My Piglets Are Here!

This past Friday my pig farrowed! I was with her from 4pm until about 9pm. She had been exhibiting pre birth behaviors all day and finally had milk so we knew it would likely be within 24 hours. And sure enough around 5:30pm we got our first piglet!

The entire birth went smoothly, with 13 piglets total, no still births and only 1 piglet that seemed to need a bit of our assistance after he was born. All he needed was some rubbing and tickling the inside of his mouth to get him to take a deep breath or 2 and clear out any fluid in his lungs.

They are so cute and small and it is so amazing to watch the birth of any animal. And it’s such blessing that everything went nice and smoothly and we did not really have to intervene much. We watched, kept track of the time between piglets, snipped umbilical cords and made sure pigs were nursing and bottle fed the few that weren’t. Plus as always we had to watch to make sure mama didn’t squish any of her knew little ones while she was getting up and down because that does happen.

Today 3 days later we still have all 13! Both our tiny runts are doing well so hopefully we can get them all through to weaning

Thanks for Reading

 

Pig Updates

So last week I put up the post “I Have a Pig” to discuss my swine production class a bit. And so far it’s been going great. While my pig has yet to farrow, two other pigs out the eight our class is caring for have given birth. One to 19 piglets and the other to 15! And let me just say if you have never seen a one day old baby pig they are so adorable and small.

It was so awesome getting to be there for the birth. It really is amazing to watch animals give birth and seeing all the little piglets at the end is amazing. We made it through both with no major complications, though there was 1 still birth and we did lose a few of the really tiny piglets because they were just too small to survive, but pigs with such large litters are bound to lose a few.

I am so excited for my own pig to farrow in the coming week. Her due date is the 28th but the other 2 were early so who knows when the babies will come!

Now if you’re wondering about the crate she’s in it’s called a farrowing crate and it’s designed in a way that saves baby pigs lives. It ensures the piglets have a space she can’t get to since mother pigs are notorious for sitting on their babies by accident. This help prevent that and they are only in this crate for about 4 weeks.

Thanks for Reading

-maggie

I Have a Pig!

So this is exactly what it says in the title: I have a pig! Now it’s not a pet pig. This pig is for class, as I am currently completing the Senior Capstone Class for my Pre-Veterinary and Animal Bioscience major which means taking an animal production class so I’m in swine production.

That means that me and 25 class mates has 8 pigs, and in groups of 4 we are responsible for her, and all the babies that are due at the end of this month. Now it’s super exciting to learn about the Swine industry and caring for pigs and I’m super excited for all the piglets I’m going to be in charge of at the end of the month.

Right now me and my 3 other group mates are responsible for checking on her twice a day, feeding her, cleaning her cage, making sure she looks healthy, taking her temperature, giving her toys and just learning what her normal behavior looks like. If she gets any cuts or bumps, we treat them and at the end of the month we’ll help her deliver somewhere between 10 and 20 piglets and take care of them for the rest of the semester!

Now this is about animal production and agriculture so at the end of the semester these animals do get sold at auction like any other livestock and if you think that sounds inhumane then just remember if you like bacon (I mean I’m a vegetarian but people eat meat and thats fine) it has to come from somewhere and we are ensuring the upmost care of our girls before they leave us to rejoin the big swine industry.

I hope this experience will teach me a new respect for farmers because we only have 8 animals and so far it’s already been an incredible amount of individualized attention for these pigs and I know that farmers with thousands of animals give their sows the same care and attention.

But this is Dorothy, my big mama and I’m super excited to work with her the rest of the semester and bring her babies into the world!