Mini Pig Pet Care

When you get your Piglet Home

Bonding with your new piglet is very important. Piglets take some time to get to know you and learn to trust you. The best way to accomplish this is to be gentle and give them lots of treats. When you get your new piglet home you can start feeding them a mixture of goat's milk and sweet feed. When they are eating, it would be a good idea to pet them and sit and talk to them. Getting to know your voice and that you will be gentle with them is important. To get to know our pigs, I would sit and talk to them and sing to them. They seemed to like that. They wag their tails to let you know when they are happy.

Diet

First, its important to know that pigs never stop eating, well almost never. Pigs do not have that signal that says "stop eating, I'm full." So your pig will always seem hungry. Diet is very important to keeping your mini pig at a healthy weight and size. We feed our mini pigs Sweet Feed. All the farm stores that we have been to have some sort of sweet feed. Sweet feed is lower in protein than pig feed. Pig feed at the farm store is meant to grow a big farm pig quickly.

We've always given our pigs about 1 cup of Sweet Feed once a day. We then give them fruit and vegetable scraps for treats. Our pigs will eat any fruit rhine (watermelon, pineapple, honeydoo, cantalope). Our pig Wilson's favorite treat is banana peel. He gets so excited when he smells a banana. As long as its not moldy, we give it to them. In the summer our pigs tend to gain weight because we leave them outside a lot. They graze on the grass and occasionally root up the dirt to search for roots. (They can be trained to avoid all that rooting with a watchful eye.)

You can always adjust the amount that you are feeding your pig. Its important to keep a healthful watch on their diet.

Training

It only takes about 3 days for your pig to learn its name. Training your pig will be very similar to training a dog. The more you work with your pig, the better your pig will be at doing tricks. We worked with Wilson to teach him a few tricks, but not for long. We never worked with Della. They always come when they're called (except Della when she's outside). If they're laying comfortably on the couch or anywhere else, and they here the fridge open, they come running. Anyway, my pigs aren't very good with tricks, but there are some really cute videos on YouTube that show pigs doing neat tricks, so check it out if you're interested.

I would recommend crating your piggy until you trust them in the house when you are gone. We confine Della to the main level bathroom when we aren't home mainly because she can't wait to go potty. We put a few blankets and a pillow in there as well as a litter box filled with pine pellets for using to go potty. That way she's not peeing on the carpets.

House Breaking

Both of our pigs are now trained to go potty outside. We still have accidents (WIlson is almost 3, and Della is 1). I found it best to start taking them outside on their leash almost every hour and when they go potty give them a treat immediately and tell them they did a good job going potty. It takes patience, just like with a puppy, but they get it eventually. Now when our pigs need to go outside, they go stand by the door and wait patiently to be let outside. If we take to long to get them outside, an accident usually results.

They can also be trained to use a litter box (all the websites say its best to use pine pellets instead of kitty litter). The main issue with kitty litter is that they will eat the clay pellets. When we got Wilson we were able to train him easily to a kitty litter box. He lived outside to start and after he went poop we put the poop in the box and he knew to use it. We slowly moved him inside. When he was living in the basement he was very good about using his litter box. He was also confined to a little pen when he was down there. When we moved him upstairs it took awhile for him to get the going outside part right. Although a lot of it also had to do with the fact that he couldn't hold it forever, and sometimes I wasn't fast enough. Litter box training seems to work best when they learn in the confines of a smaller pen. Della didn't learn the litter box (now we use pine pellets) until we started locking her in the bathroom when we weren't home. She only seems to use the box if she's contained in the bathroom though.

Expenses

Expenses would be spaying/neutering them. When we had Wilson neutered it only cost $70. I called around and tried to get estimates from a couple of veterinarians. Some veterinarians won't see a pig because its considered an exotic pet, so watch that too.

We feed our mini pigs "Sweet Feed" which you can find at any farm supply store. Its about $7-$10 per bag and I think our first bag lasted us 6 months with one pig. "Sweet Feed" is lower in protein which will allow for slower growth of your pig than normal pig feed that is designed to bulk a pig up fast. I think its easier too to control their weight with it. Most "Sweet Feed" bags don't actually list pigs on the bag, instead they list cows, sheep, goats, and horses. But our pigs have been eating it without complaints or any issues.

Any routine veterinarian care that you wish to pursue. We don't have our pigs seen by a vet regularly. At this point, I don't believe its required to have certain vaccinations. Ask your veterinarian for more detail. I vaccinated our first pig for tetanus, as I'm a registered nurse. I would like to get them vaccinated for rabies, but its a regulated drug, so they don't sell that one at the farm supply stores.

And then the cost of a least and harness. I recommend an "A style harness" for a pig. It looks like this 

Verses this 

The "A style harness" is much easier to put on as the pig can just step into it. With an "H style harness" you have to get the pig's head through the first part and then the body. The "A style" is much easier to use. I have been unable to find the "A style" in most stores, most carry the "H style." The "A style" is available on the internet, and I've found it at Buccheit's in Herculaneum, MO and at Orscheln in DeSoto, MO. Both are pretty close to our home.

Pigs and Other Animals

I've only had experience with my one pig living with cats. He got along well with them. Cats have a tendency to not like any new animals, even other cats. So they would hiss at him if he got too close to them, but he didn't speak cat, so the cats would usually have to just run away to get away from him. He tried so hard to be their friend. 

He was also around a dog, but did not live with the dog. They got along just fine until one day the dog tried to take one of his treats and he started to fight with the dog. It ended fine, just something to be aware of. Otherwise they did alright together. All dogs, cats, and other animals have different attitudes, so it's hard to make a generalized statement on this. I would recommend letting them get to know each other with supervision and allowing them to learn to trust one another. Many sites say that having pigs and dogs together can be a bad idea because pigs are prey and dogs are predators and that they should not be left alone together. I would think that they would be ok if they were separated/crated while you are not their to supervise.

Pigs and Children

We don't have children, but our pigs have never minded children too much. When Wilson was a piglet he steered clear of the toddler to younger aged children. They seemed to scare him. Now that he's bigger, he doesn't worry about them. The main thing with pigs is earning their trust.

Bath Time?

Pigs do not really need baths. Pigs have sensitive skin that dries out very easily. If you are going to bathe your pig, I would suggest using a baby wash or nothing at all. When our pigs get dirty/muddy outside we give them a good hose down outside. When they are shedding in the spring we give them a good rinse in the tub and just use a good scrub brush to get the dead skin and hair to come off more quickly. We don't use a baby wash anymore. 

When their skin gets dry its a good idea to put a gentle lotion or baby oil on their skin. This help rehydrate it and helps releive the itching associated with it.

Hoof Trimming

We found a great youtube video for hoof trimming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03H23Zyitz4

It does an excellent job showing how and what to cut when trimming your piggy's hooves.

Summer Time Musts

The main thing to keep in mind when the temperatures warm up is that pigs need to be kept cool. Pigs do not sweat. Pigs can dehydrate easily so make sure to keep water within their reach at all times. We bought ours a kiddy pool and they love to go swimming. The kiddy pool is nice because before we had one, Wilson would always dump out his water to try to make a mud bath with it. Now he has his own clean pool of water instead of mud.

 Della in her pool.

Wilson outside in the backyard before we had a pool for him.