pbp weight

Question
dear helen ,
i have  a  over weight( indoor-out door) pot belly  pig  like  440 ( if I  did it  right )(wxw- x l /by 400)... healthy  vet checked   he  eats
2 cup chow  and a salad   x2  a day .   how do I get  hom  to  excersize more...

Answer
Scattering food around on the ground is a really easy way to make piggy move more. When all the food is in a bowl, he can just stand in one place and eat. When it's scattered about, he has to work for it. He has to find it, and take a step or two for almost every bite of food.

Usually people scatter the pellets. But, some people like to feed wet, mushy pellets and that doesn't scatter well. If you're feeding piggy indoors in a reletively confinded space, scattering the salad instead of pellets could work.

One advantage to feeding pellets wet is that they expand. So, although piggy is getting the same amount of food, it looks and feels like a lot more. This trick lets you reduce the amount of pellets by about 1/8 cup and piggy won't notice the different. If you reduce more, piggy will notice!

You can also subsitute popped corn or plain oatmeal for some of the pellets. Most pigs like plain, soaked or cooked oatmeal. You don't have to cook the oatmeal as much as for people, pigs don't mind chewy oatmeal. So, you could reduce the pellets at each meal by 1/4 cup, and give piggy 1/4 cup cooked plain oatmeal instead. Popped corn is great to scatter around, everywhere. You can scatter it in piggy's outdoor pen. Or, for example, if you go into a bedroom and piggy follows, you can drop three or four popped kernels around the room, and encourage piggy to find them

Still another option is a busy ball. This is basically any hollow object (milk carton, hamster ball or toy made specifically for this), with holes big enough for popped corn or pig pellets to fall through, and a way to fill it. Piggy pushes the ball around and pellets or popped corn will fall out the holes. If you're feeding dry, put a portion of pellets in the ball. If you're feeding wet pellets, use popped corn and slightly reduce the amount of pellets at mealtime