I'll make sure to give her plenty of human attention so she doesn't get too awful lonely. (Going to have to treat her like a biohazard and wash hands/change clothes before handling other pigs.) I'm going to try not to worry about them accepting her back as their alpha. She is incredibly bold and assertive, she should be able to reinsert herself into the hierarchy. I mean, she only weighs 750 grams - she gets by on sheer personality.
) and if the tissue death progresses any more over the next couple of days, they can put her under and do a deeper debriding. 
I could tell the vet was tactfully trying to figure out if I ever cleaned their cages at all!
I'm so relieved.
She was not quite 4 years old. It's hard for me to talk about the details, but the vet assured us there was nothing that could have been done. She had been to the same vet office only about four weeks earlier and gotten a clean bill of health, besides those couple of mites. She just deteriorated very rapidly and was already passing away on her own when I had her put to sleep. I miss her very much. We had a lovely memorial for her and buried her in a plant pot with a pretty orange-flowered succulent. (I didn't want to put her in the actual ground because I wanted to be able to take her with me wherever I go.) Ugh, I can't type any more about Pepper, it's too sad for me. 
I have a history of staying in relationships past their expiry date, so this was a pretty wild move for me... 
It's going to be great. I'm sketching up different ideas today. It'll be more accessible, more fun, and more solid than their current habitat. Life has been complicated lately, but I cannot complain.
It's gonna take a a lot of plywood... 
(DAISY...) I'm so glad you feel better, Sylvie.
So glad Sylvie’s feet are feeling better.Oh boy, we did good work today! My niece came over and we did all the foot and nail care for the whole colony, plus some other miscellaneous grooming as needed. Now they'll all be on the same coordinated schedule.
It took us about five hours, but we were doodling around a whole lot snuggling pigs and taking pictures of pigs. I think we could do it in half that time and still get snuggles in, or even quicker if I rounded up all the pigs beforehand. A disproportionate amount of time was spent trying to capture one or two pigs who weren't in the mood to be picked up.
Plus, over half an hour of that was spent giving Sylvie some advanced foot TLC. She has a lot of trouble with funky calluses as well as some nails that overgrow strangely. (I've seen the same thing before on a kitty - it's like the nails don't shed old layers properly, and thus become thick, misshapen, and potentially ingrown.) I'd been keeping things pared and sanded down as per the vet's advice, but I was afraid of hurting her and thus probably being too conservative, as her assorted feet creepies would always grow right back.
So this time I bit the bullet and scrubbed and clipped and peeled away at Sylvie's little feeties and nails as deeply and aggressively as I thought was safe in hopes of correcting things in a more lasting way. And she LOVED it. She went into a limp, hypnotic state and laid belly-up on my lap for all of it. She could clearly tell we were trying to help her out.
Something I did must have relieved discomfort for her - she gave me the most amazing thank you! I've had pigs give me an affectionate lick here and there before, but she was lapping at my hand like a puppy and grooming me.
I'm upset to know that her feet must have been bothering her this whole time, but now I have a much better idea of how zealous I can be about it without hurting her. It appears I can trust she will squeak if I'm even getting close to living tissue. And that all that abnormal growth is more dead and insensitive than it may appear. So we are going to keep on scrubbing down those pawpads and nails one session at a time until we hopefully find some completely normal, happy pig feet.
If this routine doesn't set things straight, maybe I'll ask the vet if it's possible or advisable to put her under briefly and like, completely debride or chemically peel her paw pads? I know they offer an experimental corrective surgery for severely abnormal nails that are causing pain, where they will cut nails down to the base to encourage them to grow out normally again.
It's funny, she's normally largely indifferent to human contact, she's a pig who could take it or leave it, but apparently pedicures are her *jam.* And I was a bit proud of myself too (for the nettle-grasping as you say). It was nervewracking basically peeling layers off such a delicate small creature. 
Buttercup has screamed her lungs out and struggled every single time I've held her, and I mean the whole time. She doesn't dislike or fear people, she simply does NOT like having her eggplanty body touched. Buttercup's previous human had known her from birth and told me she has been this way since day one. My niece performed some kind of pig whispering spellcraft and after a minute or two of hoarse yelling, Buttercup shut up and melted into a pancake. It was great, should have gotten a picture. 
