So Bubba and I had a really bad scare last week with our boy Orville. All was right with the world, and we set out for a few hours to get a little shopping done. We come home and as per his strict schedule, it's time for the big O's afternoon carrots. The carrot feeding tends to be a bigger production than some of his other feedings, as they are the perfect size for Bubba to feed him by hand, one at a time. As such, she can have him do all kinds of tricks to earn his "bacon" as it were. Shaking of the hands (hooves), the 360 turnaround, and Bubba's favorite, the Carrots for Kisses exchange.
So Bubba gears up for a round of pig action, when much to our surprise, Orville won't eat. He just beaches himself on the couch like Homer Simpson. Well, it didn't take much for us to realize, "Sumpin' ain't right." Orville has NEVER been gastronomically sated in the two years we've had him. Never. Now, nothing. Clearly he's ill. Now it becomes a mad scramble to see who will see our boy on short notice. Can't just call any old vet, since he's a pig and all. Plus, we were after hours by then, so we were really screwed. Finally, we find a travelling vet, but he can't make it until the morning.
Orville is an eating ma-CHINE. "Hoover" we call him, given his penchant for snorting up anything and everything off of the floor. So, while we don't know what specifically, clearly he ate something he shouldn't have. And so the waiting started. Alls we could do was wait it out with him until the morning when the vet would get there.
The Animal Poison Control (Yes, there's one just for animals) said we should try to give him some Gatorade. Poor little man, it was all he could do just snout over the bowl and lap it up off the floor, he was so ill. We tried to give him some peanuts, but he couldn't eat more than like 3. I took a picture because much like Halley's comet, we're not gonna see THAT again the rest of his life: a pig refusing food.
We decided to sleep with him in the living room, keeping him warm, and making sure his vitals didn't drop or anything. Around 4 in the morning or so, I hear Orville start smacking his lips, even more than usual. Next thing I know, he's puking his lil' pig guts out. Not pleasant for sure, but I was happy to see it, as his body was getting rid of whatever he ate that old "Iron Belly" couldn't process.
A few more unpleasant episodes later, it was now morning, and he was starting to come around when the vet came. (They literally squeezed us in before going off to the Cyrus household, as in, Miley and Billy Ray). Folks I have to tell you, this guy was AWESOME. He and his partner came in, and weren't inside more than 2 minutes before they had him on his back, essentially hog-tied, to check him out. As pigs do, Orville screamed his ear-curdling scream like a baby the entire 30-minutes they were there, and the guys didn't even flinch. They checked him out, gave him his shots, trimmed his hooves, AND cut his tusks. (Quick aside: We now know that pig tusks grow in the mouth, not outside like we had wrongly assumed. We thought his tusks were just these two bad-ass snaggle-teeth that he had, that were sticking out the sides of his mouth like daggers).
So at the end of the day, Orville got a clean bill of health, and he's back to his gluttonous ways. He clocked in at a very respectable 50 lbs., not too heavy, but not so skinny that he's being denied his rights as a pig. The only casualty of the affair was that we had to postone this years birthday "feast," as we want to let his belly settle down a bit.
