Help! Is One Kune Kune Pig okay?

I am really worried as I just got a Kune Kune pig and don't want more than one, but everything I read says you must have two! I have two dogs and plan to get three chooks, I have a neighbors 3 sheep grazing so there is plenty going on in the paddock. At the moment I have had a small pig pen made for her to live in until she is big enough to go in the large paddock. When she is in there she screams her head off and gets out thru the slats in the fence. I am a softy and end up bringing her in the house to sleep by the fire. Am I making trouble for myself? should I toughen up? or am I being cruel by not having another pig for her to live with?
I am really looking forward to hearing from y'all as it is starting to worry me.
Signed, Linda

2 has always been better for us, however our new mini kune kune was happy enough to befriend the dog until he met his new girlfriend a couple of days ago. Also he got to free range around the house so always had something to do

Hi Linda and welcome to the site

One pig is fine so long as it has company of some sort. Don't get strung out on the hype that because something is a "herd" animal it must need another of it's kind to keep it company. It's bollocks. I've had sheep that have been brought up with calves and wouldn't mix with anything other than cattle, pigs that have been brought up with dogs and think it's a dog, calves that couldn't care less about other cattle but a sheep is a good option - or even a person come to that. Right now, I have a very large, very old boar that will mix it with anything. He was hand reared, his companion was a working dog, he shared his life with dogs, cats, other pigs (which he hated unless they were in heat), rams, sheep in general, and on the odd occasion, cattle.

Yes, you are making trouble for yourself if you are taking this piglet into the house. Ring her (if this is what you want to do), put her with the sheep and let her get on with it. She will probably get under every fence you have but will come home for dinner.

Lets look at it another way. Dogs are pack animals but how many people do you know who only own one dog? Most?

Cheers,
Ronnie

Since you've started bringing her into the house, she knows where supreme comfort is, and will most likely forever be getting out and coming to the door until she's big enough to not get through the fences. (Been there, done that, never again!!!)

Can you fence in a smaller area around her little pen and line it with electric fencing around nose height, so she stays where she's meant to? Not that this works with 100% of pigs, but does help them get the idea of where they belong.

Since she's on her own, do make sure she has a nice deep bed of straw to get into for warmth at night. With other animals around she should be fine. We have one boar who lives surrounded by chooks, and he's pretty contented to putter around on his own, with his chook buddies following him about the see what he digs up for them every day.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

My daughter had a pig at one stage - as well as 2 dogs and a cat. Cat and pig hung out together quite happily.

Andrea, why does your boar not eat the chickens? Do you get any eggs at all?

Our new little saddleback x lives with our goats and pretty sure she nows believes she is a goat. She does have pigs next door, but once she got used to the goats she loved them, they all snuggle in the one house together at night!

I don't know why the boar doesn't eat the chooks, I haven't asked him. BUt then none of our pigs eat chooks, and most of them won't eat eggs either. Our sow LOVES eggs, shells and all, but the older boar has a sniff of them and walks away.

The area where the younger boar grazes/is penned has no areas suitable for eggs to be laid, so he doesn't have the opportunity. BUT, he is where he is now, because when he was younger he found the main chook nesting area, and it was a few days before we finally realised why we were suddenly getting no eggs.

Hi Linda, our first Kunekune sow was raised with two dogs (so now she barks). We still have her and now a boar and two young sows - one of which has 6 piglets.
Things I have learned - 1) one pig as a pet is one too many. 2) you can never keep them where they don't want to be even with hurricane fencing and electric wire at nose height. 3) never ever underestimate their extreme intellegence - when they are sleeping they are just dreaming up all kinds of trouble they can get into. 4) Oh yeah, more than one pig is two too many. I wish you all the best.

I am convinced that pigs are more intelligent than dogs.

Thank you to everyone who responded. I feel much better now and will stick with one pig. As of yesterday, she has a lovely little paddock within the big paddock and a little shed to sleep in.
By the way, she has been hanging out with my black lab in the day time and when I came home this afternoon she ran around in big circles and I could have sworn she was barking....funny that you mention it in your threads.
Thanks for welcoming me, nice to know I am not alone in this wonderful world of dirt, vegetables, fruit trees, strange animals and a 100 year old house - Absolute BLISS.
Linda

igor;427837 wrote: Andrea, why does your boar not eat the chickens? Do you get any eggs at all?

Igor, pigs will only eat something like a chicken if they are extremely hungry and can catch the chicken, or if they are penned and bored out of their brains. They don't intentionally start off to kill the chicken but if they are bored, go to investigate the chook scratching in the pooh, chicken squawks and flaps, the result is exactly the same as with a dog. Pigs are not hunters but if they get the taste of blood they will eat what they accidentally caught. They are opportunists though and are very fond of eggs[^]

Far Call;428074 wrote: Hi Linda, our first Kunekune sow was raised with two dogs (so now she barks).

Far Call, your sow doesn't bark because she was raised with dogs, she barks because pigs bark.

Cheers,
Ronnie

Linda welcome to kune kune ownership. Our two are taught in a similar way to our three dogs. They have to sit before given food, the come when they are called (whether there's food or not), they have toys (and of course a warm, dry, cosy place to sleep). They pick their feet up on command, and one lies down when asked (he's rather partial to a good belly rub that's why lol).

As others have said, pigs are super intelligent, so the more you can train your girl to do while she is young (think what you'd like her to be like long term), the easier she'll be to handle.

I almost had Miss Piggy - Babe to her friends - trained to muster the sheep. She would come to a whistle. However, when she got to 60kg and was menstruating, she attacked the sheepdog once too often .
But her presence was appreciated at many meals, even though 25kg of her 60 kg was fat.