Happy as a pig in muck!

Since Precious returned home a couple of weeks back she has been in the Quarantine stalls. And she has not been happy. Off her food; grumbling and chuntering whenever anyone would listen; mostly just lying around and looking miserable. Looking very pregnant too. Enough to cause the Big Boss to check and then re-check the dates in the diary. Despite any evidence to the contrary, however, there is just no way any piglets can arrive before the end of February - even the vet has been consulted as to whether pigs ever give birth prematurely?
"Most certainly not" said that man - qualifying the statement with "in my experience". Well, there's always a first time.......

But still there were sleepless nights and it became clear that, for our sanity if not hers, Precious had to be moved to her farrowing pen sooner rather than later. Now, Precious is a Big Girl. The existing ark in that pen was, by inspection, going to be too small. It was moved to one of piglet paddocks. A new house was duly sought. Previously we've ordered or commissioned traditional arcs. However, they take much more time to arrive than is available in light of Precious' condition. So eBay was consulted and duly threw up a suitable shelter which was successfully bid on - although we had to travel all the way to New York to collect it!

Ok - New York, Lincolnshire .. which is just 20 minutes away from here. But we forgot to check before leaving home that it would fit our trailer, which it didn't. Bad. But the same man makes excellent hen houses (and we needed one of those too) so we said we'd like the one that he was just finishing off and he agreed to deliver both houses the following day. Good. He wanted to see the Curly Coats anyway, so we were doing him a favour too.

Anyway, the new shelter was put up on Friday and was equipped with lots of lovely fresh straw. And Precious was moved..... in more ways than one.

She fair trotted around the pen, checking out the facilities and having a bit of a to-do with Lily next door - just sorting out who was what and all that ...... and then she started rolling and digging and wallowing and spinning and starting all over again till in no time at all our lovely blonde pig was a gloriously mud-caked lady. She was delighted.

For the first time in a fortnight she had a huge grin on her face and looked like she felt truly at home.

We did a quick calculation and worked out that, in visiting Tang (where she was kept inside), she had not been outdoors since 7 November. So, no wonder she was ecstatic!

She did eventually get round to checking out her new house, but her main priority was to use its doorway for a jolly good scratch! Finally, as if to prove how contented she was with the new situation, she settled down to eat her dinner with something resembling appetite........ When I checked her later that night she was contentedly sleeping under the stars on a pile of not entirely dry hay.

"Who needs a shelter when you've got the whole outdoors to sleep in?" she might have been saying...... and she was still there next morning....... a very happy looking pig in lots of lovely mud.... what could be better?????