This past week we have kept Porky in a stall with Rufus for company. It has been six days since his castration and it seems that he is doing very well. The ag teachers at school commented this week that they were suprised that Porky did not squeal during the castration process. They said they had seen thousands, but none like Porky! They were very impressed and supposed that it was because we have been petting him all along and he was used to people. They said that Porky made it easier on himself by not getting excited because they bleed more when their adrenelin is pumping.
This had been a busy week and I had not gotten home before dark except for yesterday. Monday I had to stay late at work, Tuesday we had a meeting until 6:30, Wednesday I got home just in time to leave for church, and Thursday I had a meeting after work over an hour away in Breathitt County, and we all visted at a funeral home that evening.
Matthew has been taking care of the pigs all week and yesterday was the first time I had gotten to see Porky since the castration Monday! I was home at a decent time yesterday but then Lisa and the children did not get home until very late. They were working at our church for the "Christmas Shop" we are having today and yesterday. (I started to go off on a tangent and tell you all about the Christmas Shop, but I decided to leave that for another post.)
Today we decided to let Porky and Rufus back out into the lot with Nellie and Sally. They ran and jumped and were happy to be out again. We were sad to see that Sally wanted to bully Rufus and Porky. I guess they had to re-establish the pecking order. When Porky and Rufus first came we had trouble with the way Nellie was treating them, but she was fine today. Maybe Nellie is the number one hog and Sally wants to make sure she stays the number two hog? Nellie and Sally are growing quickly and they are still much larger than both Porky and Rufus.
The medicated feed for Porky will last the rest of the weekend, but it is almost gone. We have been saving some on feed costs this week by giving them free out-dated milk. A friend told me about the milk company in town that gives away the milk that does not sell and that pigs enjoy eating milk! Matthew has been giving them a couple of gallons of milk every day and we still have 10 or 12 gallons up at the barn! We should be able to get all the milk we can use! (Some of the milk was even good for us to drink! They throw out milk with that current days outdate on it and if I can get it before someone else does, it is likely still good. We had about 30 little 8 ounce bottles of Strawberry milk that the children loved!)
I think I need to get some more straw next week because the temperatures are getting pretty cold here, and we have already used the 4 bales that I got earlier. I guess the barn will probably stay drafty and open all winter because there is just not time to tighten it up. Maybe we can do something over my Christmas vacation, but we have so much else we want to do also. We may just have to spend more than we should on straw this year to keep them warm. It can run into quite a bit of money, with one bale of straw costing $4.75. I think I will get about 10 next week and see how long that lasts us. We use straw for the chicken coop, also. One benefit to getting 10 bales at once is that it looks so nice having something up in the barn loft!
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Henry on December 2, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Eric, way to go on your new adventure. When I need some pig work done I will know who to call. A neighbor man of ours at our farm butchers hogs the old fashion way. He has a big vat of hot water he rolls them in after he kills them to clean them. As of yet, I have not watched him. Not sure if I want to. The Igs are wanting to help him one day. That will be a good day for some pictures.
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