This labor and delivery has been very unusual compared to Sally’s previous pregnancies. I am pleased to report that she gave birth to her 5th litter of piglets this evening!
We knew things were going to be different a week or so after April 21st, which was the date I was expecting the sows to deliver. We put Sally and Nellie in the stalls to await the piglets back then, but it soon became apparent that they were not, in fact, pregnant! Back to their pig lot they went.
Last Sunday, we noticed that Sally had filled up with milk and there were actually drops of milk when you squeezed her teats! I thought it would be within a day or two of that sign, but I must note now that milk in teats mean that the sow will deliver within 5 days, instead of 2. Finally, 5 days later, the piglets are here!
The past 5 days, Sally has been acting strangely. Sometimes she seemed that she was in labor, but at other times she wanted to wreck her stall, acted like she was starving, and was all around wild acting! This morning I found that she busted through the stall wall last night and gotten into the junk that I had stored in the other stall. She was carrying everything she could into her nest! The empty feed sacks I could understand, but all the old bailing wires I could not understand.
At 5:20 this evening she delivered the first piglet! Matthew, Erica, Christina, and Simon were there to see it happen, and Lisa, Timothy and I got up there in time for the 3rd piglet to be born. A big suprise was that she only gave birth to 6 piglets this time!
6 is very much fewer than the 14 she gave us last December, the 13 she birthed last July, and the 11 she had last February! Her first pregnancy she gave birth to 8 piglets when she was just 10 months old, which is closer to today’s number, but it was still more. The number of piglets was just another strange factor in this unusual pregnancy.
Another unusual thing this time was that Sally is the only sow with piglets. Each of the four other times, her sister Nellie gave birth on the same day or within 5 days as Sally. This time, I don’t think Nellie is pregnant at all, even though she looked it back in April!
I am thankful for the 6 God has given her. My concern now is that they will survive. This will likely be the last litter we try with Sally or Nellie because they have gotten to be so huge. They are so large that they may not be able to help but crush some of their piglets laying down! We lost too many that way when Sally had those 14 and Nellie had her 13 back in December. My plan is to sell Nellie, Sally, and Rufus and continue raising hogs with new stock. We will keep some from this 6 to start over with. I would like to keep 2 females and get a new boar from another farm somewhere, but Christina thinks that 5 of these 6 are male! I may keep one as our new boar and get a couple of gilts from somewhere else.
Whatever the case, I will give God the thanks for all He provides!
(I will try to post the pictures taken this evening some day in the future. It may be a while. My computer situation is now such that I cannot put up pictures. I will likely be able to dress up anything I post sometime toward the end of summer, but for the next couple of months, my posts won’t have any pictures. I do intend to keep on journaling, however, and taking pictures to add later.)
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1 comment
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Call of the Land on January 18, 2010 at 11:53 am
how exciting!
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