ME]

I put the vit C in the water I'm hand feeding.  I doubt very much  
that it degrades that quickly.

I've found that my mixtures work best (over Critical Care) for hand  
feeding since I'm using their normal food.  I've had soft poop  
problems with long term use of Critical Care.

The first stage I just hand feed dry pellets.  This works most of the  
time, and since it's their food in the form they're accustomed, I  
never have digestive problems with it.

If they can't handle the dry pellets, I run their dry pellets through  
a coffee bean grinder (which has only been used for their pellets)  
and use that powder to make a mash.  I mix it with a bit of canned  
pumpkin since the wet pellets do not stick together and makes it  
difficult to bring into a syringe.

If there's a sore in the mouth or for some reason they're not taking  
in the mash, I go to the canned pumpkin.  With Liberty a few weeks  
ago, I did go straight to the pumpkin because I had a feeling she  
couldn't handle the mash.  I suggested this since it sounded like  
Truffles wasn't wanting to eat Critical Care.

All my pigs have had canned pumpkin on occasion as a treat, so it's  
not a foreign food to them.  I use it to teach them to take a  
syringe.  I like it since it's a solid food, not a liquid, so it most  
likely won't get into the lungs, especially important during  
training.  Most pigs like the taste, too.  So, what I do is when I  
have newcomers I just start filling a syringe with pumpkin.  I put  
the syringe in front of each pig.  The veterans attack the  
syringe ... the babies usually shy away from it for the first few  
times.  But since this isn't vital medication, it's fine with me that  
they're not taking it.  Eventually, they usually get curious and try  
it out.  I only have one pig (she likes to hide ... she still won't  
take veggies from my hand most of the time) that doesn't grab a  
syringe.  It works so well that when I have to give meds, I have to  
isolate the one who requires the meds.  Once I tried to do it in the  
cage, and I had a bunch trying to get at the syringe!  Of course, as  
soon as they smell the meds, they often shy away ... but usually  
after the first dose, they take it willingly ... unless it's Baytril  
(they tend not to like it).