Angelo is settling in and learning his routine, he has gotten much better about being touched, and for the first time ever, last night he flopped on his side and let me give him a full body rub/pat, still won’t let me touch his head yet, or his ears.
Still he has come along way in regards to trusting us when we touch him now, he is in full training about pen manner’s, the big one being, NEVER put your teeth on us, even if we are standing still or not.. he has a thing about trying to nip my boots, which gets him a quick but firm..NO and a boot that moves a few inches into his space.
Yesterday was the first day that when he was checking me out, and he openned his mouth, and I did the firm “NO” on its own and he backed up about six inches, closed his mouth and looked in my general way, he won’t make proper eye contact with me yet, always looks my way but no eye contact, unlike my Miss Piggy who will.
He is eating his feed really well, and drinking his water etc, but I have hit on something that just makes me a little sad, he does not think real food is food yet.. I still have a store of huge winter squash that is for piggy use, they get so many fresh foods along side some house scraps that don’t go to the laying chickens.
I give Miss P her’s whole, and she will rip into it and loves her fresh food, but Angelo does not think its food, he was clearly wanting supper, he asked me for supper, he kept checking his dish but the scrapes and the cut up squash/seeds were passed over time an again.
As I stood in his pen, trying to get him to try a tiny bite of fresh apple, that I saved from the cows apple and even that was given a look like.. its not food.. It must be what its like trying to serve homemade liver an onions with roasted root veggies with a cabbage salad to a child that thinks coke, mc nuggets and fries are food.
I am hoping to trick Angelo by mixing the chopped real food in with his ration, which means it got chopped flavoured and so he happily eat that.. This morning when i took him some goodies, I sprinckled them with a heaping tbsp of Marty’s powdered milk, and that got him all excited to eat them..
He does not seem to understand what hay is either, Miss Piggy gets a small amount of lovely fresh rich green hay daily to feed on, and loves it, but Angelo seems to think that instead of nibbling on it, it should just be hauled over and added to the big straw bed in the corner.. Silly Silly Boy..
I wonder how long it will take him to learn to like real food? He had better have this figured out before the gardens really get going, because there are times in the summer, where I feed nothing but whole meals of fresh food garden/processing leftovers.
I keep having a little huh on this, I mean if its this hard to get a PIG to try real food when raised on processed food, it gives me a whole new view on how hard it must be for all those mom’s out there, with children that don’t want to change their eating habits to whole foods..
How are you all doing in that area? if you have children or grandchildren? or heck, even mates?
Just another Day on the Farm 
I feel quite fortunate. My boy eats most things, I have a diverse range of things I serve and we travelled a bit when he was younger so he got pretty flexible and adventurous in what he would eat. I love that he and his friends prefer going out for sushi rather than fast food, and it’s about the same price when they all share a big platter. I may have dropped lucky with this though as he doesnt have a sense of smell, so his experience of food is quite different I think. My husbands two kids didnt start eating my food until they were teens and they’re a lot less adventurous and have lists of things they dont eat. I do find, however, that if many of those things are hidden or chopped small, they’re happily accepted. I would prefer to be up front about serving stuff and I am aware that there are some things I never make as they wouldn’t eat them. I think my and DH diet will change again once they all start leaving home.
Hi Queen,
No sense of smell, can I ask why? or just born that way? Yes, I do the same with my Dh, he was raised on a more limited menu of choices then I was but he has really expanded his tastes since we have been together.
Just made that way :-). I was also talking to a lady in the grocery line today ( we both had reduced meat!) and she said that she and her mom had no sense of smell either ( I had said something about ” at least with meat you can tell if it’s off”). I am not aware of a family history for us, but my mom was adopted so we never know what history there is there.
Can I lean on your greater experience please? Our hounds are fed a mix of raw and very basic kibble. This week they both refused their meal twice. I figured on a bad bag of kibble ( it was a new one I just opened when they started refusing). I went yesterday and bought a new bag, but they’re still refusing. One of them picked his meat out from the kibble, the other one just walked away. They are eating their treat biscuits and anything else offered. I dont know what to do now, I cant afford to feed just raw blocks! They’re 19 month old shepherd cross littler mates. They seem otherwise well, bright, alert and charging about madly on their walk this morning. These are the first dogs I have owned.
Ok, This is just MHO, but I will try and help if possable,
So first thing I would do is check the bag number and confirmed by a google search that this is not a recalled food for any reason? Then I would check the new bag, is it a different batch date, or even a different company or is in fact the same batch?
If it is the same batch, I would do my best to make sure a new bag was from a different one, second, its possable that they changed the formula based on feed costs on that batch, as long as the end number come out right, they buy and make the dog food based on market price to large point typically, so your pups might just be smelling an or tasting the difference and they don’t like as much as the fresh, and are not that hungry so eh, they don’t eat it..
