Meet Phoebe- our special little pig and the namesake of our Little Pig Farmstand.
Phoebe was born on August 29, 2024. She was one of 7 piglets in her litter, and was a completely healthy, normal piglet for her first week of her life.
We love our pigs and spend a lot of time in the pig enclosures giving belly rubs and snuggling piglets. Phoebe was born in our second litter of the fall, so we were constantly out there snuggling 16 baby piglets.
Around one week old, I started to notice that Phoebe wasn’t gaining weight like the rest of her siblings were. A common culprit for failure to thrive in piglets is an iron deficiency, so our first step in trying to perk her up was giving her an iron shot. Some folks give these automatically when piggies are 3 days old- but our pigs are raised in a natural pasture environment with access to fresh earth and minerals in the dirt, so we try to keep things as natural as possible with minimal interference.
For whatever reason I’ll never know, Phoebe just wasn’t having it. Her siblings were gaining and growing, and in a matter of 3 days of observing her size, she was drastically smaller than the rest of her litter. We were significantly worried about her ability to compete with piglets who were now stronger and bigger than her. Since our goat, Millie, was still in milk, I started trying to supplement Phoebe with goats milk while leaving her with her mama. Mama is always best, and we were doing everything to try to keep her with her mama! Here’s Phoebe next to her brother at 10 days old.
By day 4 of watching like a hawk, Phoebe made it clear she was not going to perk up without intensive care. She had laid down to die, and in an excited moment of her mama jumping up to greet me at the gate, mama stepped on Phoebe and that was the last straw for her. She wasn’t going to get back up.
That’s when she became my baby, and I was absolutely unwilling to lose her.
She was so small and so weak, for the first few days I was syringe feeding her every 2 hours, all day and night. I set alarms through the night to get up and feed her and honestly, didn’t sleep much in between the hours so I could keep my eye on her. She was so small, but her little tummy was round and warm. She slept on a heating pad and loved to have a blanket on top of her head. We also gave her a pink stuffed unicorn so snuggle! (courtesy of our 5 year old!)
She went everywhere with us so I could care for her. We had a 3 day market of long 8-10 hour days out of the house, so we packed her up and took her with in a stroller. I even bought a bottle warmer to heat her milk on the go. She came on drives, walks, and to the farmers market. As time passed she became stronger, and just loved snuggles, soft blankets or rugs, and being a part of our family.
Phoebe didn’t really grow for weeks. She was strong but the size of newborn piglet for more than her whole first month of life. Her siblings looked like a whole different litter! She learned to follow me like a puppy dog and helped me with all my chores. Her absolute favorite activity was to help me with milking the goat- she knew where her milk came from! She’d get the excited squeals while she waited not-so-patiently for me to give her a bowl of the first bit of milking.
Eventually Phoebe started growing, and then she shot up like a weed! She loves our Great Pyrenees, Peaches, and when she moved out of her baby house her favorite place was sleeping in the crook of Peaches’ stomach.
Phoebe is now 6 months old, thriving, and moved back out with the pigs. (Only because the husband was adamant she could not stay in the house. Boo!) Since she was delayed, I had fed her milk for an extended period of time, and by the time she weaned she was having more than a half gallon on top of her other feed every day. She is now not only larger than her littermates, but larger than the boys that are older than her by 1 and 2 months!
She still loves snuggles and sucks her lips at me, tries so nurse off my leg, and wants to suck on my fingers (kind of gross, also cute). Phoebe was my baby in one of the busiest times of my life- we had event after event lined up for craft markets, and our new roadside farmstand was busier than I could have ever imagined! I was working day and night and taking care of Pheebs in every spare second. I decided it was only fitting she became the face of everything I was doing. And what a cute face she is! We love our little pig!
