Kunekune pig lying on the grass enjoying the sunshine. Picture of Geordie, one of our three kunekune pet pigs. Click for a larger picture.
Kunekune pig lying on the grass enjoying the sunshine. Picture of Geordie, one of our three kunekune pet pigs. Click for a larger picture.
Keeping pigs on the croft was not something we had planned for then one morning our neighbours turned up with a tiny, less than 1 day old, kunekune piglet. This little one had not got enough strength to feed off his mum being the runt of the litter, either he would be hand raised or left to die. We decided to hand rear him and we called him Geordie after my wife long time friend’s pig that was raised during 1940’s – while the original Geordie ended up in the pot we had no intention of doing this, Geordie was going to be a pet pig on our croft.
Geordie was so small that we kept him in one of our indoor guinea pig cages we used to keep newly hatched chickens and ducks in. He enjoyed the heat lamp and slurped away at the specialist veterinary dried milk we got for him. He thrived on the attention and food, and joined the other animals on the croft along with his brother, Buddy, and eventually we adopted his mother, Gretel.
Picture of our two kunekune boy pigs, Geordie and Buddy sleeping and enjoying the Caithness sunshine.
Picture of Geordie our kunekune pig. He is snacking on dried grass bought from our local farm supplies store during the winter of 2016.
Buddy getting his his food - milk with weetabix. He did tend to make a mess when eating, so he had to be cleaned up afterwards with a wet cloth as pigs hate to be dirty.
Kunekune brothers sleeping on the grass
Kunekune pigs love eating, they also love lying around sleeping in the sunshine. Both Geordie (on the left of picture) and Buddy are brothers, we raised Geordie by hand from one day old and his brother was left with his mum, Gretel.
Unfortunately having no experience raising pigs, or kunekune pigs, before we obviously overfed Geordie - for the first few weeks we was fed on demand, and he was always hungry. I now wish we had been more experienced and fed him less. Buddy on the other hand probably had not been given enough supplementary food and was too thin. Both have survived our inexperience and have thrived. Geordie is still too heavy and at time of writing he is now on a diet.
Kunekune pig, Buddy, now nearly 7 months old and waiting for a treat.
Kunekune pig, Buddy, now nearly 7 months old and waiting for a treat.
Buddy our pet pig waiting for a treat.
Geordie and Buddy, our pet pigs, doing a sit and waiting for a treat.
Our beautiful collie, Charlie, watching the pigs.
Cheeky Buddy
