Well, nobody can accuse us of not offering our porcine charges the very best of care. This little guy was born with a testicular hernia which made him walk as though he was one of our kids wearing an overly large nappy. We have had a few with umbilical hernias that haven't seemed to have caused much of a problem but this one didn't look too good. James made some noises about getting rid of him early on..but just like the bottle reared earlier piglets, we thought we should give him a good shot at life (which is odd considering we are going to cut it short at 6 months... I am not sure why it makes me feel better but it does..perhaps I just don't like waste?). Anyway, a book published in 1958 called Swine Medicine held the answers that James was looking for and so he was loaded into the cat carrier this morning, crapped extensively through it all over the ute and arrived at the vet clinic shortly after. I went in to take some photos and show the kids and brought him home so the clinic staff didn't pass out at the smell (it is an indication of how bad it actually was that it made even the clinic smell bad). He recovered very quickly and is now up with his Mum. The suture material may mean he is unable to join the human food chain, however I have a back up plan at the local high school with the agriculture class.