farrowing – Peacock Orchard

PIGLET!

We knew it would happen. After a week of beautiful weather another hard snowstorm was expected. We’d been on high alert for one of our younger gilts to farrow. As the days ticked by we just knew she would do it as soon as it started snowing. Lo and behold, she did.

Monday morning I went out to do my normal checks and feeding and there was the tiniest little piglet shivering in the hay. I grabbed it up and stuck it in my coat to go inside to warm up. Then I turned on the heat lamp (which was not on before for safety reasons) and went out to check on Mama. She had another piglet (3x larger than the one in the house) that was stillborn. I couldn’t save it. No others.

I’m not sure what it is about my guinea hogs but they have TINY first litters. Tu-tu just had 3 babies her first time around. She did have 8 the second time though, so there is hope. This mama had 2 and was done.

I sat out in the barn with the piglet in my coat debating what to do. Do I decide it’s too cold out and keep the piglet as a bottle baby? I know the risks involved in that. I called a few friends and asked opinions. Most told me to give mama the piglet and let what happens happen. So I did. Oh the angst. I was just determined that our 3rd farrowing be successful. I checked mama and baby often. The tiny little piglet was staying under the heat lamp and mama was laying in front of it which helped block any drafts. I put hay all around them. Still, I did not expect it to survive.

I went out the next morning sluggishly. I did not want to have to pick up another dead piglet. To my utter amazement the piglet was alive. Same with the next day, and the next. The weather has warmed back up now and mama and baby are doing just fine. It may be the smallest piglet ever but it makes my heart feel light!

Oh boy. I failed again

Breeding pigs is much harder than I had anticipated. After Tu-Tu’s first failed farrowing I had become convinced she was sterile. She was so sick after that farrowing and it’s been almost a year without a successful breeding.

So we bought some gilts to see if we could successfully breed them. They will be breeding age in March and I am excited to see how we do.

Then I started looking at Tu-Tu with some skeptical eyes. Is it just me or is she looking, well, pregnant?

I took some photographs, asked various pig people. Had other people out to look at her. The consensus was that she was not, in fact pregnant. Just really fat.

Still, I had a strange feeling about her so I put her into seclusion in the barn. She was there for a week without showing any changes to her body and I began to doubt myself. She must not be pregnant and I’m losing my mind, I thought.

Then one morning, after our first night in the negative temps, I went out to feed and…babies. Babies everywhere. 8, in fact. All frozen completely solid. Little blocks of ice.

I gathered them up and took them to the burn barrel to be cremated and cursed myself for not keeping a better eye on Tu-tu.

How can I be so bad at this?

Tu-tu is out and about with the other pigs after breaking a solid metal horse gate after a week. I had hoped to keep her confined until February so I can plan these farrowings better. Hadn’t expected that gate to be so easy to snap.

Pig breeding failure

Our sow came into season in November. I had been checking her so I could figure out when piglets were due. I have to tell you, I could not tell she was pregnant for a really long time, however, based on mucus excretion I saw in November I believed we had piglets expected mid March.

So I began the process of separating the pigs. Holes had to be cut into the barn and a wall build. Not a huge deal except the weather was gross.

Eventually Tu-Tu (sow) was undeniably pregnant and her teets were begining to hang. This should have been an indication I was off on my timing but I was still pretty sure mid March was it for us.

Well, I wasn’t completely wrong. We had piglets in March. March 1st. I wasn’t home. Not expecting piglets I was out pretty much the entire day. I went out around 5p.m. to feed the pigs and Tu-Tu met me at the gate, as per the usual. I didn’t notice anything different about her. It wasn’t until I got the hose to get her fresh water that I heard screaming from inside the barn. I went in and there was a piglet screaming it’s head off. There were 2 other piglets who appeared to get stuck in one of the boards on the wall and I’m guessing froze to death before I found them. The living piglet seemed ok. Tu-Tu was eating her food with 0 interest in her piglet. The piglet was cold so I decided to take it inside to warm up while I rigged up some extension chords to the barn for a heat lamp. (We were struck by lightening and the power stopped working in the barn. We MUST fix that!)

Once the heat lamp was rigged up I grabbed the piglet and took it back out to Mama. She came over and they laid down together near the heat. I thought all was going to be well.

Coming back after dinner it was clear to me that Tu-Tu wasn’t doing well. She was shivering, grunting and digging, digging, digging. I thought she must still be in labor. I had to move the piglet back inside as Tu-Tu was burying it in her digging.

I went inside and did some Googling. Decided I should reach in and see if a piglet was stuck or if her uterine horns were twisted. I got some gloves and lube and headed out. I must say that was something I hadn’t expected would ever happen. I didn’t feel anything. Tu-Tu was still distressed. I stayed with her most of the night. I tried milking her for her piglet at one point. She would let me for a bit and then she’d have to dig again and fill my cup with dirt. She started to get feverish.

Of course, I dropped the bottle of penicillin and it splattered all over my kitchen. I had to wait until morning.

The piglet did not survive the night. Horribly depressing. Tu-Tu was still ill. Still shuddering and digging and breathing heavily. I went to Murdoch’s and got more penicillin (which is a story in itself that involves losing both of my kids and dropping 3 buckets on my daughters face). Giving a pig a shot is hard. They have thick skin. I broke the first needle off in my attempt. She also didn’t exactly stand there and take it. She ran. I did manage to get her with persistence. We managed to get one other shot into her before she never let us near her again. Pigs are not stupid!

I was pretty sure she was going to die. She didn’t. She seems perfectly fine now. Joey, a week and a half after her farrowing began tearing down the fences. He wrecked several fences and 2 gates. Eventually I gave up trying to keep them apart. The damage was likely done anyway.

So I guess we will see if we have more piglets and if any of them survive. I’d rather eat her, as I believe she’s a bad genetic candidate for motherhood, but the hubs thinks we’ve invested a lot in her and might as well give her another attempt.