Pets-r-us

published March 15, 2012

in the Stockton Sentinel

Stockton, Kansas

     One of the things I do at the Sentinel every week is to scan through all the area and other Kansas newspapers to summarize a few stories into tidbits for our section called Kansas Klips. Some weeks it's pretty slim pickin's (but you already know that!). Occasionally, however, there are some really cool stories to pass along. This week, I came across a story that fostered inspiration for my Notes.
     Like many of you, I have pets at my house that are well-fed and pampered, just two more mouths in the family to feed. I grew up on a farm and have always had animals around me. (When we were engaged to be married, my mom made sure Bob understood that he was getting not only me, but my cat, too!) I'm sure that if I lived in the country, I would own more than one dog and one cat. Because I love animals, I also enjoy reading good stories about them. This story came from The Oberlin Herald. It is the story of a little piggy that did not go to market. The only thing missing from the story is how the little oinker got her name, but I bet it has something to do with the time of year she fell out of a truck and landed in the life of a woman from Dresden, Kansas. 
     April Maye is not just any pig. She fell out the back of a hog transport when she was just a wee piglet and had the good fortune of being rescued by a woman from Jennings, who - even though she knew she couldn't raise the little porker - knew womeone who could. She called on Jacque Douglas, the relief postmaster in Jennings, who has a reputation for being an animal rescuer. Jacque and Allan Hill, transplants from eastern Kansas, live in Dresden with a menagerie that includes "fainting" goats, pygmy goats, a regular goat, ducks, dogs of all breeds and sizes, bantam chickens, white silkie chickens, cats, a pet mouse, and, of course, April Maye, the pig. April Maye doesn't know she is a pig, however.
     Weighing less than 10 pounds when she first joined the family, April Maye thrived on calf milk replacement, and in no time at all, she doubled her size. About that time, she got moved from a box on the back porch to a fenced-in area in the back yard. But the friendship was already bonded. All Jacque had to do was shistle, and April Maye would come running.
     Once, when April Maye weighed about 45 pounds, she was standing by an ant hill in the back yard. Allan said April Mae suddenly started squealing and running around the yard, dragging one of her hind legs. "Jacque started yelling, 'Come quick! April's pulled a hammie,'" he recalled. But April Maye wasn't hurt; she just got bit by an ant.
     A picky eater, April Maye liked her milk and didn't want to give it up. She turned up her nose, or rather, her snout, at pig pellets. It took some time, but they finally got her settled in to a diet of whole corn and dogfood. Jacque said when she started her on ear corn, April Maye developed a quirky little habit of eating the cob clean, then piling the "empties" in a corner of her pen. She pulled the same trick with her food dishes. Jacque said April Maye stacks the dishes, smallest to largest in the corner, ready to be washed. A good housekeeper, by hog standards at least. She keeps her trough slicked clean.
     That might explain her portly physique. By all estimates, April Maye - now almost two years old - tips the scales at a whopping 700 pounds. That's everyone's best guess, anyway. Jacque would like to get April Maye weighed, but she doesn't have a trailer, and walking April Maye the two blocks to the Coop scales doesn't really seem like an option.
     When asked if they ever eat any of the animals they raise, Jacque said, "Oh my, no! I couldn't eat somebody I named!"
     So it looks like April Maye can live out her years with nary a care, other than who will scratch her back and when will supper be served.