My husband, Phil, has always commented on wanting pigs. When we first bought this property, I remember him mentioning it jokingly and I not taking it that seriously. Whenever it came up, I would dismiss it, saying logically that we had no use for a pig and I had absolutely no interest in raising one for meat, so there was no need to entertain the conversation further. But then I started volunteering for Pony Up Rescue for Equines in Olalla and met two particular pigs that made me consider things a little differently.
Precious and Perfect are their names. Juliana and Kune Kune mixes, they both weigh about 200 lbs each and are the sweetest girls imaginable. New to the operation at the time, I mentioned that my husband (fiance at the time) wanted pigs and Rosemary, the president of the organization and owner of the farm, began informing me about all the things pigs are capable of doing for you and your farm. They are great rototillers for one, are extremely smart, and a great solution for any leftover produce or garden scraps you may have lying about. She offered to adopt them to me and I considered it enough to ask Phil about it.
Precious and Perfect did come live with us for a short time, but we weren't quite setup for them and it became pretty clear early on that they might be better suited back in their large paddock at Pony Up rather than here on our farm with the highway noise and less room to run around. We cared for them and gave them plenty of love, but Rosemary missed them and they missed her. Pigs have memory and are very empathetic creatures. They returned to Pony Up after a few months of fostering with us and are still there happily trotting about their large pigyard with their new sister Maizy, a potbelly pig that was taken in by the rescue last year. I still see these sweet girls during my volunteer shifts and they still enjoy scratches and the bananas I bring them as treats.
So, where am I going with this? Well, Precious and Perfect weren't the only pigs to grace the soil of Crow's Croft Farm. In August of 2016, I went on a business trip to San Diego. Phil was home working and minding the major house project going on at the time. Our roof was being completely redone and restructured. He kept me informed the entire week with pictures of the progress. My favorite was the picture he sent me of the living room with no ceiling other than blue sky above. It was a huge undertaking, but completely necessary. As you can imagine, there were a lot of pictures sent my way during that week in San Diego, so I didn't think twice really when my phone alerted me to a text message from Phil while I was out having dinner with a mutual friend of ours mid-week. My thoughts were centered on "oh, another update on the roof." You can imagine my surprise when this picture was what I found.
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| Phil and Willard the piglet, August 2016 |
Our mutual friend laughed for a good five minutes while I stared at the photo after showing it to him and calmly answered the text with, "Um...who is that?"
Phil's response "Meet Willy Freeway Nelson Days!" As you can plainly tell, my husband has a knack for choosing names for our pets.
"He's cute. Where did he come from?" was my response.
Later that night during our evening call, Phil filled me in. A friend of mine was working in Port Orchard at a chiropractic office at the time and some one had stopped in with this little guy asking if anyone knew who he and his siblings belonged to since they were running along the highway. This small male piglet was caught, but the rest were not. My friend, having a farm, was handed the piglet and asked if she could take it to safety. She brought it to our farm. Phil said she pulled up with this piglet snuffling around the cab of her truck and running along the floorboards. She asked him if we could take him, if not, she would have to take him home and she wasn't sure that was a great idea. She knew nothing about pigs.
So, Phil took him, named him, and set him up in a large dog kennel in the basement. He then ran to the feed store and bought a nursing bottle and milk replacement formula. By the time I arrived home from San Diego, Phil and the little pig were best pals. Willy, who we renamed Willard since it seemed to fit his personality more to us, was quite the little character and he LOVED his milk. Pigs live for food in general, so he could be led anywhere with the promise of that bottle. Also typical for a pig, he was adamantly against messing in his kennel - no way was he going to leave a mess where he ate and slept! He would scream and snort and run around the kennel, knocking his little butt against the walls to alert us that he needed to be let outside. Then he would trot out the back door, do his business, and then run over to our feet to scratch his little body against the toes of our boots. Inquiries had been made and posts put up on lost pet sites...no answers.
