A lot of the customers I see each week have been complementing the content of the newsletter lately. For me, it's just flattering that you read all this! It does take a long time to put together but I feel it's important to help share our experiences with you.
I've been trying to figure out how to address this week's conversation without going to far. But it is farming and it is real. Not everything on a farm is as you see it on Instagram - you know, the dinner plate sized dahlias glistening in the sun and pretty piggies smiling for the camera.
In fact, there are many days where you get that job that you never imagined yourself doing. This fall our farrowing program has had me there.
Farrowing is just the term for the birthing of baby pigs. The momma pig - called the sow - has a gestation period of 114 days. It's easy to remember. 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days.
As she nears the end of her gestation, she is given a stall to her own with lots of sawdust for dry bedding. An infrared heater is lit in the corner. This provides additional warmth for the fragile little piggies when they are born.
When selecting sows, there are a lot of things to look for. One, the overall structure of the sow. That's the way she holds her back, the thickness of her neck and shoulders, and the shape of her hams. It is also important to check her nipple line. A sow can have up to 16 teats, however that is very rare. 12 is more average. Many of mine have 14 teats. And the shape of the teat is important. A smaller, thinner teat is easier for a piglet to grasp on to. As the sow gets older, they tend to get calloused and larger, sometimes producing challenges for the little piggies to nurse.
And lastly, a sow with a good temperament is important. Some can be mean and some can lack mothering instincts. And more commonly, some can be sloppy and simply crush pigs when they lay down to quickly.
Over the last few year's I've struggled at "culling" some of my sows. We have a good demand for pork and I need every pig I can get. It's a fine balance between breeding her back and grinding her into sausage. I've chose recently to breed most of them back to keep uniformity in the size of my sows.
The uniformity gets me to today's problem. We group feed our sows outside on pasture. When we walk into their pen with a bucket of feed, you almost have to run to keep them from knocking you over. When the feed hits the ground, it's like a WWF royal rumble. Sows slam into each other and push each other around to get to it. The bigger, bossier sows just get bigger and fatter.
When it comes time to pigging, this can be a problem. If the sow eats too much, her piglets can get too big. A big piglet is hard to push out and can get stuck. When I brought this group of sows into the barn for pigging, many were overweight and I knew it would be their last litters. I started them on laxative as a preventive measure to having pigs stuck. The birth canal and the large intestine/rectum run parallel to each other. If the large intestine is full of firm feces, the pig can get caught against it and stuck in the birth canal. A laxative thins the stool and allows the pig to more easily come out.
So I'm sorry if you saw this coming - my fall pigging hasn't been the best. The big, old sows have all had problems delivering. I've found myself - always on a weekend - out there trying to help pull pigs. That simply means reaching inside and trying to pull the piglet out. If you catch the sow struggling in time, the pigs can usually survive. However, it usually happens overnight and the next morning you reach in to pull out dead pigs.
Below is a picture of the vet pulling a pig. I was able to pull 3 out, but my hands and arms are too big to fit further up in. This sow I caught during the day and it made sense to call the vet out. I couldn't help but make her laugh though when she was on her knees trying to pull the last pig, "Dr Stephanie," I said calmly to get her attention. "She isn't choking, there's just a pig stuck!" She held it together and pulled out the last little guy successfully. Because of Covid Law, we didn't shake hands.
