moving a pig

Question
My question is. My daughter has a Pot Bellied Pig and is moving.How do we move an overweight pig and is almost blind?   Thank you for your help.

Patty

Answer
You'll need to get a few items to move piggy. A harness, crate, maybe wheels, a ramp, and vanilla. Yes, vanilla, the liquid flavoring used in baking. Use a van, suv, or covered bed truck to move piggy. Do not place piggy's crate in an open back bed of a pick up truck.

If piggy was harness trained as a baby, piggy will still remember the training. Measure piggy and buy a harness made for piggies. They are available from pigstuff.com, rossmillfarm.com and several other online piggy vendors.

If piggy was never harness trained, don't bother with the harness for now. It will just stress piggy out more. Instead, get several large garbage can lids, or make "sorting boards", large, flat pieces of wood (plywood, mfd, etc), with handles (plain, inexpensive handles for utility doors are ok).

Piggy will need to ride in a crate for safety. Dog cages are not sturdy enough to hold the weight of a large pig. Get a regular, airline approved travel crate. Usually, the largest crates available off the shelf at pet stores are made for Great Dane type dogs and are about 42" to 48" long. They do make larger crates, for goats and such, but those sizes must be special ordered, from vendors like valleyvet.com or jeffers.com

If your crate does not have it's own wheels, you can use a flatbed type wagon or hand truck. I use a "pot mover", basically, it's a plywood square covered with carpeting, resting on a sturdy square wooden frame, with four wheels. It's made to move very large potted plants.

Any sturdy ramp or a couple of wide boards will work. A long ramp with a gentle slope is easier to use than a short ramp with a steep slope, but a long ramp may require support underneath towards the middle. Bricks or concrete blocks work well for this.

Get piggy's new home ready before moving, and get the crate as far ahead of time as possible. Ideally, piggy will have enough time to get used to the crate, but that isn't always possible.

Put the crate in piggy's room, open the door, and take the top off. If the bottom is slippery, put some non-skid mats on the bottom. Sprinkle the vanilla generously all around the inside of the crate and put in a few treats. Pigs can not resist the aroma of vanilla. Hopefully, piggy will venture in on her own.

On moving day, give piggy only a little bit of breakfast. Put the top on the crate, put the harness on piggy, and guide piggy into the crate. If piggy is not harness trained, get a couple of people and sorting boards to steer piggy into the crate. This may be harder, take some time, and piggy may be a bit noisy. Once piggy is inside, reward piggy with a treat, but do not feed piggy a lot, pigs can get carsick.

Set the ramp up, and wheel the crate up the ramp into the van. If piggy will ride in the back of a moving van or truck, a human person with a working cell phone MUST ride with piggy, to make sure piggy does not die from heat or fumes. If it gets hot or the person smells exhaust, stop at once to open the back and give piggy and person some fresh air and cool water.

At the destination, wheel the crate down the ramp and into piggy's new home. Open the door, but don't force piggy out. Have piggy's bed, a meal, and some water ready outside the crate.

Moving to a new home is a great opportunity to put piggy on a diet. It's a fresh start in a new place. The rule of thumb is 1 cup of pelleted pot-bellied pig food per 50 lb of pig to maintain weight. To loose weight, use 1 cup food per 80 lb of pig. You can determine piggy's weight by measurements, the formula is here farec.org. Supplement the pellets with fresh fruits and veggies.