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| Caelen bottle feeding Willard the piglet |
Here was the trouble - most pigs at young ages are very difficult to identify as far as breed goes. For all we knew, he could be a full grown hog weighing in over 600 pounds when he grew up. I dove into researching pigs, Phil ordered a few books on pigs, and I called up our vet to have him checked out. It was summer, so Phil fenced off another portion of our rapidly dwindling dog yard (the ducks already occupied half of it) and I hung netting over the top to discourage birds of prey. Willard was growing quickly and he was very insistent in his kennel and making a lot of noise. At the time, Phil worked from home and I was in the process of doing so as well and it was distracting. So, we gave him an outdoor pen to play in during the day.
Our vet visited and checked him out. He said he was likely a mini breed of some variety, a pot belly mini was the most likely. He gave him his shots, an experience that introduced me to just how loud a pig can scream in protest, and then taught me some techniques on calming him down, distracting him, and some pointers on feed and habitat.
We fell in love with his little cute snorts and his very insistent behavior. He had little white socks above his black hooves, and a pink heart on his nose...but the rest of him was black. His brown eyes were so expressive and he quickly demonstrated to both of us how smart pigs can be. He learned how to knock off his water bottle and the more challenging we made it for him, the better he got at it. I caught him several times trying to "unlatch" the clasp that kept his pen door chained so he could get to some fresh grass he wanted instead. He never mastered it, but he KNEW that clasp opened the gate.I bought him a rain jacket and a cute red plaid coat and a leash. I had every intent on training him to be a pet pig, but Willard taught me very quickly that he was not that interested. I have only two photos of him wearing these garments. In under two minutes and with just a turn of my back, I would find him "naked" with his clothes in the middle of his pen, muddy, and stomped on by his four little feet just for good measure. His piglet tantrums were adorable, as irritated as I was by them at times. He learned that I meant food and he would grunt and carry on the minute he heard me moving about the house in the morning. Phil meant playtime and scratches and to this day they have a ritual with this. Phil scratches Willard's back and side and he instantly lays down and rolls so Phil can scratch him more.
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| Willard in his backyard pen |
He began to root and dig. His snout had elongated into quite the effective spade and we marveled at the giant hole he dug in the middle of his pen. We joked he was digging to China and laughed when we would catch him digging, say his name, and he would answer with an indignant "snort" before going back to his work of excavating his backyard pen.
He had his pen during the day, but we brought him in at night to keep him warm. I kept reading up on pigs and found that they liked to be with a companion. I find this to be true of most animals, honestly, so this didn't surprise me. He grew bigger rapidly and in 6 months time was easily three times the size he was when he came to live with us. One day, while I was working away at my job diligently in the living room. Phil was on travel and Ilta was uncommonly alert and whining at the door for no reason I could determine, until I saw a flash of movement. It was a little black, pig behind sauntering across the driveway and through the field...to the big girls pen. Precious and Perfect were, at the time, still fostering with us and a quick glance out the back window showed me he had dug out of his pen and pushed open the back gate. Our little man had decided to go a-courting and he was none too pleased with me chasing after him, picking him up and carrying him back to the house and the backyard. He screamed the entire way in protest and kicked at me until I had no choice but to put him down. He immediately quieted, shook himself, grunted at me, and began sauntering back towards his original destination, intent on wooing the ladies living in the pen across the property. I raced to the backyard to grab a scoop of grain and a bucket and then sprinted back up front and shook it furiously. It appears that the way to a pigs heart is through its stomach and he came running at the sound.
I locked him back in his pen, lined the gate and his pen with cement blocks we had stacked in the back yard, put a horse panel across the dog yard gate to reinforce it, went back inside and promptly scheduled his neutering appointment before returning to my work. Phil and I both hated that day. Our vet and his assistants were great, but the squeals and screams were deafening throughout the house and even Ilta, the lab, hid until it was over. Pain meds were administered, but the holding in place even with sedatives was what Willard protested about loudly. He recovered quickly though and without issue. After a month or two, his manner became slightly more mild, but he seemed curious about company. He touched noses with Ilta through the fence, snorted at the ducks and followed them along the fenceline, and he dug and rooted and played about his pen each day. We bought him an cozy doghouse and finalized his pen for outdoor living. He told me in true pig tantrum fashion that he didn't like that I had positioned his house with the doorway facing away from the house by flipping it over and settling into it and staring at the door, grunting when we came out to look as if to say "see, I fixed it."
