Pictures of Pallas

As the cute little pup, Pallas has earned his own webpage. He joined out little herd on the morning of 20 Sept. 2003, weighing in at around 175 grams. (He is the result of the pet store putting his mother, Metis, in with the boars. Results should have been predictable.) Within a few hours of birth, he was tottering around the cage with his mother and eating hay. Solid foods followed not long afterward, although it took over a week for him to learn to drink from the water bottles.

Of course, his life hasn't been all wonderful. When he was a week old, he managed to get under a Very Large Bipedal Predator's foot. (The individual will remain nameless.) Pallas suffered a rather badly fractured nose/forehead and possibly damage or blindness in his right eye. The first 36 hours after the accident were harrowing for all of us (Pallas, Tea, Metis, and their human), but Pallas rebounded like a rubber ball and was soon running about playing again. Also rather upsetting to the little fellow is the fact that he was sent into exile from the rest of the Herd for about 6 months. This wass not because of political climate or foul odor, but rather because he was a Big Boy and it wass deemed inadvisible to put him in with the sows until he had his Magic Little Operation. The operation happened last March and he's back in the big cage now. He doesn't even know anything happened, thanks to his very short memory.

Newborn Pallas

Some of these are repeats from the Metis Pregnancy page. Still, you can't have too many pictures of cute little pups.

The new baby, peeking around Metis	Baby, hiding under Metis
Metis and baby huddled together. Baby is about 5 hours old.	Metis and baby eating Timothy hay a few hours after birth.
Following mommy around the cage.	Pallas is giving me a Look
Pallas's other side	5 hours old and already scratching at the itches
Meeting Auntie Tea for the first time	Generally getting to know each other.
Pallas is either hiding behind Metis or having diner. Possibly both.	Look at those big, cute ears.
Metis is very patient when its dinner time	And very affectionate over Pallas

Moving to the Big Cage

A few days after he was born, I move Pallas and his mother back to the big cage, where they joined Tea. Overall, the move-in was pretty calm, although Metis and Tea squabbled a bit over dominance. (Also, possibly, Metis was standing up for her pup.) Pallas usually ducked into his 3" carboard tube to hide for a while when this went on. Smart lad. He learned about food pellets when he was 5 days old.

The piggies, together in the big cage.	Pallas and his hiding tube. (Tea can't fit in it, and Metis can just barely squeeze in.)
Pallas discovers food pellets, and he likes them	He has to reach to get into the food dish, though
Pallas has figured out that he is small enough to climb up into the hayrack.	And he can almost hide in there.

Bachelor Pallas

At age 5 weeks, Pallas left the main cage for a few months to live alone. He returned not long after he has a little operation to make sure that there are no more surprise piggies. Unfortunately, we had to defer that surgery until Pallas was a full-sized boar, which took a few months. So for a while, he lived the life of a bachelor. At first, he was very lonely and upset that he was so far from the rest of the Herd, but he calmed down for the most part, now. (Not completely. He still occasionally got really lonely.)

Here are some pictures of him during floor time (alone, of course).

Pallas exploring the floor.	Pallas frozen, pretending to be invisible.
Pallas hiding in the littler bin under the shelves.	Pallas decides to come out. But how to get over the edge of the litter bin?
Pallas smelling his way around the kitchen.	Pallas reading the small print on the box? Actually, he is trying to decide if he can eat this thing.
Pallas stopping his playing for a quick snack.

And inside his bachelor pad:

Pallas in his hidey-hole. He loves curling up for a nap in here.

---

Weiss John

Last modified: Mon Dec 20 11:27:32 MST 2004