Comedy Pig Palace Building

Yesterday the vet said that the best way to get rid of any nasty pig-mites was to "wash the hutch out with boiling water". At the time this seemed to make sense, as least from a mite-killing point of view. But today it occurred to me that this would leave me with a very wet pig house. In the middle of winter. Not healthy.

Fortunately I'd just come into some money, in the form of the travelling expenses for TechDays, and so I was in a position to zoom down to PetsAtHome and purchase a new "Pig Palace", along with clean sawdust and hay. If you have ever asked yourself the question "Is it possible to get a 160cm long flat pack hutch in the back of a BMW i3?" the answer turns out to be yes, because the front seats tilt forwards in a rather useful way. 

Anyhoo, I got the palace home, ignoring all the "needs two people to carry" instructions and all I had to do now was build the thing. I'd had this mental picture of me laying out all the pieces in the garden, and then leveraging all my Ikea experience to quickly fit them together. And then it started raining. Proper rain. Lots of it. 

So instead I had to assemble the hutch in the summer house (i.e. shed with windows) where the pigs live in winter. That is, in a space only about 18 inches all round larger than the hutch itself. This was a true comedy affair. At numerous occasions during the build I discovered that thanks to my construction skills I'd managed to build myself into a corner from which there was no way out. And I put the front on upside down in one Australian moment of madness, which meant I got to take it all apart again half way through.

Anyhoo, the new pig palace is now complete and the pigs are installed and seem happy enough (at least I hope so). The old hutch has served as very well over a long time (and it wasn't even new when we got it) but I think it is time to move on. I just hope I can get the new hatch out of the summer house when we have to move the pigs outdoors. That will be another comedy moment.....