He was getting too big for his dog kennel and he didn't like being in it unless it was late at night and it was time to sleep. We talked about getting him a friend, but didn't act on it. If there's anything we've learned since we decided to build this farm, it was that things had a way of coming to us and so, in March of 2017, something did.
Precious and Perfect returned to Pony Up not long after a little white pig was rescued by Rosemary. She was small and was taken out of one of the worse situations I have ever heard about. My research and interaction with Willard had taught me that pigs were not only very smart, but very empathetic and emotional creatures. This pig had been very abused. Rope burns circled her neck and hind legs, she was terrified to be touched, and the pictures Rosemary had seen on Craigslist advertising her for sale or trade were horrifying. Her eyes were sad and she shied away from any touch in fear. Rosemary had taken in a potbelly pig named Maizy at the rescue as well and she had hoped that this little girl would be a good companion for her, but Maizy was much bigger and two minutes in the stall with her resulted in the new resident getting assaulted pretty violently. Rosemary separated them, but didn't know what the next step would be. She set the new pig up in one of the dog yards with a cozy house for her to sleep in and she sent me photos of her. She was slightly bigger than Willard and appeared to be the same breed, or very similar. Rosemary had been told she was a mini potbelly and just barely over a year old. I drove over to meet her, brought her home, and named her Petunia.
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| Petunia upon intake at Pony Up |
Animals that are abused are not much different than people in their responses. Trust has to be won and even a pig who loves food will remain cautious until she knows you mean her no harm. We had one third of the dog yard still available and with Willard in his pen, we set Petunia loose in the remaining third to check things out. She refused to come out of the kennel at first until we were several steps away, but she finally did. She nibbled the banana I put out for her and then the apples. We talked to her softly and fed her treats. She remained aware of us and nervous, but she relaxed a little when she saw and heard Willard squealing at her from his pen. I minimized contact between them until the vet could see her, but her little tail wagged at the sight of a new friend and Willard paced the fence and called at her too. Petunia needed a bath badly and Phil and I had to resort to dousing her with warm water as she evaded us in the pen to get most of the grime off of her. She then protested loudly when I snuck up on her eating and rubbed her quickly with a towel to take away most of the water and keep her from chilling, but it was then that she gave me the first indication that this was a sweet, loving pig that had known affection at one time and craved it. She shivered with fear, but didn't fight me and the more I rubbed her the more she leaned into the touch. She followed me hesitantly but happily when I led her inside to the large dog kennel Phil had setup for her next to Willard's in my office in the basement. I had a small dish of grain, apples, and carrots and she munched them happily after climbing into her kennel and its fresh, warm blankets. She eventually allowed me to scratch her side and it broke my heart to see fresh tears on her sweet face. I had heard that pigs cried, but had never seen it. I told her tearfully she would never be hurt again and she grunted and snuggled up in her blankets to sleep. Willard was let in and he trotted directly to his kennel next to hers focused on his dinner. Unable to sleep that night, I crept quietly downstairs to check on the two pigs and saw them both sleeping peacefully noses pointed at each other in their kennels. I learned that night that Petunia had a sweet, soft, whistling snore.
