The Wife's little pig died overnight Tuesday. If you weren't aware, she had two Vietnamese Potbelly pigs, along with two goats, several ducks and chickens (including a rooster).She found the older of the two, Sally, lying on the ground in an unusual way Wednesday morning. I found the younger pig, Tobie, lying under the shelter where he normally slept.
Tobie was dead, and Sally was in bad shape. No obvious injuries, but obviously in trouble.
The vet was contacted, and said that he's not sure what the reason for things happening, but he suspects something wrong with what they ate recently. The feed store was out of the normal feed last time we bought some. That, combined with a change in other table scraps, may have caused too much stress on their systems, as best as I understand things.
The little picture of Tobie and Sally is from six months ago. They grew a lot since then, and the Wife and grandchildren have enjoyed them.
Sally's not out of the woods yet. She's still in rough shape, and can't move her hind legs. It'll be a little time before we know if she recovers fully, or even if she survives. I don't know how much stress these pigs can handle, but she's obviously in distress.
Tobie is already missed by the Wife, the grandchildren ... and by Sally.
UPDATE: April 23
Sally didn't make it. She died overnight. We're still not sure what the exact cause of the problems were, but the Wife misses her. And so will the grandchildren.
Basil (and wife): I am so sorry to hear about your little pigs. I hope Sally gets better. I hope it's not wrong to pray for a pig - because I prayed for yours. Condolences and best wishes from my side of the mountain.
ReplyDeleteAwwwwww... I'm sorry to hear about this. Pets are members of the family too and it hurts to lose one. I hope Sally gets better.
ReplyDeleteMy condolences, Basil. This evening, my wife and I were working in our backyard, and suddenly, there appeared a squirrel, who walked right up to us, obviously in pain and obviously freaked out.
ReplyDeleteWe kneeled down to it, and the thing that surpises me the most is how much that squirrel trusted us, as we talked to it, asking it if it was okay, asking it what we could do to help it.
The squirrel kept looking up at us frantically, in hopes that we could understand it's plight, and ease it's pain. I walked away toward the garden hose and filled a dish with some water, I offered it to the desperate squirrel and he hobbled over to it and drank while he eyed us suspiciously.
My wife and I were hungry, had been, and it was time to go to dinner. I pointed up to the tree in our yard and told the squirrel it was time for him/her to get back to work, and knuckle down to the task of being a hard working squirrel again. He/she scrambled up the tree a few feet, obviously something was wrong, but we left satisfied that the squirrel would survive.
We came back home a couple of hours later and the squirrel had died while we were away; had crawled into our garden. My wife and I hugged each other and nearly wept. In fact, I still cannot get that squirrel off my mind. For some reason, it trusted us totally to help it and we had let it down... and that was probably it's last thought as my wife and I headed off to the pizza parlor.
Kind of a melancholy day for us.
Thanks, all. I'm nervous about what I'll find once the sun comes up this morning.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling, bro. That is how we felt coming back home from dinner. I do sincerely wish your news will be better than ours was :-/
ReplyDeleteOh no! I am so sorry.
ReplyDeleteOh, so sorry about the piggies. Please send my condolences to the wife and grandbabies.
ReplyDelete[...] I’m allergic to both dogs and cats, so pigs seem the natural substitute, until you realize they produce twice the waste of a person per pound per day, and that what they produce is very much like what our species produces. (Plus, if they go the way of Basil’s pets, there’s bacon and mince-meat sausages called jitrnice all around.) [...]
ReplyDeleteSo, so sorry. I hope that things get better. : /
ReplyDeleteTrue story. Iggy the piggy got kicked out of Winfield (Page One stories ensued -- hey, not a lot of news in WV) and moved to Poca
ReplyDeleteOne day, Iggy the piggy smelled smoke and alerted the whole family.
Another Page One story for Iggy
Frankly, I think he just wanted to save his own bacon.
Sorry about your pets.
This change in table scraps didn't include bacon, did it? Maybe it was mad pig disease!
ReplyDeleteOkay, sorry about the two little piggies!