Tag: Piglets

Weaners

At Charlotte’s Ice Cream Parlour, the piglets are getting to the stage where they’d be better being separated from the sow. She’s getting increasingly irritated by the continual rough-and-tumble of her nine little porkers.

Rough-and-tumble except for the numerous occasions when they’re taking a break.

Rhea

Rhea eggs laid in the paddock in May.

Two of the rhea eggs in the incubator at Charlotte’s have hatched, although we haven’t yet had the chance to see the chicks as they have to stay in there for a while. Rhea eggs are large but, even so it’s surprising how large the chicks are – about a foot tall apparently – so, they must have been well folded up in there.

Quails

In the lovebird aviary, a female quail is being pursued by an insistent male. He keeps grabbing her by the feathers of her nape so she’s starting to look a little the worse for wear.

The View from the Café

On Sunday morning when I drew the old scouring mill at Horbury Bridge from the Di Bosco Café, the temperature was climbing to 81°F, 27°C, so it was good to have the shade of their well-ventilated conservatory to draw in.

Yesterday, Monday, afternoon, I drew a buddleia-dotted development site through the open doors of Create Café, Wakefield One. The hoarding advertises the adjacent Merchant Gate development of flats, steak house and offices as ‘diverse & striking’. They seem to have given up on the ‘vibrant hub’ slogan.

Cushions in an armchair at Barbara’s brother’s.

Nine Little Piggies

Four weeks old now, and the piglets at Charlotte’s Ice Cream Parlour are larger and leaner.

I choose a couple to draw that seem to be settled but soon another piglet nuzzles in to sleep beside them, then another squeezes in between them.

The piglet’s concave snout fits comfortably into the concave contours of its sleeping partner.

Another sign that the piglets are maturing: today, when the sow finishes feeding and disappears into the shelter, the piglets are grunting, rather than squeaking, as they did when they were younger.

Cannon Hall Farm Sketches

I arrived in time to see the goats milked. First, as always, the large Nubian but I’m afraid after that the nannies didn’t form an orderly queue. Occasionally an extra would slip out of the pen, keen to get the small treat that is the reward during milking. Not much more than a couple of pints between the whole group.
There was no doubt that Tom was the alpha turkey, seeing off his rival with bluster and intimidating vocalisations.
I’d started drawing the left-hand sow when the second walked around the pen grumbling, then settled down right next to her.
A few grunts from the sow and piglets woke from their sleeping session and gathered to feed. Play time in the pig pen might seem like chaos if you came in in the middle of it but like sleep and feeding it’s a time-limited burst of madness. They chase around the sow, push at each other in a piglet version of arm wrestling and I got the impression that there was some informal game of tag in progress.
I was amazed how soon the piglets went into REM sleep, you could see that their eyes were moving beneath closed lids, as were the legs, running on little dream adventures. Even the little tail wagged about expressively