Our Pig: Part 2

You can find Part 1 here (in which we introduce you to our pig).

Well she enjoyed Swine Summer Camp as far as we could tell.  She and her two cabin mates would occasionally break out of their pig yard and frolic (a.k.a. chase) the sheep around, requiring occasional fence reinforcing.  We didn't realize pigs were such good climbers and they're always looking for the feed that looks yummier on the other side of the fence.

Miriam named her Charlotte (although we think she meant Wilbur but got confused).  Since Charlotte didn't live with us, there were no real fears to us becoming attached.  Our neighbors fed her along with their pigs so except for the help mending fences and the occasional walk over to visit, we didn't see her much.

But boy, she grew.  And grew.  And grew.

By mid-fall our neighbors were ready to butcher their two pigs (the runt didn't make it).  Ours was still on the small side at the time- partly because she was female and partly because we heard the boys often helped themselves first to meals.  We decided to wait and let her eat and grow a little more.

This is when Charlotte became Princess.  Jamey renamed her and the name stuck.  He and Sam took turns watering and feeding her.  Our kitchen scraps were re-routed from the chicken yard to being bowl-fed to Princess.  Jamey had some concerns as to how we were going to get Princess into the trailer once it was time to take her to the butcher.  He wanted her to become tame enough to be led up and in (our neighbors had less than stellar luck getting one of their pigs loaded up).  Hence the name Princess- she was getting lots of attention.

How did the load-up and trip to the butcher go?  Jamey was practically losing sleep over it.  He would have one hour between getting home from work and when the butcher closed to get her there. I made sure I was available that afternoon, camera in hand.  Stay tuned for Princess the Pig: Part 3 (Off to the Butcher).

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