Pigs Like Carrots

You may think, well duh! Don't pigs like everything?! They are walking garbage disposals, aren't they? Actually, the first couple of pigs we raised not only weren't big fans of carrots, they actually hated the carrots enough to leave the peelings behind in the slop trough.

Those first two pigs were named Porky and Sammy. They were great animals. Friendly and funny and energetic. Porky and Sammy loved pastries and melon rinds. My mom would save melon rinds in the freezers all week long to have treats to bring the pigs on Sunday. I would visit the "day old" bread shelf at the store and bring home cinnamon raisin bagels ($1 per 1/2 doz). Porky and Sammy would get down right giddy at the sight of me or my mom coming toward the pole barn.

Our new pigs are named ... Porky and Sammy 2. Very original, I know. We decided that Porky 2 is the boy because he is bigger. He is also brave and friendly. Sammy is a girl, smaller and pretty leery of us still. I'm hoping she'll come around. They are only 3 months old, so we aren't slopping them yet. We probably could, but I'm worried the rich foods would make their tummies upset. But Jordan wanted to start feeding them stuff other than the pig feed. I suggested she bring down a few baby carrots to try.

Porky 2 and Sammy 2 don't know their stall and run that well yet. They are smart though. The feed system is a metal container that they have to lift with a nose to get at the food. They had that figured out in about 5 minutes. They also found the water fountain. But the trough, thus far, has just been something to climb on. When Jordan put a few baby carrots in it they didn't react much. Then Porky, being braver, came over to check things out. One bite and he knew - this is a good, good thing! The snorting began and the baby carrots disappeared quickly. Sammy was slow to catch on and only managed to get a few carrots before they were all gone.

The next night when we came down, they ran over to the trough - smart little piggies. Jordan put in more carrots. Those were gone in seconds. (I must note that pigs wag their tails when happy and those tails were a-waggin'). Tonight I had left over pineapple upside-down cake from last weekend's in-law Easter party. I have no idea if pigs can eat pineapple. I know that tomatoes make them sick, so maybe pineapple, being very acidic, may not be OK. I tossed the pineapples to the chickens (who really are garbage disposals) and gave the remaining cake to the pigs. The reaction was priceless.

Both got completely in the trough to get a better angle on the cake. Snort, snort, snort - tails going crazy. As the cake disappeared, Porky 2 started to throw his weight around and push Sammy 2 out of the way. In less than 5 minutes the leftover cake was gone. They actually licked the trough. Too cute.

The video below is not of the cake-eating (I wish I had taped it, but didn't think to bring the camera down.) In the video my dad is off camera whistling at the pigs. Porky 2 is keenly interested in the whistling.