Love at first sight
The thought of rescuing another animal in need brings a lot of excitement to our volunteers and supporters.
But this is not done lightly. We have to make sure that we have all the resources needed to give this animal a good home and the best care.
The first step is the ask, “Could you possibly take a blind pig? He is very overweight and scared.”
Then I ask, “tell me more about him, what is his story and why does he need to be re-homed?”
Every one of us has a story and that is also true of farmed animals. Wilbur’s person was incarcerated and needed to find a new home immediately. For most pet pigs, that is where their story ends at slaughter. This is the sad state we are in with pet pigs — they are super cute when babies and then when they grow and grow (which seems to take people by surprise), they are no longer fit to be a house pet and are discarded. Just like all manner of pets, there are too many pet pigs who end up unwanted and not enough pig rescues available.
But for Wilbur, kindness and luck were part of his story and he ended up with Chelsey at the Horse Sanctuary at Finn Farms. It didn’t end there as Wilbur still needed to find a proper home. Diane of The Happy Herd heard his plight but didn’t have room for him. She reached out to us, “could you possibly take a blind pig? He is overweight and scared”.
Jason (Barn Manager) and I went to meet Wilbur to see if Kindred could be his new home. Was I expecting that we could actually meet a pig in need and say no? In all our years, we have never gone to meet an animal in need and turned away. Yep, it was love at first sight. Wilbur would be coming home to Kindred.
But first we had to get our blind pig, Frankie, moved into our new barn that was now ready for him. We had waited for this day for over a year! This is part of Frankie’s story that I shared here. But it did mean that I had to tell Chelsey that we weren’t ready yet. In the meantime, I invited her to visit us to see if she agreed that we were the right home for Wilbur.
Behind the scenes, many animal rescues take a lot of time to pull off. This one was no exception. Once Frankie was moved into our new barn, we were ready, but Chelsey wasn’t. She was dealing with horses needing vet care, and a rescue of her own — new horses coming to her farm. When Chelsey was ready, transport was attempted but Wilbur had other ideas. Unfortunately, Wilbur was very traumatized by his move to Finn Farms and was not happy with any thought of moving homes again. Pigs become very attached to their people (which we had already experienced with Frankie) and Chelsey had to come up with a new strategy to move him.
A strategy was hatched. It is extremely risky to medically sedate a pig so a vet suggested a natural remedy. Chelsey experimented first to see if it would work. It worked — he became calm enough to be persuaded to get into a crate. Then his transport was delayed again during the atmospheric river. Finally, on January 10th, his day arrived to move to his forever home with the help of The Happy Herd.
No matter how caring his move to Kindred was, we knew Wilbur would be traumatized once again. So now it was up to our very kind volunteer teams to get to know Wilbur, help him slowly recover and help him to understand that he has just landed in a pig paradise. And hopefully Wilbur will have a new pig friend named Frankie. Wilbur’s new story has just begun.
