Portia’s six piglets are eight weeks old now so it’s time to leave Mum. The novelty of motherhood has worn off and she’s been quite grumpy with her offspring, also she’s quite thin from feeding six hungry children. Time to wean.

This is a three-person operation.

Benj is the pig wrangler. He scoops each one up, with varying amounts of protest. From the piglet, not Benj.

weanpigs benj

Then I move in to vaccinate the piglet, again to different amounts of grumbling.

weanpigs inject

Next Chris deals with the eartagging, which looks like it might be rather unpleasant but doesn’t seem to bother the animal too much.

weanpigs ear

And finally, Benj carries the injected, tagged slightly miffed piglet to the new run.

weanpigs new run

The piglets have settled in very happily and don’t seem to be missing Portia at all. She’s shown no signs that something might be missing out of her field either.

To finish a couple more photos. First Chris with a piglet the other day…

weanpigs not really chris pig

and lastly, the ghastly cou-nus who are growing up fast, but aren’t getting any more attractive! (But they’re still quite sweet.)

counus growing