problems

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.

Sometimes life is a series of unfortunate incidents. Somehow that seems to be our life more often than not. I often laugh such things off. Who else could these incredibly crazy things happen to all the time but us.

The excavator wouldn’t start and we concluded it was a dead battery. It took days to get the excavator back up and running. I was behind on my krater digging plans, but I had the will to catch up. Four kraters dug, 8 more to go. I could do this.

Then the front loader began making an awful sound and blowing colored smoke. I took some video and took it to the tractor dealership. There were several suggested possibilities and we began ticking through the list. The tractor is now not making that horrible klunking noise. Hopefully the problem was nothing more than water in the line. If it starts making the noise during our big test run tomorrow than we are looking at a new engine. An engine so expensive we could buy another car. Now I’m behind again.

The weather is changing, I am not going to catch up before my window closes. Plans are going to need to be modified. Disappointment fills me near to bursting. I will rally. Things will be ok. The trees will get planted as they always do.

Please let the tractor be ok!

The joys of pigs

Last I wrote I liked the pigs a fair amount. You might even say I rather loved them. That hasn’t really changed. Some things have though. It’s warm out. Everyone is coming out of the barn and exploring the run now. The pigs are exploring the fences now. I was confident the fence would with stand the pigs. We built it for our dogs and they’re worse than pigs as they can jump 5′ easy. Like a gazelle, our great pyr is.

The fence is livestock fence fortified on the top and bottom with 2×4’s. They’re digging around it but haven’t made any holes I’m worried about as of yet.

The digging is quite impressive though. They have some massive spots getting tilled.

Our weak spot is the gate. We’ve had two escapes. Both on the same day. The first I was going out to do the morning feed with the kids in tow. I opened the gate and the pigs just bowled me over. I started chasing them in a panic but then common sense returned and I started rattling the feed bucket. They returned and we went about our business.

The second escape happened while the kids were outside chasing bunnies. The pigs come to the sound of our voices and scream like crazy demanding food. This particular day they must have been emboldened by earlier freedom as they started on the gate until it popped open for them. Wrangling them this time required the horse whip and a fair bit of running about.

Now we have the “tomb of the pigs”. The spool must be rolled aside to get access to the gate. I’ve seen plenty of testing of our new fortress but as of yet, no escapes.

It looks trashy at the gate now as everything that was once nicely stored in the barn is now outside the gate as the pigs were DESTROYING EVERYTHING!

To keep from getting bowled over at the gate I throw the scraps over the fence away from the gate before opening it and heading inside.

The duck pond extension fence isn’t quite as well fortified. Since i want them to gley the duck pond I’m letting them have run of the lot but….they’re pushing the corner out of it. I’ve stacked some rip rap around the base now and they haven’t escaped…yet. We’ll see.

If all else fails the electric fence is always available for routing around the base of the fence.

Now on to a few other animals.

The turkey is like this the ENTIRE time he sees me. He’s a real pain in my neck.

The ducks are glorious. I’m a real fan of ducks. I just think they’re adorable.

The pigs are good with the kids. Not great since personal boundaries aren’t their thing and they’ll bowl them over. However, the kids are smart and they wait until the pigs have been fed before going in to collect eggs (the pigs are fed near the nest boxes). They can pet them no problems. No biting problems. Hopefully this continues but if they start biting the kids will be sad as they do love their pig pets.

I like that the pigs can be trusted with all of the birds as well. Not a single incident aside from the day we brought the turkeys home. The male turkey made so much fuss that the pigs were chasing him about just for fun.