Hey. Gerdie just turned a year and is about 50lbs. She won’t get much bigger than this, she just may round out a little more. One thing I realized very early on is that pigs are highly emotional and extremely intellectual and smart. They need a lot of love and physical touch. They feel deeply and remember everything! They are highly stubborn and manipulative so it does make good to let my yes be yes and my no be no. Everything has to be black and white!!! Getting a routine down for the morning and evening was huge. The more we did this, the more Gerdie learned to know what to expect and the more relaxed she felt. Also, the more I spent time training her, the better her behaviour became. I started off with only 2-3 mins of training each time (as she would become irritable) and then slowly increased the amount of time to about 6 minutes now. We also got a dog trainer who had worked with pigs before but she helped me implement really good behaviour and helped me to establish my authority so that Gerdie wouldn’t motion to nip me anymore just to get her way. This has been such a great resource. I highly recommend you read it and watch the videos. If you start implementing what the zoologist teaches you, you WILL see a difference in your piggy: www.positivelypigs.com Oh and one more thing, I’ve noticed that as Gerdie ages, she mellows out more. She’s waaaay more chill now than she was even 6 months ago. Hoping you’re encouraged by this. You can do this!!! It’s hard but all your hard work will pay off in the end. You got this 👍🏼
OMG yes thank you so much. I'm doing what you did and just sitting in his "room" for a little bit twice a day and letting him get used to my touch. He seems happy because his tail is always wagging now and he is loving his music toys lol. One day at a time for sure!! Thank you so much for responding and I will definitely look into that website.
Oh that is such great news. Yes! His little tail wagging means he’s happy. So you’re already doing a great job. A couple other things that I thought of are: we don’t give Gerdie any fruit as it’s full of sugar and pigs are known for becoming diabetic which causes so many problems for them and creates a huge vet bill for you. Other than her micro pig pellets we give her lots of vegetables and also plain Cheerios for treats. I give her a dentastix treat after dinner as it helps to clean her teeth. And this ball saved my sanity as it’s quiet on the hardwood floors, it keeps her distracted for 20 mins and she actually likes it: www.amazon.ca/gp/your-account/order-history/item/ref=oh_aui_i_d_old_o9?ie=UTF8&gen=canonical&itemId=jmskktnmnppoqn&orderId=701-3602719-9729811&packageId=1&returnSummaryId=&shipmentId=DN9P2Vn3k
How did you build her enclosure? Can you do a video showing it
How big is she now? I just got a Julianna pig. He’s 10 weeks old now. He’s still very scared and tries to bite....any advice?
Hey. Gerdie just turned a year and is about 50lbs. She won’t get much bigger than this, she just may round out a little more.
One thing I realized very early on is that pigs are highly emotional and extremely intellectual and smart. They need a lot of love and physical touch. They feel deeply and remember everything! They are highly stubborn and manipulative so it does make good to let my yes be yes and my no be no. Everything has to be black and white!!! Getting a routine down for the morning and evening was huge. The more we did this, the more Gerdie learned to know what to expect and the more relaxed she felt.
Also, the more I spent time training her, the better her behaviour became. I started off with only 2-3 mins of training each time (as she would become irritable) and then slowly increased the amount of time to about 6 minutes now. We also got a dog trainer who had worked with pigs before but she helped me implement really good behaviour and helped me to establish my authority so that Gerdie wouldn’t motion to nip me anymore just to get her way.
This has been such a great resource. I highly recommend you read it and watch the videos. If you start implementing what the zoologist teaches you, you WILL see a difference in your piggy:
www.positivelypigs.com
Oh and one more thing, I’ve noticed that as Gerdie ages, she mellows out more. She’s waaaay more chill now than she was even 6 months ago.
Hoping you’re encouraged by this. You can do this!!! It’s hard but all your hard work will pay off in the end. You got this 👍🏼
OMG yes thank you so much. I'm doing what you did and just sitting in his "room" for a little bit twice a day and letting him get used to my touch. He seems happy because his tail is always wagging now and he is loving his music toys lol. One day at a time for sure!! Thank you so much for responding and I will definitely look into that website.
Oh that is such great news. Yes! His little tail wagging means he’s happy. So you’re already doing a great job.
A couple other things that I thought of are: we don’t give Gerdie any fruit as it’s full of sugar and pigs are known for becoming diabetic which causes so many problems for them and creates a huge vet bill for you. Other than her micro pig pellets we give her lots of vegetables and also plain Cheerios for treats. I give her a dentastix treat after dinner as it helps to clean her teeth.
And this ball saved my sanity as it’s quiet on the hardwood floors, it keeps her distracted for 20 mins and she actually likes it: www.amazon.ca/gp/your-account/order-history/item/ref=oh_aui_i_d_old_o9?ie=UTF8&gen=canonical&itemId=jmskktnmnppoqn&orderId=701-3602719-9729811&packageId=1&returnSummaryId=&shipmentId=DN9P2Vn3k