A few weeks back, a good friend of mine from St. Louis came to visit our farm for the first time. Not only was this her first trip to our farm, it was her first trip to any pig farm. You can read what my friend, Janice, thought of our farm here. Janice is a great blogger and a great story teller, I know you will enjoy her blog about our farm!
While visiting our farm, Janice asked me lots and lots of questions. She gave me some great ideas for my blog, one was “How do you pick up piglets?” 
I explained to Janice that piglets feel the most comfortable being picked up by their back legs. When you see someone carrying or picking up a piglet by the back legs, they are not hurting the pig. This is a practice that is used for handling piglets on all types of farms, both indoors and outdoors. When you pick up a pig and hold it next to your body, they try to get away and they squeal. They really don’t want to snuggle and cuddle with humans. When picking the pig up by it’s back legs, they are calm and they don’t squeal. Why does it matter if a pig squeals? If the piglet squeals, it upsets the mother and in turn, this upsets the pigs. This causes stress for both the piglet and the mother. We like to keep the pigs and sows calm and comfortable. So if you ever see someone carrying a small pig by the back legs, rest assured the pig is not being hurt and it is not causing stress for the pig. (In the picture above, Conner is putting a piglet back with it’s mother and litter mates after he let Janice hold the pig. That’s a story for another day though!)
Filed under: agchat, agriculture, education, education, family, food, livestock care, nursery Tagged: A Colorful Adventure, animal care, city girl, farm, farm kid, handling, hog farm, hogs, legs, pig, pig farm, piglet, sow, stress 
