[Gpdd] Rainbow Bridge: Nutmeg

[Anneli Cochrane]

Hello all. This past week I lost my old girl Nutmeg. She was at least 8
years old and outlived both of her daughters, Cinnamon and Biscuit. Besides
drinking water incessantly and getting rather thin, she seemed to have more
energy than her younger cage mate Clover and had a great appetite. It was
only a few hours before her death that she stopped eating and running
around during floor time. I trimmed her nails, had floor time, petted her,
and a few hours later she was gone. I am so happy that she didn't appear to
suffer, it seems like my last few pigs had so much suffering at the end, so
I was almost relieved to have an elder pig pass peacefully. The only part
that was particularly sad was she had passed while laying in a small igloo,
and I found her like that with her cage mate Clover crammed in there with
her almost laying on her. Clover is now alone in the cage, as her mom
Flower passed in January and now Nutmeg is gone. I am waiting to see how
she does. I don't know if it helps or not that the boys are around, since
they obviously aren't in the cage with her. It's been a long time since
I've had only 3 pigs, and unfortunately they all have to live in separate
cages. I counted and Nutmeg will be pig #13 in my little graveyard. I know
many of you have had many more, but that feels like an awful lot to me.
Some of you may remember my story of when I brought Nutmeg home as a 4 week
old and she got away from me, and ran quite a distance, through brush and
everything, over to my neighbors. Fortunately we found her in a hollow log
right before it got dark. I had never seen a pig run like that, and lucky
we found her because little did we know she was already carrying her
daughters. As all my pigs get trained to run up the stairs in the house (to
their cages), Nutmeg was still running until about a week before her death,
not bad for an old pig.
Anneli