Bessie needs a new pair of shoes

In late July of this year my friend Rachel contacted me to ask if I wanted a pot belly pig as a companion to our other pot belly rescue, Petunia. Rachel knew a woman who was desperately trying to find a home for her stepson’s pet pot belly pig.

Bessie, formerly Bacon Bits, had fallen on hard times. The young man had gotten Bessie a few years earlier as a piglet. He wasn’t much more than a child himself and, although he obviously loved her, didn’t have the proper knowledge of how to care for her. The boy grew into a man and was scheduled to leave to serve our country at the beginning of August. A couple of months earlier, his mother’s (and Bessie’s) housing situation drastically and unexpectedly changed. Bessie was homeless and bouncing from place to place.

We drove about 40 miles to pick Bessie up. I was expecting a normal sized pot belly pig (which is actually pretty big) that we could herd into the trailer we were pulling. I was shocked at what we found. Honestly, I think the young man and his stepmother were also shocked. They hadn’t seen her in a month or so and she had gone downhill.

She was in bad shape. She was sunburned, severely obese, and her hooves were so overgrown she could barely walk. No, she didn’t get that way over night. But I think being jostled around to unfamiliar people and places had broken her spirit. Pigs are very intelligent and loving creatures.

She had to have a towel placed under her belly as a sling and be dragged into the trailer. It was hot, hovering near 100 degrees. By the time we got her home, she was panting and in pain. Her knees were skinned up from trying to stand in the trailer. Due to the condition of her hooves, she walks on her knees more than her feet. She was on the verge of heat exhaustion. You see, pigs don’t sweat. That’s why they like to roll in the mud. It’s imperative that they have access to plenty of water and a pool or mud hole during extreme heat. We spent 2 hours misting her with water to cool her down and coaxing her out of the trailer.

I’ve had her on Mazuri pig maintenance and she has lost some weight. She still can barely walk because she needs her hooves trimmed. I wanted to get her hooves taken care of immediately, but Dr. Hughes cautioned against doing so until it cooled off….a lot.

While we could load Bessie up and take her the 70-mile round trip to have her hooves trimmed, it would be very hard on her and I’m afraid she might not survive the trip. There is also a danger that she would catch one of her hooves getting into the trailer and hurt herself even worse. Therefore, we have scheduled with Dr. Hughes for him to make the trip to her. Once he gets here, she will have to be sedated before she’ll let him trim her hooves. I can mess with Petunia’s feet all day long and she loves it. But Bessie hides her feet; I’m sure it’s because they hurt. After they are trimmed, I’ll start rehabbing her and getting her back in shape. She will have 10 acres to run around on and that should keep her hooves worn down in the future. Of all the pigs we’ve had, we’ve never had to trim hooves.

This will all be expensive. An expense we had no idea we were in for when we decided to go get her. I could have said “no, thank you” when I saw the condition she was in, but how could I? She wouldn’t have survived. Her owner, the young man, was scheduled to leave for basic training 3 days later and I could tell he was heartbroken over her.

This brings me to doing something I’ve never done before, asking for donations for one of our animals. It will be $250 for Dr. Hughes to even come to the farm, another $200 for the sedation, and about $150 for the hoof trim itself. That’s $600 we didn’t plan for.

If you have read Bessie’s story this far, I thank you, even if you aren’t able to donate. I do have a few final words. Bessie is the third pig we’ve rescued this year. Petunia was the first and she was just a wee piglet. She had been rescued from an inexperienced sow who was stomping her own piglets. One of our clients had rescued her, but she was unable to keep her due to city ordinance. The second pig we have since rehomed. We found him with nothing but belly-deep mud in his pen. He had no shelter, no dry spot, and the temperature was hovering near freezing. Yes, pigs like mud when it’s hot, but they also need shelter or at least a dry spot, especially in freezing temperatures. This pig was at a potential client’s home. He knew he was in over his head and begged us to take the pig. He said he was either just going to have to turn him loose to run the woods (eye roll) or shoot him, so we took him.

So my final words are these: for the love of all that’s good, DO NOT get a pig, or any other animal, without first researching its needs. Yes, baby animals are small and cute, but they grow up. Don’t put an animal, and yourself, in a desperate situation.