What is lid feeding?

 Lid feeding was a term I was unfamiliar with until I got a pig. It literally means to feed your baby pig from a butter bowl lid or something similar. When I got Lil' Pig, he was only 3 weeks old and the breeder had already started him on eating from a lid. You can buy NurseAll milk from Tractor Supply. Baby pigs do not just naturally start licking the milk from the lid. So if you're buying a pig that has never ate off a lid, you will have to work with the baby to get him to eat from lid. By the way, I don't recommend buying a baby pig before it's weaned from its mother. When I first decided to buy a baby pig, I thought it might be normal to buy at a young age because many breeders were selling that way. If the breeder has started lid feeding, then it is fairly easy to continue, but if the breeder is taking the baby straight from the mother with no introduction to a bottle or lid feeding, then you are going to have your work cut out for you. Be warned!

I saw an ad online from a breeder selling pot-belly pigs, and I decided to purchase one so Little Pig would have a playmate. When I showed up at the house, the lady brought out two baby pigs covered in mud. Seriously, they were filthy! Then she starts talking about pig lice and picks a bug off one of the babies! I was ready to run back to my car and kick it out of there at first! I didn't want to bring home no disease ridden pig to get Little Pig sick! I read horror stories about people getting pigs with mange. I read it looked the color of rust, so in the back of my mind, I'm wondering is this mud on the babies or mange? I'm happy to say it was dirt and severely dry skin. I'm still working on the baby's dry skin. It's slowly coming off. When I first brought Little Pig home, he was itching himself on everything. I had no experience with pigs, so I thought he might have mites or something. I started treating his skin with baby lotion and he hardly ever itches anymore. Just the regular occasion itch. Little Pig's skin looks good! Let me get back to my story....LoL

Back to the story.....I hold both of the babies. Neither were squealing which was a positive sign. But one was more frigidity that the other, so I chose the calmer pig. This little baby had the best temperament, but I was still scared of it being diseased. The breeder asks me if I want to see the parents, so we walk through an unfinished barn area to see the parents. The pigs had made a mud hole and were filthy. It was hard to see their colors good because of the mud. The female pig was jumping on the male pig acting aggressive. The breeder tells me not the pet the female because she bites. The pigs are huge. I'm guessing 300 lbs. I'm thinking do I really want a pig that will get this big? I have all these questions running through my mind as I watch all the other baby pigs running around with their parents.

I decide to go ahead and get the baby. I figure if it has something, then I'll just treat it. The baby is awesome on the way back home. I'm instantly in love with her. My husband and I give her a bath immediately to kill off any pig lice before introducing her to Little Pig. The mud was caked on! I started applying baby lotion and noticed what looked like mud was dry skin and with each lotion treatment it started looking better. I figure it will take a week or two to get her skin looking good, but I'm slowing seeing the dry skin come off. In my next post, I'm going to write about how hard it is to get a baby to take a bottle or lid feed. Stay tuned!