An old pig regulates its temperature less well than it once did. Pigs cannot sweat effectively, stiff joints make moving to a cooler or warmer spot slower work, and an aging body holds less reserve for a hard night or a scorching afternoon. The keeper's job is to build both seasons into the pig's own area, close together, so the pig never has to travel far for shade, water, or warmth.
The Summer Setup
In summer, provide shade, a wallow or water to lie in, drinking water always, and feeding in the cool of the day. Shade should be deep and available all day, not a patch that vanishes by noon, because a pig that has overheated will not walk across a hot yard looking for the shade that moved. A wallow, a shallow muddy pool the pig can lie in, cools the skin as water evaporates, and a large shallow container of water to lie in serves the same purpose where ground stays hard. Keep the wallow topped up and refreshed so it stays a cooling place rather than a warm soup.
Drinking water stays available always, in a container the pig cannot tip, checked during the hottest hours when intake matters most. Feed in the cool of the day, early morning or evening, because digestion itself generates heat and a large midday meal adds strain an old pig does not need. Keep shade, wallow, water, and bed within a short, easy walk of each other, on ground that is not slippery, so stiff legs are never the price of reaching relief. Watch for panting, restlessness, or a pig that will not rise, and bring those signs to a vet promptly, since heat overwhelms old pigs quickly.
The Winter Setup
In winter, provide deep dry bedding, a draft-free shelter, and a little more feed during cold snaps. Deep dry bedding means straw or similar material piled thick enough for the pig to burrow into and nest, replaced or topped up before it packs down damp, because damp bedding chills far faster than dry cold air does. The shelter should keep out drafts at pig height while still letting stale air escape above, and its floor and doorway should stay dry and free of ice.
Extra feed in cold snaps supports the energy the pig burns staying warm, offered as a general increase to its ordinary ration rather than a sudden change of diet. Check drinking water often in freezing weather, breaking ice and refilling with water the pig will actually drink. Watch for shivering, hunching, or reluctance to rise and leave the warm bed, and check the pig at the coldest part of the day as faithfully as at the hottest in summer.
One Plan, Worked All Year
In KinsLe's Pet Passport, this pig's seasonal plan is recorded once and worked from all year: the summer set of shade, a wallow or water to lie in, drinking water always, and feeding in the cool of the day, and the winter set of deep dry bedding, a draft-free shelter, and extra feed in cold snaps, each written beside the checks for panting, shivering, and reluctance to rise. That single recorded plan, inside the pig's records packet, means a covering caregiver in a heat wave or a frost follows the same plan the regular keeper built, without improvising at the pig's expense.
Review the plan as seasons turn rather than after the first hard day lands. Top up bedding before the cold arrives, dig or fill the wallow before the heat arrives, and let the old pig meet each season already equipped.
Pet Passport through KinsLe keeps winter bedding notes beside summer wallow notes, letting winter hands find summer decisions without digging.