Love?

I didn’t have a camera with me, but when I did my evening check on our animals I found my boar and sow in a full face to face embrace…yes, arms around one another.

John , you lend a new modern meaning to The Summer of Love
Maybe your Homestead could soon host a culture-defining rock music festival,  we could call it Pigstock

John F Dean wrote:..............I found my boar and sow a full face to face embrace…yes, arms around one another.

Pigs do have their favorites and this is especially noted when one of a pair/companionship passes on leaving the other solo.  For those who observe pigs in a pile regularly, this face to face might be considered unusual.  My wife typically observes them side-to-side, alternating head to rump....apparently a probable survival tactic to monitor all sides of the sleeping passel in the wild.  In winter, you will find one or two cats curled up on top of some of the larger sleeping pigs as their body temp is usually over 100 degrees F (~40C).   Just now I hear 'Felix' outside the window, a large Yorkie, moving through the wild plum thicket.  Awesome crop this year and he will vacuum up loads of ground-fall with the others over the next week or two.

Hi John,

Yes, we have a feral cat that had adopted one of our pig pens. It, for the summer, is living on the roof of the shelter. It makes sense. It is well protected from predators.  It is no accident that it has selected the home of our breeding pair for is residence. They are the largest and least aggressive pigs we have.  The shelter is situated so the cat can leap to a wood fence or a tree with ease. From the tree an overhanging limb will take the cat to the barn roof. The far end of the barn roof goes to another tree…to a car port…to the roof of the house.  In all, the cat can travel some 250 feet without touching the ground and put several fences and buildings between it and whatever may be after it.

So, we had a nasty cold rain yesterday..actually a couple of days. My sow acts like she is thinking about having babies. I fixed her a stall in the barn.  This morning I found the boar outside of his pen pressed up tight against the door of her stall.   Of course, I left him there.