Piggies! Genie at The Inadvertent Gardener was the only one to guess it!
I also liked Ang’s guess, and no, he would not be allowed to keep the laptop 🙂
These are Madeline’s 4-H project pigs. In order for them to be market weight at fair time this summer, they have to be born in January. We don’t have the facilities to winter farrow. (We barely have the facilities to farrow, period.) So we bought these from my brother.
They’re about 4 weeks old and came out of an 80-degree barn. It’s too cold still to just stick them right outdoors. So we’re “brooding” them in the garage. It has a heated floor and works pretty well for that purpose. We’ve been brooding chicks in here for years. (The first batch of those comes in April.) The garage is attached to the house. So many bloggy photo ops, right here at my fingertips!
Madeline got right to work making friends with her new babies.
First she sits quietly in the pen and lets them come to her. They start chewing on her foot.
Then she decided to just lay right down with them. Again they come to her and try to chew on her. (Perhaps they’re attracted by those shiny new braces that were just installed yesterday?)
She’s got them eating out of her hand already!
A little belly scratch is nice.
Then she picked each one up and had me take a picture. Then I marked each one with a number so she can match them up to the pictures. Now they look like they’re ready for some kind of race.
Oh, cute! Maybe Madeline can be your guest blogger and report on their progress 😉
Too cute. Pass along my good wishes on the braces. I am down to about 8 weeks till I get mine off. And I am more then ready. Have lots of soup on hand and tylenol!
Oh my gosh — I can’t believe I was the only one to get it right! Not bad for a city girl…
What great pictures. I love pigs!
Too cute!!! Looks like a good setup to me to raise pigs – I’ll have to show my husband – I’m dying to get pigs. They look like great 4-h projects. And good luck on the braces. . . .Kris
I *thought* that straw was high and the wire was really big for chicks! Piggies at this stage look even more fun than a dog. Have Madeline keep us posted, please! My 8 year old will be curious…
meg & meanders – thanks for the suggestion of having Madeline guest blog! Great idea, and she’s excited about doing it :)frugalmom – she’s handling them real well. Some Tylenol and Motrin the first day or two, but eating hasn’t really been much of a problem.Genie – I think this qualifies you for your Iowan membership card :)goatgirl – thanks :)quiltedsimple – it’s a good setup to start pigs, but hopefully they’re not staying in my garage for long! Pigs are a good 4-H project. More manageable than a show steer 🙂
Awww, they are so cute!!When a 4-Her chooses pigs as their project, how many is typical to purchase/borrow? And how many do they show/raise in the end?We’re 4-H newbies and just signed up for 4-H this year.My daughter chose chickens/eggs and my both of my sons chose non-animal related projects.