Yesterday I drove out to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary to help with morning chores. We had four days of steady rain so I was expecting some mud as I arrived around 8:30 a.m.
I couldn’t find a soul until I was walking past the house to the chicken barns and finally saw Dave. There was a couple of minutes of silliness as we both tried to yell to each other over a passing airplane. He told me that Terry was resting a little longer than usual after being up most of the night with the piglets, Morty and Izzy. Saturday night was their first night sleeping in their play pen in the heated gift shop, a move intended to allow Terry a couple hours of sleep between feedings. But the rain made it more difficult as she had to get fully dressed in rain gear just to cross the yard to the shop!
So, I visited the babies in their play pen and they were frantic for food! Morty is growing so fast you can almost see it. He’s at least twice the size of little Izzy, who seems to be recovering nicely from his illness of a week or two ago. You can read a lot more detailed information about these babies on Deb’s blog, Invisible Voices. She’s got a nice vid of Izzy and Morty on her site and it’s a good idea to add her site to your feed as her posts are always informative and thought-provoking. And … cute baby piglets!
Terry came out before we slogged through the mud and wet hay of the goats and sheep barn, and asked me to help feed the babies. I held the bottle while Morty sucked it dry in a matter of a few minutes. He’d occasionally let go of the nipple and nudge my hand with his nose. Terry said that’s what he’d do if he were nursing from his mother – nudge her nipple to get more milk to flow. I just held the bottle at a higher angle for him.
After feeding it was time to put on their special sweaters so they could join us outside. Izzy’s sweater is pink and fluffy and it was the smallest one Terry could find. It took both of us to hold his legs inside the leg holes because he was screaming and squirming. We decided to let Morty go for a bit without his snazzy red sweater, because he seemed not to be so cold.
Izzy explores the cold outdoors pretty in pink
Morty and Izzy rooting around for tasty treats
Where Morty goes, Izzy follows
How cute are they?
I left after we finished the pig yard, which was about three inches deep in stinky mud. (Deb and I called it boot-sucking mud and she suggested it could be a blues song.) As I was changing out of my boots into my shoes at my car, I saw Wilbur the pig making a beeline for me. Yes, he used the slide-through spot in the fence to escape the yard – again! I wanted to get a picture of him but I was too busy keeping him from dragging off my boot bag! Dave finally saw Wilbur and herded him back to the proper side of the fence. I always enjoy these one-on-one encounters with the various animals at the Sanctuary. It doesn’t happen often, but it always feels as if they’ve singled me out for a moment of their time.
There’s something about being out there, even in crappy weather, that makes me feel calmer and … useful. All the non-human animals at the Sanctuary are the happy endings that millions of their kind never get. It’s a powerful message, even for vegans, that all lives are valuable, all creatures feel joy and pain and suffering, and doing anything to give them a more normal life is time well spent.
Filed under: animal rights, veganism Tagged: | boot-sucking mud, morty and izzy, poplar spring animal sanctuary, wilbur the pig
THey are just too too tooooo darling! Thanks for sharing.