(From a private corresponence between myself and another homesteadblogger.)
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Original message from HandsNHearts:
We have a couple of new expecting sows here and it's all new to me. (We have had 1 hog — butchered and in the freezer ) Pregnant sows is totally new to us, so I have a question…
This pair is a mother and daughter, both expecting approx. the same time (give or take 4 weeks now we are told). Right now, they are living in our barn and horse pen, together. They get along fine with one another, but what about when they begin having those babies? Should we separate them, or is their being together not a problem?
We have started some rails along the walls of the barn room for the piglets to be able to move away from momma (just standard from one of my hog resources…about 10" tall and a foot away from the wall itself…a walkway of sorts for the babies).
Nothing in my books says anything about separating the ladies for birthing, though. I just want to make sure we don't have any casualties from someone getting upset or hungry….
Deanna
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Hello Deanna,
Sorry I am just now replying. I haven't had much time with the computer lately and only found your message tonight. And thanks for the blog award! Very flattering, especially since I have not been writing much of anything lately. I saw the comment, but haven't gotten around to acknowledging it publicly.
You may have already decided on what you are going to do with the pigs, but I wanted to reply anyway. We have two sows that were sisters and raised up together from piglets and they each had their third litter a month ago. We never knew exactly when to expect the piglets, but I did separate the sows the day we thought they were going to give birth.
The first time, we had the sows separated before they gave birth, but both of the other times they were together and we just found the piglets in the morning. At that time I would separate the sows with their hours old piglets for "proper bonding". (I never read that "bonding" was needed; it's just what made sense to me.) I always tried to give them plenty of straw so they would be less likely to accidently squash one of the babies.
The first two times we had the litters the sows gave birth on the same day, and they didn't mind swapping each other's piglets for nursing. This last time they were 5 days apart, and they tended to keep their litters separated and would not let each others nurse. They were not mean to the other piglets, they just snorted at them when they came around and maybe a gentle snap to scare them away.
After being separated for a week or so, however, the sows did go through a few hours of "fighting" with each other when put back together each time. I guess they have to re-establish the pecking order? Neither sow has ever shown any hostility toward any of the piglets at any time, though. (They are also happy to have chickens in their lot eating the corn right next to them, and dogs, too. We may have an unusual group of animals?)
Thinking of your chicken casualties, I would be more concerned with the sows eating the piglets; even their own. I have heard that such a thing is common sometimes. If you could be present when they give birth, it would be an awesome experience and you could make sure the babies are safe. My thought is, once they are nursing good for a while, the mothering insticts should kick in and she won't mistake any of the piglets for the after-birth. By the way, we always take away and bury any of the after-birth we can find, instead of letting the sow eat it.
Have you gotten to look at the birthing pictures of our first litter of piglets? I am so glad the Lord let us have that experience. If not, you might want to go back to our blog and go to the category "Learning About Pigs". It has been fun chronicling raising our own pork, getting the little pigs when they were just feeder pigs, building the lots for them, watching them grow up, give birth, raising the offspring for sale and the freezer, and watching the little pigs become 700 plus pound sows and a 900 pound boar!
I hope your first experience with birthing piglets can be as successful as ours was. We really had no idea what to expect when we started raising pigs almost two years ago, and I am amazed at how smoothly it has gone for us.
One other thing; you might want to brace yourself for some of the piglets not making it. Maybe the rail walkway you've constructed will help, but our experience has been that not all of them make it. It is not because the sows have gotten vicious toward the piglets, it just seems to be a natural part of having large litters.Of our three times, only the first had no casualties, and they only had 7 and 8 piglets. The second time they had 10 and 11 piglets, but only 19 survived the first week. This last time was really rough. One had 13 piglets, but 3 died (one was maybe born dead?) and the other had 10 piglets, but 4 of them died in the first week (they were all rather puney). Instead of thinking about the ones we lost, we thank God that we have 16 healthy piglets to sell and raise!
I hope this message is in time to be of some help to you. I will be looking forward to hearing about how it goes.
God Bless,
Eric
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