This message is from: "Nancy Newport" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hello all - we have 2 pot belly pigs and 1 pot belly plus some domestic pig. They live in the pasture with our 5 horses (2 are fjords). They make great horse companions. They do eat up all the acorns and root a little, but also graze. They are in a 2 1/2 acre pasture all the time and share it with the horses when they get rotated in there. The horses will chase them away from their feed buckets, but even if they get close they cannot steal feed if the buckets are up off the ground (unlike goats). My TB is very fond of one piggy in particular and they will graze together. Our newest Fjord, 2 year old Tamara, just took a long inquisitive look at them and then snorted and chased them away. The next day she just ignored them.
The don't eat weeds, but they will clean up the acorns with a passion. I'm not too familiar with domestic pigs, but if you want a couple of pets, the pot bellies are easy to work with and trainable from a young age - similar to dogs. I do feed them a teensy bit of pot belly pig food daily to help balance their nutrition, but they find plenty to eat in the pasture. The are not loners and do like the company of their own kind, so I would have at least two. With all the popularity of them in the recent past, I'm sure many need homes. We raised one from a bottle and adopted two. My vet called and asked if I could take one she rescued, and I said no I had 2 unneutered females and hers was a male. The next morning she called and said he's neutered now will you take him? So of course I did - but we've stopped at 3!! In Florida, the drying leaves of the wild cherry are poisonous to horses. My solution to this is that when they start falling late in the year I make sure the horses are getting enough hay by that time and they leave them alone. I think if they were hungry they would eat them. Thanks for all the great info! Nancy Newport, Gainesville, Florida
