Pigs, pigs, glorious pigs! We got up at 5:30 am this morning to head to the Small Animal Swap Meet in Fordland. Folks get out there before the crack of dawn wearing headlamps to set up for the sale. This was my third time out there. It's the last Sat. of every month, April through October. Bryon had gone out with me once before but this is the first time I got to bring anything home! It was exciting!
We were primarily scoping out pigs, but also bunnies for Grace. Well there were world a plenty of bunnies of all kinds, sizes and shapes but only a few pigs. We got there about 7 am and the first pigs we saw were $25 each. Lynsey had only paid $12 each for hers so we decided to wait and see what else there was. The next truck had pigs for $50 each. Bryon thought they meant for the whole lot (about 6) but no it was $50 each. Those folks were proud of their pigs! Next an Amish guy came with a whole trailer full of pigs and I followed him to his parking spot and he wanted $30 each for his small ones. I tried to bargin with him but he stuck to the $30 each so I walked away and we kept searching. Then another Amish guy had two little pigs for $15 each but one had a rupture and the other was pretty poor looking. They were really dirty (I know, pigs are dirty) but they just didn't look very healthy and they had sores on their ears from being chewed on. Finally we went back to the first truck and they only had two left. He sold them to us for $20 each. They were a little bigger so we figured they had at least a bag of feed each in them already ($12 each for a 50 lb bag of feed). We took them and loaded them up in the dog crate in the back of the truck.
Grace had spotted the bunnies she wanted so we got them and loaded them into the cat carrier. Bryon had his heart set on a couple of mallard ducks for the pond so he bought a little carrier ($15) and two $2 mallards. He thinks he got a boy and a girl duck. We'll see if they even make it through the night. We have a lot of owls, coyotes and raccoons. I don't even know where they are right now.
We don't know if the bunnies are boys or girls. We may be back at the swap meet in a few weeks selling bunnies ourselves!
One of the pigs almost got away as Bryon was trying to get them from the crate into the pen. Then the pigs immediately found the weakest point of our ramshackle pig pen and almost escaped again! So far they've been in there about 3 hours. Hopefully it will hold them or we might be hunting wild pig this fall. Now we know how that happens!
Grace is dying to play with the bunnies but I told her they need to rest and get used to their new home then we could play with them a little tonight after it cools down. It's been sooooo hot! Heat index of 100. It's not fit outside for man nor beast. I don't know how I managed not to get sick again, but so far so good.
It sure feels like a farm today :)
Whatever you do, don't name wither of them "Oogie"!!!! :)
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