Quinn wrote this column to appear in the upcoming issue of KidView (a magazine published by HAHSA homeschoolers).  We will be highlighting a different farm animal in each issue.

A Day on the Farm…

by QJB, Age 7

We have three pigs on our farm this year.  They are Duroc pigs which are reddish-brown and have floppy ears.  Our pigs are very strong because they have broken our fences many times and then we have to fix our fences again and again.  Our pigs dig up the ground very fast with their strong noses. Right now they are digging up our new garden for next Spring.  They like to eat the grass and the roots in the ground.  Every day, we also feed them their own special pig food that we call ‘corn mash’.  They also like to eat our left-over food that we call ‘slop’.  Pigs are sometimes dirty and sometimes clean.  They like to play around in the mud in the summertime because it makes them cool.  Pigs can get sunburned and the mud helps protect them. When we use the hose to fill their buckets in the summer, we squirt the dirt to make mud for them.  We also squirt the pigs to cool them off.  They like it very much when we squirt them.  Our pigs like to play together.  They have fun running around and chasing each other.  They make different sounds and they like to be scratched on their backs and by their ears.  In the morning, I see them cuddled up in a corner of their paddock.  When I come over to them with the pig bucket, they come running because they know I am going to feed them.  Sometimes when I am really going to see the sheep, they think that I am going to feed them and follow me.  Pigs are fun.  I like having pigs.