Nipping your hand when feeding is a behaviour in tea cup pigs that needs to be stopped as early as possible. Sadly, it’s a behaviour that’s probably been learned when the pig is very young and depending on how much time has passed, it may be difficult to correct.
It all comes back to how the potbelly has been hand fed. When a very young pig is brought home, you probably remember that they are very hesitant to even approach your hand – even if there is food in it. As time goes by, they get more confident and more importantly they start to trust you and will happily eat food from your hand. At this point, they will stay respectful and generally won’t bite the hand that feeds it.
What happens next depends on how the teacup is fed from now on. If your piglet sees you as a machine that drops food on command, it will keep going back to the machine, continually asking for more and more treats each time. It will get more aggressive and will try to take the food more quickly. The result of course is a pig that lunges at your hand and now demands to be fed.
If you start to get intimidated by this behaviour and feed the food even faster, what’s a bit counter-intuitive is that it will encourage the pig even more! He will start to see it as a game – how fast can I make this food appear when I ask? Now if you start yelling and dropping food on the ground – well now he has fun as well as getting fed. You now have a pig who is in control.
You need to educate your piglet that there is no treat unless he has done something to earn it. When he has done something to earn it, you reinforce this by saying “treat”, don’t just feed him for no reason. This tells the pig that there’s no point in pestering you or getting aggressive to be paid a treat. You need to show the pig that you’re in control and that he won’t be getting a treat unless you decide he is having one.
When you do hand feed your piglet, make sure you don’t tease him or suddenly pull back your hand as this teaches him to lunge for the food. It’s not recommended that small children hand feed the pig either, because the teacup will soon find out that small children can be overpowered to get the treat and will try to assert its dominance over the child.
When training a small piglet for the first time, it may accidently nip you when you dispense a treat. You need to address this immediately by saying “ouch” and then “NO”. Don’t dispense any more treats for at least an hour and your piglet will quickly learn to calm down and wait for his treat. You can also try using larger pieces of food if you think it’s because the piglet is having difficulty taking small pieces.
Finally, you need to be consistent when feeding your teacup pig. Use verbal commands to call him, make him earn the treat, then tell him he’s being paid. This will make sure your pig knows that it is you that is dispensing the food – you’re in control, not the pig. Once he understands this, things will go a lot more smoothly when feeding your piglet treats.
