Henry’s new tiny little Wife..

Hannah_xx

Hannah_xx

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As some of you may remember I trialed a new piggie, Luna as a wife for Henry or Newton. Unfortunately it didn’t work out at all as Luna hated Henry and caused injury to Newton. As much as I liked her she sadly had to go back to the rescue as I cannot have a fourth cage with a 3rd single pig.

So a week ago I found another little piggie in need of a home, A Rex (my fav!) 2.5 years old called Wren.
She’s the smallest little pig I’ve ever met! She’s smaller that what Olive was!
She weighed just 712grams the day after I picked her up. At 2.5 years old I recon she’s lived a very sheltered and basic life. In a hutch with her sister (whom recently passed away) and she came with a box of guinea pig granola..
She was absolutely shell shocked and ever so shy and scared for the first two days at my house but slowly started to come out the hideys and quickly got wheeeking at meal times! And she’s also put on 20 grams this week.
Anyway I’ve had her side by side with Henry for the past week and today was the big bonding day..

I had them in the mutual pen for 6.5 hours. A tiny bit of tension at first, I think mainly because Henry was worried after being bullied by Luna. But then gently sorted out their problems and decided each other wasn’t a threat. They shared some food and then ended up napping side my side for about 2 hours. (I ended up having to put the bendy bridge tunnel in there to stop Henry squeezing down the side of the sofa to escape the pen. Henry even cleaned her ears a couple of times!

I made their cage bigger and finally put them away.. the real test! Phewwwww everything for the last 2 hours has been smooth and they are sharing the space very well..so far so good!
Wren seems delighted to have a friend and a large cage, She’s having fun in the hay tray that she’s so small that I can’t even see her in! And Henry was happily popcorning around enjoying the space and some company again after losing his wife Maude.
Fingers crossed it keeps going well!
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She looks like a baby pig doesn’t she?! Or a hamster !
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Oh wow that’s so lovely. Fingers crossed they are settled now and how nice she gets to have a happy home with you after a less than great start to life. What a cute pair they are!
 
Oh, she's so sweet! 🥰 Wren is definitely a perfect name for her, she's tiny!
Henry looks very protective over her in that 5th pic 😊
 
Congratulations to Henry on his little new wife.

Nuzzling the ears is the friendliest and mildest dominance behaviour; it translates as 'I want you to be part of the group I am leading' - a very friendly invitation from a higher ranked piggy; the equivalent from a lower ranked piggy is nuzzling an eye and cheek. Just the kind of behaviour you want to see in a bonding like theirs. :)

My Dryw (Welsh for Wren) is delighted to have a namesake. I hope that your Wren is going to pack on a little more weight although she is sadly past the age where she can make up for a good deal of her malnutrional neglect. You may want to consider wether to do an additional 3 weeks vitamin C booster.
 
Wiebke said:
Congratulations to Henry on his little new wife.

Nuzzling the ears is the friendliest and mildest dominance behaviour; it translates as 'I want you to be part of the group I am leading' - a very friendly invitation from a higher ranked piggy; the equivalent from a lower ranked piggy is nuzzling an eye and cheek. Just the kind of behaviour you want to see in a bonding like theirs. :)

My Dryw (Welsh for Wren) is delighted to have a namesake. I hope that your Wren is going to pack on a little more weight although she is sadly past the age where she can make up for a good deal of her malnutrional neglect. You may want to consider wether to do an additional 3 weeks vitamin C booster.
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Yes I was rather pleased to see the ear nuzzling so soon, Henry use to always do it to his old wife’s ears and eyes too so it was really sweet to see.
Aww that’s nice Wren (which is a tiny Australian bird) has a forum namesake!
Yes being the age she is it’s unlikely she’ll ever look much bigger but I think she can definitely fill out some more with some good quality hay and veggies. She’s throughly enjoying the veggies (that I’ve slowly introduced- as I’m not sure if they were regular in her old home). So hopefully that will be enough extra vit C, so far so good!

Last night was the first time she actually tucked into the pellets too! Because Henry was! Whereas before she only wanted her terrible muesli that I’m trying to wean her off. That can go to the chickens now!
 
Thanks everyone! She’s so cute isn’t she! I love her little sticky out ears.
Maude will hopefully be happy that her Husboar now has a new Wifelet whom has the same fuzzy Rex type hair and colour as she did (minus the white!) and can keep Mischievous Henry happy once again :wub:

Also I must add that although her old home clearly was rather simple and not up to our level of care and incorrect diet, The lady was lovely and definitely cared about Wren and her sister..just unknowledgeable sadly. She has been keen for updates on Wren which is nice.
 
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Hannah_xx said:
Yes I was rather pleased to see the ear nuzzling so soon, Henry use to always do it to his old wife’s ears and eyes too so it was really sweet to see.
Aww that’s nice Wren (which is a tiny Australian bird) has a forum namesake!
Yes being the age she is it’s unlikely she’ll ever look much bigger but I think she can definitely fill out some more with some good quality hay and veggies. She’s throughly enjoying the veggies (that I’ve slowly introduced- as I’m not sure if they were regular in her old home). So hopefully that will be enough extra vit C, so far so good!

Last night was the first time she actually tucked into the pellets too! Because Henry was! Whereas before she only wanted her terrible muesli that I’m trying to wean her off. That can go to the chickens now!
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It is a great sign that Wren is already taking her cue from Henry; it means she feels bonded, welcomed and she trusts him implicitly as her leader.

A wren is the smallest native songbird in the UK. I used to have one nesting in my garden. :)
Dryw's (pronounced Dree-oo) two runty 600g sidekicks, cousins Llinos ('Linnet', a small reddish finch) and Lleian ('Smew', the smallest native mainly white UK duck species) have both stopped growing at ca. 6 months old. They are both coming up to their 3rd birthday next month, just a week apart.

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Wiebke said:
It is a great sign that Wren is already taking her cue from Henry; it means she feels bonded, welcomed and she trusts him as her implicitly as her leader.

A wren is the smallest native songbird in the UK. I used to have one nesting in my garden. :)
Dryw's (pronounced Dree-oo) two runty 600g sidekicks, cousins Llinos ('Linnet', a small reddish finch) and Lleian ('Smew', the smallest native mainly white UK duck species) have both stopped growing at ca. 6 months old. They are both coming up to their 3rd birthday next month, just a week apart.

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Ah what a beautiful trio of bird themed piggies! :love:

Oh yes of course there is a type of Wren in the U.K. too..how could I forget!
Here in Australia we have various ‘Fairy Wrens’. This is a ‘Splendid Fairy Wren’ couple I took a photo of..
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Oh little diddy Wren is gorgeous. She looks well at home with her big husboar Henry. They make a very handsome couple x
 
Eurasian wrens are very much LBJs ('Little Brown Jobs' in bird twitching slang - too difficult to tell apart when you only get a fleeting glimpse of them with your binoculars). You can hear them much more than you see them.
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'Wren' was Dryw's birth name at the rescue. Her fosterer asked me to keep it so we compromised on the Welsh word for Wren, Dryw - who went to live with my large black and white Pioden 'Magpie' and his dying last wife Hedydd 'Skylark', so that is how the bird theme for that group came to be. :)
 
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