Third if they have eaten some of the meals, any ill effects noted, loose stools, throwing up, or general feeling off? If the answer to all them is no, and they are just being picky, which does happen with some of my own hounds, the answer for me is two fold, warm the food, and wet the food to give it a lovely smell..
Buy this, sometimes the easiest way is to take your plain regular kibble, pour very hot water on it, let it soak and cool and while still warm, feed at that time, 8 out of 10 times, that fix’s it right there.. but if you are cooking anything, rince out the pot, or the pan and deglaze it, pour your deglaze into the jar and heat up a cup or two with up to equal water and pout hot on the kibble, let soak till just warm and serve..
Sometimes just a little drizzle of melted fat dippings on the kibble, and then mixed together will also work, but its amazing how a pup that will turn its nose up to fixed cold food, will dig right into a soften, warm meal with a little fresh pan drippings added in.
Let me know if that helps..
50% success rate so far! Bosco, whose first question every morning and to every person he meets is “have you got any food?”, thinks that warm wet kibble with somewhat dried up bits of raw stuck to them are very nice indeed. In fact I would hazard a guess that they are better than normal kibble because he doesnt have to waste time chewing them! Buckey says I can stick them the same place as the dry ones ( he’s a bit rude, but then he is a teenager) :-). Sadly both bags are the same batch :-(. No reference to them online. I shall venture forth tomorrow and see if I can find a bag from another batch and then, if that works, donate the ones they’re not keen on. Thanks for your thoughts, it’s so helpful to get some thoughts from someone who had been there and bought the tshirt.
We also have pigs and we had this same problem when we got them. They had been fed on nothing but corn since they could eat and they had no idea what real food was. We fed them some sweet potatoes and they just sat there. After a day or two they did give them a try and loved them. It was sad to see how they have learned to love junk. They still don’t get it when we first give them a new food but they are learning. Our pigs are named Wilbur and Charlotte. Nice to share piggy stories with you. Hopefully we both will be able to teach them to appreciate real food.
Nothing but corn? that is not a balanced feed at all, thankfully Angelo was being feed a nice balanced chop ration of 16 percent, so he has had no issues switching over to my whole feed.
Are you planning on breeding or are you raising them for the freezer, I look forward to hearing your piggy stories as well, What breed are they, ages etc. Have you had pigs before?
Can’t grow sweet potato’s my way to easily, so I will have to stick to the winter keeping sqaush that do well around here for extra fresh feeds.
They are spotted and we have no idea what breed they are. A guy did not want to keep them anymore and offered them to us so we said..yes please. 😉 They are about 9 months old and we are planning to raise them for the freezer since they have issues that would prevent us from using them as a breeding pair. After that, we hope to aquire a good breeding pair to use the babies to raise for meat for our family and then sale the rest of the babies. Several family members are interested in purchasing one for meat if we will raise them to the right size for them. Do you have any breeds to recommend? We have been considering Gloucester Old Spots.
Hi Brittany
Nine months? What size do you want them to get to? Most modern breeds are at butcher age around six months, most slower growing ones will still be at butcher weight by nine months, What weight are they now, and what do your buyers and yourself want on them?
Well I like Large Blacks but in truth I have never been unhappy with any of the pigs I have raised, I just find the blacks are very good in the temperment and handle the canadian cold very well along with the small farm life.
I have certainly heard good things about the Gloucester old spots but have never had them myself, let me know what you think of them if you get them.
They are ready for butchering. We are getting it done soon. We raised them from little guys. These two we are going to keep for ourselves but the new breeding pair we will be getting will be providing for us and others. We have a guy who will do the butchering for us simply for $50 each. We hope to learn to do it ourselves to save even more and because we like to do things for ourselves. We are into being sustainable on our farm.
I never would have expected it would be difficult to get a pig to eat!
I’m lucky – the only other beings I have to feed on a regular basis are the dogs, and they took to real food (I feed raw) like champs. Of course, I feed Dad when he’s here working on the house, and I do take his likes into consideration, but he’s not really that picky – just things like vegetable soup is okay, roasted root veggie soup not so much. Sausage and potatoes are good, curries are a no-go. But kids – yikes, I’m glad I don’t have to convince any to eat mashed celeriac!
I know, I didn’t have this with any of the weaner piglets I have gotten over the years, and Miss Piggy who came home so small, that I didn’t want her in the barn for the first few weeks till I knew she was doing really well, was started on warm porridge, fresh veggies and greens, and then moved over to a mix of both her feed and fresh.
I think it must be partly a age related thing, plus I would guess that if Angelo was in the same pen as miss piggy he would learn from example, but he can see and hear her but its just not the same thing as being side by side at the feeding pans.
When I switched my one old girl hound to all homemade an or raw, she took to it with gusto, still have to be careful with her allergies on what its made out of but certainly causes alot less issues then any kind of made feed would.