So, last month, we had Piglets! Our first time ever; we wound up with 6 live pigs, not astounding by any means, but hey, that's 6 more than we had. I was hoping to have enough to sell some, but with only six, I'm a little afraid to sell any in case something happens to any of them. Being my first time, I did a little research to see what I need to do; there is some iron shots that they are supposed to have, but the biggest chore was cutting the three males. They aren't very big, but the sure make a big noise! My oldest boy helped hold them, and it was pretty darn traumatic for all 5 of us, even though 2 of us walked away intact! Cutting hogs is unlike anything I've ever done. Cattle, sheep, etc is a simple rubber-band or simple cut; but castrating hogs is more like surgery. Unpleasant! Tough job, but we got 'er done...
We say that baby pigs are the cutest ugly things you've ever seen. These are Hampshire/Duroc crosses. Everyone kept telling me that I needed a farrowing crate to prevent her from laying upon and killing the piglets, and I really resisted that, because I didn't want to keep her restrained so long where she can't get up and move around. Seems really unpleasant to me, anyway, even though it is the accepted norm in hog production. So, instead, I just built an 8' X 8' pen and kept lots of straw in it. I was pretty worried about her crushing them, but it didn't take me very long to realize that they had a very effective tool for letting Mama know she was laying down on them. As I mentioned above, baby pigs are LOUD!!!! She was very careful to lay down really slowly and if she heard that squeal, she popped back up. It was pretty neat watching her.
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| Big old Mamma hog is a really good mama. |
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