A piglet named Hope

What an eventful weekend. I apologize for not adding my normal Sunday praise and worship post, but we were beyond busy this past weekend.

Friday night we went out to my good friends farm to see his new litter of pigs. His pig LuLu had a litter of nineteen piglets. Three were still born and there was one runt.

The runt just wasn't going to make it. The mother did not have enough teats to begin with and this runt was getting shoved aside and it was obvious what her fate would be. We were not going to let that happen. So between my family and another family, we decided to take it upon ourselves to get this piglet "over the hump".

Meet Hope, a very adorable, very hungry piglet. We brought her home Friday evening and commenced the every two hour feeding schedule such a young piglet requires to survive. Every two hours means exactly that, so all through the night my wife and kids would wake up to handle Hope's needs.

What a worthwhile endeavor, despite the sleep deprivation, the kids loved it. My wife took the brunt of the late night feedings saving the early morning feedings for the kids.

Hope seems to be doing very well, although I'd like to see her add some weight, she is a voracious eater. We started her off an a mixture that was found on the Internet, a mix of whole milk, raw egg, and half/half. Later we were able to get some colostrum from a nearby Dairy Farm. This hopefully, will do the trick.

Our friends took over pig raising duties last night to give us some needed rest, and we'll take her back this weekend. The goal is after two to three weeks she'll be strong enough to handle life on the farm.