Saturday February 10, this morning we had Piglets born. If you remember back in Day 2 of our “A Bearded Farm Journal,” we bred Penelope on October 18th and the pig math worked out to piglets arriving today. It worked. She had a litter of 7 piglets. Praise the Lord! It was dark this morning so we didn’t inspect them to close. It being Penelope’s first litter, we knew it would be a small one. Normally, pigs can have up to 12-15 piglets. Our old sow would have about 15 at a time. We went on to the rest of the chores.
Our plan was to spend today clearing off the front fence lines but the weather had a different opinion. Rain, rain, and more rain for this weekend which means outside projects were delayed and more mud to deal with. I really need to order my new boots! The wind last night that brought in the rain apparently tore down the back line of our electric fence and let the cows out. So we spent the first part of the morning rounding them back up. The fun thing is that yesterday our neighbor’s bull was still in with our herd and the neighbor’s bull calves wanted to come for a visit and they REALLY tore down the electric fence. We found the weak part of the perimeter fence where they came over and tried to drive them back through. It didn’t work so well at first. So, after chasing them back down and separating them from our herd again, we had them standing still in the corner. We took this time to go back and take loose the rest of the fence creating a big hole for them to go through. Success! We got them out of the field and we patched the fence. Well that was enough of a rabbit trail, back to today.
After getting the cows put back up, we decided to do a closer inspection of the piglets since the sun was up. We found all the piglets are white(that’s the Landrace coming through). The sad thing is that we found one piglet that didn’t make it. We think Penelope might have laid on it by accident. This is typical with pigs, especially in first – time mothers, but we are hopeful that she is going to figure this mothering thing out! The other thing we found is that one had a pretty bad laceration on his shoulder. Fortunately, my brother who is a nurse by day (farmer by night) was able to get the shoulder sewed up and he seems to be doing okay.
We will keep an eye on him and make sure to clean out the wound every day with hydrogen peroxide. He has now been nicknamed Little Scappy (since we had to operate on his scapula). We made sure and numbed the area and cleaned it out the best we could.Then my brother sutured it up. I will try to post a video at the bottom.
On top of all this, Poppy decided to go on an adventure as well. I had to walk through the mud with my holey boots and round him back up. Thanks Poppy, just one more reminder that I need to buy new boots.
After my morning run with Poppy, we had to fix a leak for our other neighbors. The bathroom water supply line for the toilet sprung a leak, but was luckily a fairly easy fix. And we were fortunate enough to have all the supplies on the farm, so no Lowe’s or Home Depot trip needed. That in itself is enough to be thankful for! It has been a busy day but I am so thankful that the Lord graciously brought us though today’s trials.
So far our morning has been filled with much excitement. Now, the rain has set in so… we shall see what the afternoon holds.
Well, till next time. Get in the Dirt & Get Growing!!!
Kyle – a bearded farmer
