This is Nick & Holly! (Nick has the tusks). Nick & Holly are brother and sister, and they are different from the rest of the potbellied pigs. They are half Hampshire Hog, half wild boar. You can't really tell by these pictures, but Nick & Holly are much bigger/denser than the other pigs. They weigh between 700-800 pounds! For as big as they are, they are ridiculously fast... They can run up to 30MPH!! Since Nick & Holly are so much bigger and agile than the rest of the pigs, they are kept totally separate within a 5 acre enclosure. So they have plenty of room to run free! Some of the caregivers were telling me that they used to ride around the enclosure on ATVs and Nick & Holly would chase them! Sounds like so much fun!!! These guys are so cool... Going to miss the exhilarating/scary feeling of going into their pen!
And this, yet again, is another picture of my girl, Mazie! Taking a nap in the hay :). She's definitely getting more publicity than the rest of the piglets, lol!
On a different note, I forgot to mention yesterday that the interns got a tour of the brand new vet clinic at Best Friends that opened in March! I was beyond blown away. Everything is state-of-the-art... All of their operating rooms, the isolation ward for sick animals, the testing lab, the ultrasound and x-ray machines, the computers, everything! it seems like they managed to think of every single thing they could ever possibly need, and it's all in one clinic. The vet tech who was giving the tour, Sam, said everyone is over the moon about the clinic and it's a drastic improvement from the previous one. The craziest part about it all, is that this clinic was built strictly from donations! In my opinion, this clinic would be any vet or vet tech's dream! It's absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad we got a chance to go on this tour.
I just want to throw it out there that every single pig at Best Friends right now is up for adoption! I'm sure all of you will fall in love with pigs just like I did! It is important to know that Best Friends requires pigs to be adopted in pairs; simply because they like have to a friend, and they tend to behave much better if they are not alone! Here's a link if you'd like to read up on any of the pigs :)
http://bestfriends.org/Adopt-a-Pet/Sanctuary-Animals/Search/Pig/
So I'll finish up this blog with my favorite picture of the week! From the top left corner to the right, there's Mazie, Maggie, Elliott, Doogie, and Gene! This is how I spent most of my week... Sitting in the dirt, petting pigs. And I had way more fun than I probably should have! I'm going to miss them so much!!!
