Small (sic) beginnings

I love my pigs.

From the time a neighbour presented me with Pickles and Pork, and the subsequent days of raising Piggylet, the piggery has grown at its own peaceful pace, with a number of slaughterings in between, to the respectable number of two breeding boars and 7 breeding sows, most of which are raising piglets at the moment.   Suddenly last week I woke up to the fact that toting up the newbies, we now have about 60 pigs! At the moment most of them are diminutive but they don't stay that way for long...

This is what piggylet grew into...

Meet the new juvenile delinquents...

When peering over their enclosure one is met with the straight inquisitive stares of 36 eyes and 36 cocked ears, 18 sniffling snouts and questioning grunts -

An attentive mommy with spotty kids!

Pigs have different personalities.   In two weeks this is the closest glimpse I have had of this sow's piglets, and I'm left guessing as to how many she dilligently hides from me in the grass.   And then she gives me the eye....

Yet her nextdoor neighbour is so relaxed, lying off to the side in the sun while the little ones are feeling a bit of sun on their bodies for the first time too...

There is a saying, "breeding like rabbits".   Whoever coined that idiom didn't know pigs...