How to Raise an Orphaned Piglet

When I lived in the city I knew very little about farm animals. Yes, I'd seen them at the agricultural shows and given them a pat, remarked at how much they smell and then went off to wash my hands and buy an icecream. If I had only known then how much joy farm animals would one day bring into my life, I would have absconded with a piglet right then and there.

We have already established how much I love sheep. Sheep are beautiful, good natured and gentle creatures for the most part. Yes, you do get the odd Enoch to come along and spoil their record of sweetness. And in the paddocks sheep can be downright inconsiderate to each other. But we must expect that. After all humans are often downright inconsiderate of each other- how can we demand better behaviour from sheep than we do from ourselves!

This is the story of Rufus the Red and Dolph the Dark- two little orphaned piglets who stole my heart, figuratively speaking of course! According to all sources I read, raising orphaned piglets is not easy and they often die. We were very lucky and both out boys survived the attentions of farming amateurs like us!

Here they are on first arrival, under the heat lamp keeping warm. They cannot control their own temperature, lose heat quickly and must have a heat source kept at between 27- 30 degrees celcius available. Give them room to move and they will move towards the lamp when cold and away from it when too hot. They also need to be kept out of draughts and kept dry. We had them inside a pen filled with straw, inside a shed.