The four musketeers

For those of you who were disturbed by my last post, don't worry, this one should not make you cry.  The pig story has made a turn toward happy, and here's to hoping that it stays that way. 

Last Friday, we began bottlefeeding the piglets with a cow's-milk-based formula.  Handfeeding the little guys was rather time-consuming, so our farm manager rigged up a feeding station to hold the bottles up for the piglets to suckle on.  Ingenious!  The piglets are crazy about their feedings, crawling over each other to find the "best" bottle of milk.  They guzzle down their bottles and then fall asleep, curled up together in their pen.

 Last weekend, the piglets graduated to supervised daytime parental visits.  Millet and Barley were happy to be reunited with their babies, grunting with excitement.  Millet even showed some signs of mothering instincts, rolling over onto her side (finally!) to let the piglets nurse.  The pig family spends most of the day laying near an olive tree, the adults in the shade and the piglets sunning themselves. 

Millet isn't producing very much milk, so in the evenings, we bottlefeed the piglets, then tuck them into their own pen with a heating lamp and heating pad for warmth.  After their cow's milk breakfast, we carry them out to the orchard in a milk crate to join their parents for the day.  Of all the animal chores, this task is my favorite.

The piglets are growing quickly and becoming more active and adventurous.  They've taken to exploring their environment, so much so that we had to put up another fence to keep them confined, as the little piglets can walk right under the electric fence that holds their parents in.  On Friday, I spotted the piglets wrestling with each other--adorable!

In other animal news, I learned how to milk a cow this week and was able to herd our flock of sheep out to the pasture all by myself. 

Milking Phoebe, our dairy cow is quite a process, beginning with a thorough cleaning of the cow.  First, she gets brushed, then rinsed, then scrubbed with hot soapy water, then rinsed again.  Once Phoebe is clean, you pull up the milking stool and start squeezing, two teats at a time.  I'm still getting the hang of milking, but the basic idea is to let milk into the teat, pinch off the top of the teat to keep the milk from flowing backward into the udder, then squeeze the milk out the bottom of the teat into the bucket.  About 4 gallons of milk later, Phoebe is pretty empty and you can stop milking.  The milk is then filtered to remove any stray hairs or skin flakes, and refrigerated for later consumption.  Fresh milk is wonderful, and best of all, free!  I've taken to making yogurt from the milk, cooking about 3-4 quarts at a time.  Mmm, mmm.  The yogurt is as good, if not better, than the stuff I was paying $7 a quart for at Whole Foods, pleasing both my stomach and my wallet.