So, without further adieu, here is the excerpt from the email she typed earlier today with pictures added:
On the 6th we went to the Creation Museum with Eric’s brother and his family. It is really awesome! That was NOT the best day to go though. We didn’t think anything about it being a "holiday weekend" (the 4th was on Wednesday). There were over 3,000 people there that day. It was way, way, way too crowded! We plan on going back again some day soon.
The following week we just worked on stuff. Both of our sows were pregnant, and due soon. One of them started just laying in the stall all day, not even getting up to eat, on Wednesday. Thursday evening she started panting heavily. We thought she was in labor, so, not wanting to miss the birth of our first piglets, we settled in with her.
Here we are waiting:
By 12:15AM, I made the call she wasn’t having them that night.
Friday morning since she was still panting, I called the vet. He said she had probably fallen and hurt herself, but not in labor. Well, it was Eric’s 40th birthday. So, assured by the vet, off to Pizza Hut lunch buffet we went.
We got home. I baked Eric’s cake. It was coming out of the oven when Matthew came flying down on his 4-wheeler saying that Sally(the hurt sow) was having discharge. Off we went for another vigil in the barn stall.
This time was not in vain. At 11:24 the first piglet was born! There were a total of eight born, six of them came before midnight(Eric’s birthday present).
We took many pictures and I thought I would share some here. We also got pictures of the piglets actually coming out of the sow, but I decided to save those for a separate post. The children thought they might be too graphic for some people.
It was really an incredible miracle to observe the whole thing, and the children loved the experience. Keep in mind this all was happening after 11:00 pm in a dark barn. You can’t tell much about the lighting conditions, but we had kerosene lanterns and a coleman lantern going along with flashlights. The entire scene was rather surreal and it will long be remembered at our homestead.
Here was the very first piglet born at Pure Water Hollow:
And here is number 2:
And six minutes later came the third one. He’s the one in the middle:
And 6 minutes after that came number 4!
Here is number 5:
And then there were 6:
Number 7 came 24 minutes after midnight:
Number 8 followed closely behind at 12:27. Here they all are nursing:
The after-birth was not completed until close to 2 am I think.
They are all doing really well. I finally got to bed around 4 AM after everyone got finished with their showers(they had rolled in the barn stall for several hours plus hugged around on newborn piggies).
We were back at the barn by 11 the next morning. We knew Nellie(the other sow) was not far behind Sally. We decided we needed to get her isolated away from the two males. Eric went to get straw from town. He got back and had just enough time to make it to the business part of the Lawrence County conference, which we are a part of now and especially with him being an ordained minister.
He was getting back about 3PM. The children had just gone up to check on the piggies and Matthew was going to fix the stall for Nellie. Eric had just walked in the living room when Christina came yelling that Nellie had piglets. So we went flying up there.
Sure enough, she had 7 piglets in with Rufus and Porky. She was ferociously protecting them. We worked fast and furious to get her and the piglets to the other stall.
Here are Nellie’s 7 piglets in their comfortable new stall. The muddy one on the left was not with the rest of the litter when we found them. He was in the outside lot in the mud and I don’t know if he would have survived had we not gotten up there when we did:
Nellie has one that is a runt and you can tell his size better in this picture. He is the third one from the right. Isn’t he small compared to the two next to him?
We got back to the house, took showers, and went to our Saturday night church service, and got home at about 10PM. Church the next day, Pastor Appreciation Day!! Whew! It was good. We have never been so appreciated. We came home, checked on the animals and crashed.
Monday we finally got to have Eric’s birthday cake!! We also started working on an outdoor lot for the mamma sows. And we finished it last night!! At least for one of them. Today we started on the other one. I also have beans to pick, green peppers to transplant, fall greens and peas to plant…….
And here is a picture of me with my birthday cake, three days after my birthday. Lisa decorated it with a black and white sow like Sally with little piggies nursing on her. I loved it!
And there you have it! We are so excited that the Lord allowed real farm animals to be born on our homestead! Now it is really starting to feel like a farm! We have had many chickens hatch off here, but these were the first mammals. I am so thankful that the entire family was able to be there to be a part of it.
I will try to keep you updated on our progress with the new pig lots and stys as we go along.
Thank you Lisa for your email used in this post!
1 comment
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Morning Sunshine on August 9, 2007 at 10:55 am
Wow! What a great experience!
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