[Gpdd] CARE: Ari's new baby piggies

ME me at buddies.org
Sun Oct 28 16:10:26 EDT 2012


Babies are almost always more active and chatty than their elders ... though I've had a few adults that remained more like their younger selves.

One of my current babies (though she's growing up awfully fast as two months have flown by ... already 500 grams now) loves getting petted, but she can't sit still while I'm doing it.  I had originally thought she was running away from me, but then she'd immediately come back to me and wait for me to pet her again.  If I just scratch her on top of her head, she'll sit still for a little bit, but then she gets bored of that and head butts my hand until I'd pet her whole body again ... and then she starts popping all around again.

One thing I do to get them used to human activity around the cage is "clean up" their food.  I ignore them and just pick up their food and put it back in the bowl, calling them "messy babies."  My adults think of this as a game we play ... it often gets their curiosity up and they come over to see what my hands are doing ... they often also eat while I'm picking up.  The babies see this and get curious as well and come out to eat, and since all my attention is being given to their food, they don't feel threatened at all.

I've found that small babies can be introduced and live with adults just fine.  I've had little 300 gram babies with 1500+ gram adults.  I was a little apprehensive this time about introducing the babies to my group this time since my established herd has been together for two years and they're all around the same age (2 of them I got 2.5 years ago, 3 of them I got 2 years ago).  Usually I have larger range of ages, but 2009-2010 contained a horrible 11 months where I was tending to sick piggies, often 2 or 3 at the same time ... my whole herd of 3.5 - 7 year olds died.  There was a bit of bullying from a couple of the adults, but it never escalated from just a bit of chasing and a little nipping ... I had little chats with the offenders, telling them it wasn't okay ... it ended within a couple of days.

Babies tend to be resilient and might have hurt feelings for a couple seconds when being picked on, but they quickly forget.  They're faster and more maneuverable than the adults.  So, unless they're actually getting injured, I wouldn't worry.  I've even had adults run over babies, and the babies don't say a word ... I think most of the time it's been unintentional since the babies are usually partially hidden in hay.



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