Another Guinea hog update

So it is officially official.
On Memorial weekend I will travel to Arkansas to visit with my family and while I am there I will pick up our new Guinea Hog boar. Hopefully everything will go smoothly as I may be by myself on this trip. Now....we just need a name for him.

Pumpkin---aka our "pig"---has been dieting a bit the past few months. We kicked it into high gear recently when we found we might actually have a male to breed her too. She had gotten a bit "porky" over the winter time. A bit too much corn and too much time in her home during the colder windier days of winter left her a bit paunchy. Paunchy is not good when your a pig who will soon try and get pregnant.
With the advent of warmer weather and bugs and grubs to dig up now (and a reduction in extras) she is just about slim and trim for her meeting with her new beau and future sire of her piglets.

Speaking of pigs and feeding I learned some very interesting things yesterday when I stumbled on this site: Woolypigs.com They have a great web site with butchering videos, feeding information for the more lard style pigs, and a number of other things. Meander through their site---I think some of you will find it as interesting as I have.
Now that I have had a pig for a while some of the "other" ways of feeding stick a bit better in my brain. So now, when we have piglets we will do a different style of feeding than we have been previously. Actually we need to switch our pumpkin to eating hay part of the time. She's not always on pasture, since she's in the gardens tilling them for us and our neighbor, and so we feel that hay will be better for her than purina pig chow (made with who knows what---and I DON"T want that in those I will eat).
We figured we could trick her into starting to eat good alfalfa hay by spritzing it with a bit of something she likes---or maybe rub an avocado on it. She LOVES avocados---she goes crazy for them. O.k..she goes crazy for most food---but you can tell she likes them particularly well.

As far as WoolyPigs goes---I would take one of those pigs that they raise if I had the space---and a way to get it from Washington state! But alas, I don't. However, I do like my guinea hog and I am happy to have a small hog to fit my smaller farm. She's really turned out great. So...soon we will have two. And I have to admit I am definitely looking forward to that.