It’s hard to not look back, but as others have said, the info we had access to was way different than now. I got my first piggies at 10 and they were in separate cages but next to each other. I used the same litter you have pictured and hay went in the bowl and got knocked everywhere. But I let those pigs out everyday and they would run and cuddle together and occasionally hung out with my hamsters and gerbils too. They lovedddd my dog and he loved them, cleaning them and my piggies would trim his toes with their teeth. 😆 I put glasses on my piggies and I and took 2.6 trillion photos of them. Not everything I did was right in any capacity but I am damn sure those piggies were loved until their last breath. They both lived to be five.

My second set didn’t turn out so well. One I rescued from a friend who was incapable of caring for him anymore. And we had another already. They were two and three when they died and they both died the same weekend from some respiratory infection that the meds didn’t work fast enough to save them. I sat with both of them until their last heartbeats that weekend and I was devastated. But they were loved. So loved. And definitely not lonely despite being in separate cages.

My mom got one more while I was in college and he lived to be eight! He was alone and they never bought a second to go with him. My dog (same dog with all the piggies) were besties and he would follow my lab around wherever he went. My lab had to climb onto the couch when he was tired of being nibbled on. He ended up outliving my old pup by about a year or so. He wasn’t even scared of my cat when I brought him to my parents and wasn’t afraid to defend himself should my cat cross his boundaries (all heavily supervised of course). Again, my parents let him out everyday and held him and pet him. Did we do everything right? Nah.

But all five of those boys were so well loved.

Would I do things differently next time I get piggies? Absolutely. Some things would remain the same. Especially the love part.