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| Petunia smiling in her sleep |
Petunia got more vocal and more trusting over the next few weeks. We had a slight setback when the vet came to take a look at her, vaccinate her, and take blood samples to check her overall health. She was about 11 months old, too late to spay safely, and in need of some good nutrition, but otherwise, healthy. Since Willard was neutered, there was no need to spay her. We introduced her and Willard to each other properly and they were fast friends. She adored him, snuggled with him, and doted on him. She vocalized a lot when in my office and napped frequently, smiling always. I fed her the same high quality grain Willard ate and lots of veggies. In a matter of months, she transformed in to a beautiful little girl pig. We called them our "Ying and Yang Piggies"- Willard all black with his white feet and pink beauty mark, and Petunia with her white fur, pink skin, and one solitary black patch over her eye. Then the day came, we stopped bringing them in at night. They snuggled together in the dog house which rapidly became too small for them. They worked together to "remodel" it by ripping the boards off one side. Petunia also became Willard's partner in crime. He would dig and she would wriggle under the fence. One day I came home to find her wandering my garden. I called to her and she came to me proudly wagging her tail as if to say "see what I did, Mom?" Willard was screaming, running along the fence of the pen, distraught that his lady friend was out and about without him. I reinforced the fence and Phil and I began to make plans for a more permanent solution for them.
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| Best Friends |
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| And they called it piggy love... |
Phil and I had begun groundwork and preparation for the building of our barn and we sketched into the plans a large, proper pig pen with a comfortable, insulated pig house that Phil had built originally for Precious and Perfect. Our excavator finished the pen rapidly, using large retaining cement blocks to build the back half of it to prevent Willard from digging out. We graveled it and fenced it with hog panel. When it was ready, I filled the little house with fresh pine shavings and filled a bucket with grain to lure them into their new home. Phil still loves to tell this story and describe me coming around the back of the house shaking a bucket of grain with two little pigs, one black and one white, trotting dutifully and intently alongside me. They went right into their new pen, ate their prize, and began exploring. They have been living in it ever since. The horse pasture has been built and Charlie and Dolly now live next to them. Dolly has finally accepted the pigs and now knows that though they may smell like it they are NOT bears and I have even on occasion caught her and Petunia touching noses through the fence. Charlie shares his timothy grass with them both during the summer months by pushing it through their mutual fence line so they can help him eat it.
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| Charlie the horse and the pigs saying hello |
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| Willard and Petunia in their new pen |
Willard is still digging to China in the new pen and Petunia still dotes on him. They trot around in their pen happily in the summer, enjoying the shade of their house or their shade sail when its hot, sometimes wallowing in the mud puddles I create with the hose to cool them off. Pigs aren't able to sweat except through their nose which is why they cool themselves down with mud or water. We have a small pool for them too that they like to play in from time to time. Willard likes to take a bath in the water trough, so there are now two troughs and he usually is respectful enough to just use one of them to wallow. They love their fresh veggies and fruits and they greet me every morning with exuberance and tell me they are starving. It's been cold this winter, but they snuggle up together in their little house and keep each other warm. Our vet has commented on how beautiful their coats are and how healthy they look. They have taught me a lot I didn't know about pigs and about myself.
I have learned that pigs are even more empathetic and emotional than I thought. They do cry, they do show their joy, they do smile, and they do have memory. They are incorrigible and they require a lot of activity and a lot of work if you want to train them. They will remember something someone did that hurt them and will react to that fear. They are clever and insistent in their need to just be pigs - they want to root, they want to explore, and they will keep their pen tidy and to their liking. Rearranging something will result in them putting it back the way they wanted it. Petunia has taught me that with enough time, old wounds can heal and trust can be gained. She has taught me forgiveness and that just being kind, loving, and patient can turn a bad past into a beautiful future. I have also learned that their favorite treat is watermelon and pumpkins and they never see to tire of either.
We have faced more adversity in regards to our pigs than any of our other animals on the farm. I have stopped posting about them on Facebook because I cannot civilly take the bacon jokes that come with those posts. I have become protective and adamant about the fact that these pigs are NOT food. I understand and accept that a majority of people only see pigs as food and I know I will never change that fact about the world. I do, however, have the opportunity to show people what pigs are really like and I do so every chance I get. I look forward to Willard and Petunia greeting me every day when I visit their pen. When I am having a rough day, they can easily make me smile or laugh by just being themselves. They are part of this farm and they will call it home for the rest of their days. I have become a person who loves pigs.
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| Willard and Petunia - October 2017 |
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